Preventing School Violence: A Self-Assessment Approach provides readers with a research-based risk-management model designed to prevent school shootings. The self-assessment tool is adapted from a protocol developed by Tom McWeeney, which has been used to assess the readiness of FBI field offices to prevent terrorist attacks in the USA. Through extensive research, real-world application, and collaboration with Dale Watson, the former assistant director of the FBI, and Professor McWeeney, author Mark Harrington has modified this method with the express goal of reducing instances of school violence. Opening chapters share Dr. Harrington's experiences in the field and introduce the self-assessment tool. They underscore the importance for schools and organizations to be well prepared to respond not only to high-risk/high-consequence situations but also low-risk/high-consequence situations. The book shares key data from FBI reports regarding pre-attack behaviors of active shooters. Additional chapters outline the attributes of a successful self-assessment program and how to reimagine and rework security measures, including law enforcement/security presence, exercises and drills, surveillance, and more. The text walks readers through the criteria for an effective self-assessment approach: intelligence, mental health services, administrative support, training, and crisis plan considerations. They learn how gangs in schools and neighborhood ties can influence safety and security on school campuses. Throughout, true stories from the field demonstrate the need for the model and its application, and statistics, charts, and graphs provide necessary research to bolster action and understanding.

This extensive examination of the Kurdish conflict in Turkey, Iraq, Germany, and the EU focuses on the history and development of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and its impact on transnational security, human rights, and democratization. The Militant Kurds: A Dual Strategy for Freedom explores the complexity of the 30-year guerrilla war of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) against the Turkish Republic, identifying longstanding obstacles to peace and probing the new dynamics that may lead to an end to the conflict. In doing so, the book provides fascinating insights into Turkey's national ethos, its dominant military culture, and civil society's struggle for increased democratization. The Militant Kurds offers an extensive analysis of the precarious position of the Kurdish minority, beginning with the establishment of the modern Turkish republic in 1923. Divided into five sections examining current political realities in Turkey, the book investigates the role of Islam and ethnicity, analyzes the rise of the PKK, discusses Turkish military culture, and explains the international dimensions of the Kurdish conflict. Comparative historical, political, and socioeconomic examples contextualize the long struggle for Kurdish self-determination. Each chapter offers an analysis of the underlying dynamics of the conflict and provides up-to-date explanations.

Cowell-Meyers examines the continued sectarian conflict on the island of Ireland from a comparative and historical framework. Analyzing the process through which sectarian conflict was managed on the continent, she identifies the unique evolution of the Irish situation. Whereas European Catholics, such as those in the new Germany, developed an institutional pillar to defend themselves and protect their interests in the modern plural state, Irish Catholics developed a radical nationalist movement in the same period at the end of the 19th century. As elements of the British political system pushed the Irish Catholic mobilization toward more separatist goals and means, they thwarted the process of accommodation seen in other European settings. The shape and dynamics of Catholic mobilization in the last three decades of the 19th century set Catholics and Protestants on a path toward the management of sectarian conflict in Germany and continental Europe and toward the perpetuation of conflict in Ireland. Much like conflict resolution literature, as well as liberal and pluralist theory mischaracterizes the role of exclusive voluntary associations in the amelioration of conflict, Cowell-Meyers asserts that voluntary organizations, if they are encouraged to do so as they were in continental Europe in the late 19th century, can provide the channels through which intense conflicts are managed. Although exclusive mobilizations reinforce social cleavages, careful handling may make them constructive political formations that allow for the channeling of differences. Of particular interest to scholars, students, and other researchers involved with peace and conflict resolution, religion and politics, and the history of modern Ireland and Germany.

This is an examination of how embassies work and cope during wartime, with a focus on the experiences of the British, American, and Indian embassies. During wartime, embassies assume different roles and face various situations. An embassy might represent a belligerent state while being situated in an enemy, an allied, or a neutral state. Conversely, it might represent a neutral state, while having to function in a belligerent state. How does an embassy's situation affect its priorities? How does it affect its staff and mission? The work and risks they face may vary greatly, but embassies play a key role in war, a time when they are required to give higher priority to military and political intelligence while facing daily risks of attacks and managing media and high-ranking visitors. "Embassies in Armed Conflict" examines these issues and the problems wartime embassies encounter by looking primarily at the experiences of American, British, and Indian embassies. Written by a leading expert, the book aims to both examine the role of wartime embassies and to provide guidance for those who serve - or wish to serve - in the Foreign Service. The volumes in the series are relatively short handbooks aimed at beginning practitioners and advanced university students. The volumes highlight the ways foreign policy is implemented through the apparatus of diplomacy, the diplomatic system, and diplomats and will discuss: specific aspects of diplomacy, such as the concept of diplomatic relations, the consequences of cutting off diplomatic relations, diplomatic immunity, etc., and key diplomatic activities and events, such as an international crisis, or a summit meeting. Such books will focus on the conduct of diplomacy rather than its politics. The focus will be on the contemporary practice of diplomacy, not on foreign policy or the theoretical direction of diplomacy.

In Conflict and Human Security Threats in Africa, South African scholar Victor Ojakorotu unravels the dynamics of conflicts and human security threats now affecting numerous African nations. While some of these conflicts are local, others are national and international. This current and highly engaging study captures multiple cases of insecurity, presenting discussions of terrorism, kidnapping, militia activities, human trafficking, political violence, teenage pregnancy, civil war, and armed conflicts, as well as strategies for their future management. Ojakorotu documents a philosophical assessment of African politics as well as the place of the "new" media in the politics of human security and the development of an African worldview in the post-modern intellectual arena. This book is a must-read for all students of African and global politics, as well as policy makers and diplomats working with Africa, which will soon be home to more than three billion people and a center of global growth.

Focusing on Afghanistan's relations with the West during the latter half of the 20th century, this study offers new insights on the long-term origins of the nation's recent tragedies. Roberts finds that, since the 1930s in particular, Afghanistan pursued policies far more complex, and considerably more pro-Western, than previous studies have surmised. By the end of the Second World War, Britain and Afghanistan seemed headed toward an extensive partnership in military and economic affairs. Opportunities to cement Afghanistan to the West existed, but ultimately ran afoul of regional politics, shortsighted policy, and indifference. The rise of the Indian nationalist movement and the eventual partition of India would have strategic ramifications for Afghanistan. Pakistan and India, weakened and poised against each other, saw no reason to aid the Kabul regime, leaving only the United States as a potential benefactor. Successive American administrations, however, denied most Afghan requests. When the Eisenhower administration extended support to Pakistan, it alienated Afghan leaders, who then chose to broker a deal with the Soviet Union. Roberts analyzes recent American policy toward Afghanistan and its neighbors, clarifying the current situation and offering guidelines for future relations.

The eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire used to be a multi-ethnic region where Armenians, Kurds, Syriacs, Turks, and Arabs lived together in the same villages and cities. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and rise of the nation state violently altered this situation. Nationalist elites intervened in heterogeneous populations they identified as objects of knowledge, management, and change. These often violent processes of state formation destroyed historical regions and emptied multicultural cities, clearing the way for modern nation states.
The Making of Modern Turkey highlights how the Young Turk regime, from 1913 to 1950, subjected Eastern Turkey to various forms of nationalist population policies aimed at ethnically homogenizing the region and incorporating it in the Turkish nation state. It examines how the regime utilized technologies of social engineering, such as physical destruction, deportation, spatial planning, forced assimilation, and memory politics, to increase ethnic and cultural homogeneity within the nation state. Drawing on secret files and unexamined records, Ugur Umit Ungor demonstrates that concerns of state security, ethnocultural identity, and national purity were behind these policies. The eastern provinces, the heartland of Armenian and Kurdish life, became an epicenter of Young Turk population policies and the theatre of unprecedented levels of mass violence.

Security Studies: An Introduction, 4th edition, is the most comprehensive textbook available on the subject, providing students with in-depth coverage of traditional and critical approaches and an essential grounding in the debates, frameworks, and issues of the contemporary security agenda. This new edition has been completely revised and updated, to cover major developments such as COVID-19, the rise of populism, climate change, China and Russia's place in the world, and the Trump administration. It also includes new chapters on great power rivalry, emerging technologies, and economic threats. Divided into four parts, the text provides students with a detailed, accessible overview of the major theoretical approaches, key themes, and most significant issues within security studies. Part 1 explores the main theoretical approaches from both traditional and critical standpoints Part 2 explains the central concepts underpinning contemporary debates Part 3 presents an overview of the institutional security architecture Part 4 examines some of the key contemporary challenges to global security Collecting these related strands into a single textbook creates a valuable teaching tool and a comprehensive, accessible learning resource for undergraduates and MA students.

The Armed Conflict Survey provides yearly data on fatalities, refugees and internally displaced people for all major armed conflicts, alongside in-depth analysis of their political, military and humanitarian dimensions. This edition covers the key developments and context of more than 40 conflicts worldwide. It features essays by the world's leading authorities on armed conflict, covering the development of jihadism after 9/11, hybrid warfare, refugees and internally displaced people, criminality and conflict and the evolution of peacekeeping operations. It includes maps, infographics and the IISS Chart of Conflict.

Chatting with notorious war criminal Charles Taylor on the lawn of his presidential mansion as ostriches and armed teenagers strut in the background. Landing in snow-covered Afghanistan weeks after the fall of the Taliban and trying to make sense of a country shattered by years of war. Being held at gunpoint by young soldiers amid the tragedy of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Standing in the middle of a violent riot in the streets of Kathmandu. Having hushed conversations with the widows of Europe's largest massacre since World War II. These are all scenes from The Disaster Gypsies, a compelling personal memoir by a relief worker and conflict specialist who has worked on the ground in a host of war-torn countries. Initially deployed as part of a humanitarian relief team in Rwanda almost by accident, Norris has experienced the tragedies of Rwanda, Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, and Liberia over a span of ten years. Rich with poignant human stories, The Disaster Gypsies captures the reality of modern war with an immediacy and compassion that puts the reader in the front seat for some of the most wrenching events of our times. Norris approaches his story with a unique and dynamic perspective, having worked both in the upper echelons of the U.S. government and in some of the world's most dangerous places. Moving from face-to-face encounters with powerful warlords to quiet moments with the victims of horrific violence, Norris gives readers a behind-the-scenes tour of a world most of them can barely imagine. He makes a compelling argument that these nasty civil wars were often dismissed as tribal, ethnic, or regional disputes by most Americans, when in reality such violence is fundamentallypart of the human condition. That may sound simple or even self-evident, but Norris contends that most people in the United States and Europe continue to view war as something that is outside of themselves and profoundly foreign in its nature, even as their own troops continue to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Traditional histories of war have typically explored masculine narratives of military and political action, leaving private, domestic life relatively unstudied. This volume expands our understanding by looking at the relationships between mothers and children, and the varied roles both have assumed during periods of armed conflict.

This interdisciplinary volume investigates the cultural and political landscapes of Colombia through citizenship, displacement, local and global cultures, grass-root movements, political activism, human rights, environmentalism, and media productions. Territories of Conflict offers a comprehensive view of the cultural and political landscapes of Colombia through in-depth analyses of citizenship, displacement, local and global cultures, grassroots movements, political activism, human rights, environmentalism, and media production. The volume investigates conflict as a creative force but one that is not devoid of its destructive meaning for Colombia. It is precisely through conflict that the nation's social and cultural fabric is being mapped out, thus resulting in territories -- understood in both a literal and a metaphorical sense -- that paradoxically coexist in discordance. Contributors to this interdisciplinary volumeinclude historians, sociologists, political scientists, musicologists, and environmentalists, as well as literary, media, and cultural studies specialists from the United States, Colombia, and Europe. CONTRIBUTORS: Maurizio Ali, Ingrid Johanna Bolivar Ramirez, Margarita Cuellar Barona, Andrea Fanta Castro, Hector Fernandez L'Hoeste, Joaquin Llorca Franco, David Fernando Garcia, Felipe Gomez Gutierrez, Alvaro Diego Hro-Olaizola, Stacey Hunt, Camilo Alberto Jimenez Alfonso, Gregory J. Lobo, Tatjana Louis, Felipe Martinez-Pinzon, Maria Ospina, Kate Paarlberg-Kvam, Diana Pardo Pedraza, Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky, Chloe Rutter-Jensen, Claudia Salamanca Sanchez, Sven Schuster, Silvia Serrano, Andrea Fanta Castro is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Florida International University; Alejandro Herrero-OIaizola is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Spanish & Latin American Studies at the University of Michigan; and Chloe Rutter-Jensen is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogota, Colombia.

This volume of Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change is divided into two parts. Part I presents a series of cases that tie together narratives of being, knowing and contestation surrounding the claiming of identity for the self or the categorization of the other. It does this by exploring narratives to claim identities and assert agency; showing us the dialectic between dominant forces and those who would challenge existing narratives about place, identity or space. Part II continues RSMCC's tradition of cutting edge research in social movement formation, conflict and change. These chapters focus on a wide range of social organizations from immigrant movements, to the occupy struggle, to the narratives around the framing and counter-framing of the radical environmental movement. The volume concludes with two chapters focusing on more recent developments in data gathering and analysis to examine changes in how researchers collect and analyze data. Each of the nine chapters engages with notions of identity, whether in the examination of the subject or in the reference to the researcher him or herself.

British troops, which arrived as a temporary measure, would remain in Ireland for the next 38 years. Successive British governments initially claimed the Northern Ireland conflict to be an internal matter but the Republic of Ireland had repeatedly demanded a role, appealing to the UN and US, while across the Atlantic, Irish-American groups applied pressure on Nixon's largely apathetic administration to intervene. Following the introduction of internment and the events of Bloody Sunday, the British were forced to recognise the international dimension of the conflict and begrudgingly began to concede that any solution would rely on Washington and Dublin's involvement. Irish governments seized every opportunity to shape the political initiative that led to Sunningdale and Senator Edward Kennedy became the leading US advocate of American intervention while Nixon, who wanted Britain onside for his Cold War objectives, was faced with increasingly influential domestic pressure groups. Eventually, international involvement in Northern Ireland would play a vital role in shaping the principles on which political agreement was reached - even after the breakdown of the Sunningdale Agreement in May 1974. Using recently released archives in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland and United States, Alan MacLeod offers a new interpretation of the early period of Northern Ireland's 'Troubles'.

Soldier repatriation from Afghanistan has impacted debate about the war. This study highlights this impact with particular focus on Britain, Denmark and Germany. All three countries deployed soldiers soon after the 9/11 attacks, yet their role in Afghanistan and the casualty rates suffered, have been vastly different. This book looks at how their casualties influenced the framing of the war by analysing the political discourse about the casualties, how the media covered the repatriation and the burials, and how the dead were officially recognised and commemorated. Explaining how bodies count is not done exclusively by focusing on the political leadership and the media in the three countries, the response from the men and women in Afghanistan to the official framing of the war is given particular weight. Martinsen contributes to our understanding of European strategic culture by showing how countries respond to the same security challenges.

In the light of NATO's humanitarian war in Kosovo is it possible to understand or explain wars as an outcome of perceptions of rights? How did rights, be they divine rights in the Middle Ages, territorial rights in the eighteenth century, or human rights today, become something that people are willing to fight and die for? To answer these questions, this book explores the linkage between concepts of rights and the practice of war in the international arena. Alkopher describes how normative structures of rights have shaped different practices of war from medieval to modern times, through the lens of social constructivism. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century, concepts of divine rights and institutionalized practices of the Crusades to the Holy Land fostered the prevailing ideas of international rights and war. In the eighteenth century, the institutionalization of states' rights and territorial wars shaped international conflict. This view held until the late twentieth century when the institutionalization of human rights coupled with the emerging practice of humanitarian war, particularly NATO's war in Kosovo, engendered new norms of international conduct. The author concludes that rights have the power to constitute an international order that will be either cooperative or conflictual and the choice of outcome is very much in our hands. This book will be essential reading for international relations and political science scholars and students but also philosophers, legal and sociological historians and international lawyers.

This book examines the complex and under-researched relationship between recruitment experiences and reintegration outcomes for child soldiers. It looks at time spent in the group, issues of cohesion, identification, affiliation, membership and the post demobilization experience of return, and resettlement.

The increased targeting of civilians by militants raises serious and profound questions for policy-makers. Examining conflict in Northern Ireland, Israel and Palestine, this book focuses on ethno-nationalist militant groups and formulates a model to constrain violence against civilians.

Ethnicity and ethnic parties have often been portrayed as a threat to political stability. This book challenges the notion that the organization of politics in heterogeneous societies should overcome ethnicity. Rather, descriptive representation of ethnic groups has potential to increase regime support and reduce conflict.

It is increasingly important to understand the complexity of central and southeastern Europe following the enlargement of NATO into Central Europe, the ongoing problems of the Balkans, and the subsequent focus of global attention on the entire region. Gardner brings together exceptional French and Eastern European scholars who present first-hand accounts of their experience and knowledge of the region. Each provides differing political, social, cultural, and economic perspectives on Central and Southeastern Europe.

The volume begins with a general discussion of the place of central and southeastern Europe in the greater scheme of European history. This is followed by an examination of the western European and Russian attitudes toward the Balkans, and the largely ignored affects of the Ottoman empire on the Balkans. The importance of culture and the crucial role it played in undermining both the theory and practice of communism is explored. The impact of the media is then examined in two chapters that look at the process of media liberalization in the context of each country's political situation and the particular problems the media faces in the region. The focus shifts to the role of finance capital and its impact in emerging privatized economies. How the global drug wars affect the Balkan region are also explored. The ecological damage to Central and eastern Europe and Russia caused by the communist system is detailed, and the volume ends with a look at the complexity of factors that led NATO to enlarge into Central Europe and intervene in Bosnia and Kosovo. This wide-ranging collection will be of particular interest to scholars and researchers involved with all facets of contemporary central and eastern European life.

This text offers a bold, ground-breaking epistemological critique of the dominant discourses on African conflicts. Based on a painstaking study of the ways in which the Sierra Leone civil war has been interpreted, it considers how Africa is constructed as a site of knowledge and the implications that this has for the continent and its people.

From Chechnya in Russia to Kashmir in India to the Basque region in Spain, secessionist movements remain a serious threat to international security. Despite the importance of this issue, the causes that bring about external military intervention in a secessionist war have not, until now, been adequately addressed. In this book, Dos Santos identifies the conditions that make international military intervention in a secessionist war more or less likely. South Asia, being fraught with secessionist movements--Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, and Punjab--provides an ideal laboratory for the examination of this compelling issue. Dos Santos argues that a shift in the balance of power between a secessionist group and its central government will lead to a preventive war on the secessionists by the central government. In turn, a preventive war of this nature may lead to an alliance between the secessionist group and an external power. The stronger the alliance, the greater the chances of an international military intervention. Understanding the conditions under which secessionist movements expand, become secessionist wars, and invite international military intervention on behalf of the secessionists has strong policy implications. It can go a long way toward guiding policymakers who may want to mitigate or avoid these conditions in their states. Dos Santos views both states and secessionist groups as primary actors, and she examines both the distribution of power among states and the balance of power between central government and groups within states.

Mockaitis begins by providing a working definition of counterinsurgency that distinguishes it from conventional war while discussing the insurgents' uses of terror as a method to support their broader strategy of gaining control of a country. Insurgent movements, he notes, use terror far more selectively than do terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda, which kills indiscriminately and is more than willing to produce mass casualties. Such methods stand in stark contrast to the American approach to armed conflict, which is more ideally suited to pragmatic culture leery of involvement in protracted foreign wars and demands immediate results. Within this context, Mocktaitis examines the conflict in Iraq, from post conflict troubles with Saddam in the early 1990s, to pre-invasion planning in 2003. He then moves into a discussion of the rise of insurgent movements and the challenges they posed in the aftermath of the fighting, tracing the ongoing efforts to shape a doctrine that allows US forces to successfully deal with the growing insurgency The U.S. military in Iraq faces the most complex counterinsurgency campaign in its history and perhaps the history of modern warfare. At the outset, it confronted as many as 22 different domestic insurgent and foreign terrorist groups in an environment made more difficult by thousands of criminals released by Saddam Hussein. Over the past three years, the conflict has evolved with growing ethnic violence complicating an already difficult security situation. Even the most optimistic assessments predict a continued deployment of significant U.S. forces for at least five years for the country to be stabilized. It remains to be seen whether public opinionwill support such a deployment. Mockaitis situates the Iraq War in its broad historical and cultural context. He argues that failure to prepare for counterinsurgency in the decades following the end of the Vietnam War left the U.S. military ill equipped to handle irregular warfare in the streets of Baghdad. Lack of preparation and inadequate troop strength led American forces to adopt a conventional approach to unconventional war. Over-reliance on firepower combined with cultural insensitivity to alienate many Iraqis. However, during the first frustrating year of occupation, U.S. forces revised their approach, relearning lessons from past counterinsurgency campaigns and adapting them to the new situation. By the end of 2004, they had developed an effective strategy and tactics but continued to be hampered by troop shortages, compounded by the unreliability of many Iraqi police and military units. The Army's new doctrine, embodied in FM 3-24 Counterinsurgency, outlines the correct approach to winning Iraq. However, three years of desultory conflict amid ongoing revelations that the premises upon which the administration argued the need for invading Iraq may be false have eroded support for the war. The American armed forces may soon find themselves in the unfortunate situation of having found a formula for success at almost the same time the voters demand withdrawal.

In Northern Ireland, a once seemingly intractable conflict is in a state of transformation. Lee A. Smithey offers a grassroots view of that transformation, drawing on interviews, documentary evidence, and extensive field research. He offers essential models for how ethnic and communal-based conflicts can shift from violent confrontation toward peaceful co-existence.
Smithey focuses particularly on Protestant unionists and loyalists in Northern Ireland, who maintain varying degrees of commitment to the Protestant faith, the Crown, and and Ulster / British identity. He argues that antagonistic collective identities in ethnopolitical conflict can become less polarizing as partisans adopt new conflict strategies and means of expressing identity. Consequently, the close relationship between collective identity and collective action is a crucial element of conflict transformation. Smithey closely examines attempts in Protestant/unionist/loyalist communities and organizations to develop more constructive means of expressing collective identity and pursuing political agendas that can help improve community relations. Key leaders and activists have begun to reframe shared narratives and identities, making possible community support for negotiations, demilitarization, and political cooperation, while also diminishing out-group polarization.
As Smithey shows, this kind of shift in strategy and collective vision is the heart of conflict transformation, and the challenges and opportunities faced by grassroots unionists and loyalists in Northern Ireland can prove instructive for other regions of intractable conflict.

Criminalized power structures (CPS) are illicit networks that profit from transactions in black markets and from criminalized state institutions while perpetuating a culture of impunity. The book articulates a typology for assessing the threats of CPS and for implementing appropriate strategies to achieve sustainable peace effectively and efficiently. The international case studies address interventions undertaken either to support the implementation of a peace agreement (i.e., a peace operation) or to stabilize a country entangled in an internal conflict in the context of a power-sharing agreement among key protagonists (i.e., a stability operation). In each of these cases, at least one of the parties to the agreement was a criminalized power structure that was a leading spoiler. The final chapter identifies strategies that are most effective for each type of CPS, including the ways and means (or tools) required for effective conflict transformation. A companion volume, Combating Criminalized Power Structures: A Toolkit, provides practitioners with the means of coping with the challenges posed by CPS.