This book offers a novel sociological examination of the historical trajectories of Burundi and Rwanda. It challenges both the Eurocentric assumptions which have underpinned many sociological theorisations of modernity, and the notion that the processes of modernisation move gradually, if precariously, towards more peaceable forms of cohabitation within and between societies. Addressing these themes at critical historical junctures - precolonial, colonial and postcolonial - the book argues that the recent experiences of extremely violent social conflict in Burundi and Rwanda cannot be seen as an 'object apart' from the concerns of sociologists, as it is commonly presented. Instead, these experiences are situated within a specific route to and through modernity, one 'entangled' with Western modernity. A contribution to an emerging global historical sociology, Entanglements of Modernity, Colonialism and Genocide will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in postcolonialism, historical sociology, multiple modernities and genocide.

This book examines the role of collective violence in the achievement of solidarity, shedding light on the difficulty faced by sociology in theorizing violence and warfare as a result of the discipline's tendency to idealize society in an attempt to legitimize the idea of progressive social change. Using the global War on Terror as a focal point, the authors develop this argument through the related issues of power, knowledge, and ethics, explaining the War on Terror in terms of the Anglo-American tradition of imperial power and domination. Exploring the victimage rituals through which society is brought together in the ritual domination and destruction of a constructed "villain," Progressive Violence: Theorizing the War on Terror also considers the price of the liberal moral values in terms of which the global war on terror is frequently justified, and the volume of "progressive violence" involved in advancing the cause of freedom. The authors use this case to theorize the general role of vicarious victimage ritual in the social genesis of political violence and sadism, and its calculated use by politicians to achieve their imperial aims. As such, it will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory with interests in terrorism, violence, and geopolitics.

Exploring case studies from the first Gulf War to the Syria crisis, this book discusses different approaches to the use of international law and the role it plays in international power politics. Analysis of the post-Cold War overseas military involvements of Western powers has focused on their legality and legitimacy, allowing for a conflation of the concepts and distracting from the true source of international legitimacy. Demonstrating compliance with international law can be helpful, but it plays a secondary role to other, more powerful considerations such as national interest and shared national security concerns. Exploring the key drivers for decision-makers, this book identifies the impact of previous experience on the use of international law in the quest for legitimacy ahead of launching military action. Patterns in approach and of relations between close Western allies (in particular the UK and US) are identified, offering valuable lessons for future strategic decision-making. This book will appeal to scholars and students of International Relations and International Law. Think Tanks focussing on International Relations and the use of force and practitioners working in the realm of foreign policy with a focus on the UN and international law will also be interested in the study and conclusions drawn.

This book provides data on fatalities, refugees and separated people for all major armed conflicts in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Asia-Pacific, Europe and Eurasia, and Latin America in 2015, alongside in-depth analysis of their political, military and humanitarian dimensions.

This book explores the question of whether peacekeeping commanders can be held accountable for a failure to protect the civilian population in the mission area. This requires an assessment of whether peacekeeping commanders have an obligation to act against such serious crimes being committed under domestic and international law. The work uses the cases of the Dutch and Belgian peacekeeping commanders in Srebrenica and Kigali as examples, but it also places the analysis into the context of contemporary peacekeeping operations. It unfolds two main arguments. First, it provides a critical note to the contextual interpretation given to international law in relation to peacekeeping. It is argued that establishing a specific paradigm for peacekeeping operations with clear rules of interpretation and benchmark criteria would benefit peacekeeping and international law by making the contextual interpretation of international law redundant. Second, it is held that alternative options to the existing forms of criminal responsibility for military commanders should be considered, possibly focusing more clearly on failing to fulfil a norm of protection that is specific to peacekeeping and distinct from protective obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law.

Since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, Pakistan has faced the threat of terrorism in different forms and shapes. Yet in recent years the threat has taken on a new dimension. After 9/11 the US campaign against Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan led to a surge in unrest and violence in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda gained a foothold in tribal regions of Pakistan via their local supporters, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), currently led by Mullah Fazlullah, who unleashed a new wave of terror across Pakistan. Since then, more than 60,000 Pakistanis have been killed as the result of TTP-orchestrated insurgency and terrorist attacks and Pakistan's society, economy and its international image have suffered at the hands of TTP and its affiliated groups. As a result of several military operations many TTP leaders have taken refuge in Afghanistan where they have joined hands with the terrorist group ISIS, the so-called Islamic State, or Daesh by its local name. Pakistan's nascent democratic set-up, in the form of the government of Nawaz Sharif, is struggling to curb this menace. This is the first book to cover all aspects of terrorism in Pakistan and to reveal the composition, ideology, approaches and strengths of TTP and its affiliates. It is essential reading for policy-makers, strategists, security experts and students to understand the intricate contours and dimensions of insurgency and terrorism within Pakistan.

In this volume, scholars from different disciplines join together to examine the overlapping domains of conflict and collaboration studies. It examines the relationships between ideas and practices in the fields of conflict resolution and collaboration from multiple disciplinary perspectives. The central theme is that conflict and collaboration can be good, bad, or even benign, depending on a number of factors. These include the role of power, design of the process itself, skill level and intent of the actors, social contexts, and world views. The book demonstrates that various blends of conflict and collaboration can be more or less constructively effective. It discusses specific cases, analytical methods, and interventions, and emphasizes both developing propositions and reflecting on specific cases and contexts. The book concludes with specific policy recommendations for many sets of actors-those in peacebuilding, social movements, governments, and communities-plus students of conflict studies. This book will be of much interest to students, scholars, and practitioners of peace and conflict studies, public administration, sociology, and political science.

As the two most influential and powerful actors in Eurasia the nature of the Turkish-Russian relationship affects the situation in the Black Sea, South Caucasus, Central Asia and Middle East and steers the foreign policy formulations of both regional states and global powers. Examining post-Cold War relations between Eurasia's most prominent actors, this book takes into account regional dynamics and global power struggles and identifies three important stages in Turkish-Russian relations during the period. Using complex interdependency theory the author offers valuable insights into the initial confrontational period and its transition to an atmosphere of compromise, cooperation and the evolution of multi-dimensional partnership. Leadership theory then explains the most recent deterioration in rapport as crises in Syria and Ukraine have placed severe strain on the previously warm bilateral relations.

Although many scholars and practitioners recognize that development and conflict are intertwined, there is much less understanding of the mechanisms behind these linkages. This book takes a new approach by critically examining how various development strategies provoke or help prevent intrastate violence, based on cases from all developing regions.

Rebuilding Afghanistan in Times of Crisis provides academics and researchers interested in planning, urbanism and conflict studies with a multidisciplinary, international assessment of the reconstruction and foreign aid efforts in Afghanistan. The book draws together expert contributions from countries across three continents - Asia, Europe and North America - which have provided external aid to Afghanistan. Using international, regional and local approaches, it highlights the importance of rebuilding sustainable communities in the midst of ongoing uncertainties. It explores the efficacy of external aid; challenges faced; the response of multilateral international agencies; the role of women in the reconstruction process; and community-based natural disaster risk management strategies. Finally, it looks at the lessons learned in the conflict reconstruction process to better prepare the country for future potential human, economic, infrastructural and institutional vulnerabilities.

This book provides a timely critical overview of both the health and trajectory of international criminal law's continuing evolution. It represents a modest collective effort to introduce an element of legal realism or critical legal studies into the academic discourse.

The last two years have witnessed deterioration in the global security situation characterised by increasing tensions among major powers. The threat perceptions of the US, China and Russia vis-is each other have sharpened. There is stiff competition among them to dominate the strategic space in different parts of the world. This has led them to fo

This volume features a selection of the best scholarship on international law as it is relevant to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The essays consider the nonproliferation legal regime as a normative system and offer a more discrete consideration of international law in each weapons of mass destruction technology area: nuclear weapons proliferation; chemical and biological weapons proliferation; and delivery systems proliferation. In addition, the essays consider the closely related questions of the role, authority and track record of the UN Security Council in monitoring, implementing and enforcing compliance with these primary sources of nonproliferation law.

This year marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Rwanda genocide. This volume, the product of over 20years of engagement with Rwanda and its diaspora, offers a timely reminder of the necessity of rethinking the genocide's social history. Examining a range of marginal stories and using Rwanda as a case study, The Marginalised in Genocide Narratives' analysis of the transformation of genocide into a powerful narrative of a nation establishes an innovative means of understanding the lived spaces of violence and its enduring legacy. In a distinctive approach to the social history of genocide, this book engages with the marginalised; foregrounds genocide's untold stories; and uses the conceptual framework of the constellation of genocide narratives to create connections among multiple social actors and identify narrative themes that address the unequal power and interdependence of narratives. Adopting a multi-level narrative methodology that addresses the value of multiple narrative framings for understanding genocides, The Marginalised in Genocide Narratives will appeal to students and researchers interested in sociology, conflict and peace studies, history, African studies and narrative research. It may also appeal to policy-makers interested in genocide studies and contemporary social history.

While liberal-democratic states like America, Britain and Australia claim to value freedom of expression and the right to dissent, they have always actually criminalized dissent. This disposition has worsened since 9/11 and the 2008 Great Recession. This ground-breaking study shows that just as dissent involves far more than protest marches, so too liberal-democratic states have expanded the criminalization of dissent. Drawing on political and social theorists like Arendt, Bourdieu and Isin, the book offers a new way of thinking about politics, dissent and its criminalization relationally. Using case studies like the Occupy movement, selective refusal by Israeli soldiers, urban squatters, democratic education and violence by anti-Apartheid activists, the book highlights the many forms dissent takes along with the many ways liberal-democratic states criminalize it. The book highlights the mix of fear and delusion in play when states privilege security to protect an imagined 'political order' from difference and disagreement. The book makes a major contribution to political theory, legal studies and sociology. Linking legal, political and normative studies in new ways, Watts shows that ultimately liberal-democracies rely more on sovereignty and the capacity for coercion and declarations of legal 'states of exception' than on liberal-democratic principles. In a time marked by a deepening crisis of democracy, the book argues dissent is increasingly valuable.

Resolving International Conflict rethinks the dynamics of conflict escalation and continuation by engaging with research from the wide range of subfields in this area. The book suggests a new framework for understanding conflict as a particular form of situation, interaction and tension. It shows how conflicts are shaped by varied dynamics relating to emotion, securitization, incentives, digital technology and violence; even attempts at monitoring, resolving or remembering conflicts may end up contributing to their escalation or continuation. Split into two sections, the first part focuses on the question of why and how conflicts escalate, while the second part analyses the continuation of conflict. The book features several case studies of conflict escalation and continuation - in Bahrain, Israel-Palestine, South Sudan, Northern Ireland and, most prominently, the case of the Syrian uprising and subsequent civil war. Throughout the book, and, in particular, in the conclusion, the consequences for conflict transformation are discussed. This work will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies, war and conflict studies, security studies and international relations, in general.

Is violent conflict inevitable? What is it in our social nature that makes us conduct wars, genocides and persecutions? The answer lies in how we are programmed to bond and form communities that demand loyalty in order to let us belong. The analysis in this book cuts through the social sciences in order to show the fundamentals of violent conflict. The book investigates conflict at the level of sociality. It reorganises existing theories of conflict under that perspective and brings them to bear upon the link between violence and togetherness. It introduces the key concept of closure to describe the conditions under which human groups start to perceive their position as similar and their reality as polarised. This is how normality starts breaking down and fault lines appear. Violent conflict is then analysed as a reaction that seeks change more rapidly than conditions seem to allow. Global comparative data from numerous studies - including M. Mousseau's works - are used to disentangle the factors that contribute to "democratic peace", that is, the fact that democratic societies do not go to war with each other. This inquiry reveals the new dimension of sociodiversity, which allows societies where individuality is strong to constantly produce alternatives and avoid closure. The book concludes with a coda on peace and sociodiversity which explains how contemporary societies can ensure durable peace and adequate social justice at the same time. Written in a clear and direct style, this volume will appeal to students, researchers and scholars with an interest in political sociology, anthropology, international relations, war studies, as well as conflict and peace studies.

Urban centres are at the heart of the dynamics of war and peace, of stability and violence: as 'safe havens' for those seeking protection, as concentrations of public administrative and military apparatus, and as symbolic bases of state sovereignty and public authority. Heavy fighting in South Sudan's capital city of Juba, post electoral protests and brutal killings in Bujumbura, Burundi, and violent urban uprisings in Congo's cities of Goma and Kinshasa, all demonstrate that cities represent critical arenas in African conflict and post-conflict dynamics. This comprehensive volume offers a profound analysis of the complex relationship between the dynamics of violent conflict and urbanisation in Central and Eastern Africa. The authors underline the need to look simultaneously at cities to understand ongoing conflict and violence, and at conflict-dynamics to understand current urbanisation processes in this part of the world. Building on empirical and analytical insights from cities in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, DR Congo, South Sudan and Kenya, this collection demonstrates how emerging urbanism in the larger Great-Lakes region and its Eastern neighbours presents a fascinating window to investigate the transformative power of protracted violent conflict. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Eastern African Studies.

This comprehensive volume investigates the dynamics of mobilization and demobilization of social networks before, during, and after episodes of political turbulence in the Middle East region, focusing particularly on the 2011 Arab uprisings. The authors consider important questions regarding agency, strategic action, and institutional outcomes that have significance for social mobilization, social movements, and authoritarian governance. This collection proposes an interactive perspective linking up contentious politics with routine governance through a dynamic articulation of repertoires of contention. The authors use a micro-mobilization perspective to frame the different trajectories of protest networks in times of uncertainty. They place the interactions between grassroots activists, structured organizations, and state actors at the centre of the explanation of change and stability in the recent mobilizations of the region. By starting with descriptions of interactions at the grassroots level, the authors then explain macro level dynamics between networks and other players, including the state. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Social Movement Studies.

Wars and conflicts have become a near constant presence today, brought to us on a real-time basis on myriad communication devices. A cursory scan of recent conflicts reveals the blurring lines between war and peace, state versus non-state, regular and irregular, and conventional vis-à-vis unconventional. Over the past decade or so, the prevailing security environment in many regions has changed radically. Simultaneously the probability of conventional conflict between states or groups of states has steadily declined while sub-conventional conflict has gained prominence. These small, niggling wars have been termed as hybrid, non-linear, grey zone, or unrestricted, among others. It thus becomes necessary to enquire ontologically and epistemologically into these terms to understand if they allude to the same phenomenon through different frames. Furthermore, are these an aberration or, increasingly, the convention? This book tries to address this crucial research gap related to the changing character of conflicts in the strategic discourse in India.

Charles Shephard, a legal officer of the island of Saint Vincent, made no attempt at objectivity in his account of the great 1795 Carib rebellion, this book being dedicated to the British survivors. But having had access to several contemporary diaries and having interviewed survivors, he was able to correct and expand the narratives of Bryan Edwards and Dr Coke, making this work the most detailed account of the overthrow of a unique people.

This title was first published in 2002: Examining the recent phenomenon in conflicts in Africa, this text addresses situations where African states and African military intervene in conflicts either in neighbouring states or beyond. While this trend has been widely observed, this is the first in-depth research that deals with such issues. It breaks new ground in identifying the key issues, actors and actions, and includes analysis of military capacities of African states and the way in which armies are used, including the increasing role of private security companies and mercenaries. The changing attitudes among members of the OAU are examined, in particular the increasing acceptance of interventionism and the blurring of boundaries. The most significant cases of intervention are examined together with less well-documented examples such as Lesotho and Guinea Bissau. This engaging account makes for a compelling resource for academics and practitioners alike.

In Indonesia, the events of 1st October 1965 were followed by a campaign to annihilate the Communist Party and its alleged sympathisers. It resulted in the murder of an estimate of one million people - a genocide that counts as one of the largest mass murders after WWII - and the incarceration of another million, many of them for a decade or more without any legal process. This drive was justified and enabled by a propaganda campaign in which communists were painted as atheist, hypersexual, amoral and intent to destroy the nation. To date, the effects of this campaign are still felt, and the victims are denied the right of association and freedom of speech. This book presents the history of the genocide and propaganda campaign and the process towards the International People's Tribunal on 1965 crimes against humanity in Indonesia (IPT 1965), which was held in November 2015 in The Hague, The Netherlands. The authors, an Indonesian Human Rights lawyer and a Dutch academic examine this unique event, which for the first time brings these crimes before an international court, and its verdict. They single out the campaign of hate propaganda as it provided the incitement to kill so many Indonesians and why this propaganda campaign is effective to this day. The first book on this topic, it fills a significant gap in Asian Studies and Genocide Studies.

For nearly five decades, Colombia has been embroiled in internal armed conflict among guerrilla groups, paramilitary militias, and the country’s own military. Civilians in Colombia have to make their lives despite the threat of torture, kidnapping, and large-scale massacres—and more than four million have had to flee their homes. The oral histories in Throwing Stones at the Moondescribe the most widespread of Colombia’s human rights crises: forced displacement. Speakers recount life before displacement, the reasons for their flight, and their struggle to rebuild their lives. Among the narrators: JULIA, a hospital union leader whose fight against corruption led to a brutal attempt on her life. In 2009, assassins tracked her to her home and stabbed her seven times in the face and chest. Since the attack, Julia has undergone eight facial reconstructive surgeries, and continues to live in hiding. DANNY, who at eighteen joined a right-wing paramilitary’s enormous training camp in the Eastern Plains of Colombia. Initially lured by the promise of quick money, Danny soon realized his mistake and escaped to Ecuador. He describes his harrowing escape and his struggle to survive as a refugee with two young children to support.

The human rights of communities in many resource-rich, weak governance States are adversely affected, not only by the acts of States and their agents, but also by powerful non-State actors. Contemporary phenomena such as globalisation, privatisation and the proliferation of internal armed conflict have all contributed to the increasing public influence of these entities and the correlative decline in State power. This book responds to the persistent challenges stemming from non-State actors linked to extractive industries. In light of the intersecting roles of multinational enterprises and non-State armed groups in this context, these actors are adopted as the primary analytical vehicles. The operations of these entities highlight the practical flaws of existing accountability regimes and permit an exploration of the theoretical challenges that preclude their direct legal regulation at the international level. Drawing insights from discursive democracy, compliance theories and the Pure Theory of Law, the book establishes a conceptual foundation for the creation of binding international obligations addressing non-State actors. Responding to the recent calls for a binding business and human rights treaty at the UN Human Rights Council, and the growing influence of armed non-State actors, the book makes a timely contribution to debates surrounding the direction of future developments in the field of international human rights law.