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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > Embargos & sanctions
This title looks at borders as transitional zones. The past two
decades have seen an intense, interdisciplinary interest in the
border areas between states - inhabited territories located on the
margins of a power center or between power centers. This timely and
highly original collection of essays edited by noted scholar
William Zartman is an attempt 'to begin to understand both these
areas and the interactions that occur within and across them' -
that is, to understand how borders affect the groups living along
them and the nature of the land and people abutting on and divided
by boundaries. These essays highlight three defining features of
border areas: border landers constitute an experiential and
culturally identifiable unit; borderlands are characterized by
constant movement (in time, space, and activity); and in their
mobility, borderlands always prepare for the next move at the same
time as they respond to the last one. The ten case studies
presented range over four millennia and provide windows for
observing the dynamics of life in borderlands. They also have
policy relevance, especially in creating an awareness of
borderlands as dynamic social spheres and of the need to anticipate
the changes that given policies will engender - changes that will
in turn require their own solutions. Contrary to what one would
expect in this age of globalization, says Zartman, borderlands
maintain their own dynamics and identities and indeed spread beyond
the fringes of the border and reach deep into the hinterland
itself.
The last four decades have been shaped by the rise of Islamist
politics across significant swathes of the globe. Whether by gun or
by ballot box, various Islamist movements-from as far and wide as
the Malian desert and Indonesia's archipelagos-have sought to
obtain power and govern territories, in a bid to revive an Islamic
ancien regime. With the regional privations produced by the 'War on
Terror' and the political unrest following 2011's Arab uprisings,
the global march of Islamism has only accelerated in the
twenty-first century. Building on an established literature on
rebel governance, The Rule is for None but Allah examines fifteen
cases from around the world to consider the different ways
Islamists have approached and implemented governance; the
challenges they have faced; and how they have responded to
obstacles. It brings new detail and insights on a wide range of
themes, including legitimacy, constitutionality and social-welfare
activism. From the rise and fall of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, to
Islamic State's attempts to create its own currency, to the
dramatic return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, this edited volume
from two leading scholars of contemporary terrorism assembles an
enviable array of international experts to explore these pressing
issues.
This concise introduction to the growth and evolution of
geopolitics as a discipline includes biographical information on
its leading historical and contemporary practitioners and detailed
analysis of its literature. An important book on a topic that has
been neglected for too long, Geopolitics: A Guide to the Issues
will provide readers with an enhanced understanding of how
geography influences personal, national, and international
economics, politics, and security. The work begins with the history
of geopolitics from the late 19th century to the present, then
discusses the intellectual renaissance the discipline is
experiencing today due to the prevalence of international security
threats involving territorial, airborne, space-based, and
waterborne possession and acquisition. The book emphasizes current
and emerging international geopolitical trends, examining how the
U.S. and other countries, including Australia, Brazil, China,
India, and Russia, are integrating geopolitics into national
security planning. It profiles international geopolitical scholars
and their work, and it analyzes emerging academic, military, and
governmental literature, including "gray" literature and social
networking technologies, such as blogs and Twitter. Biographies of
major current geopolitical scholars and descriptions and listings
of their works Maps of geopolitical crisis areas, such as
Afghanistan/Pakistan, the South China Sea, and the Straits of
Malacca Quotations from various government and military primary
source documents A glossary of geopolitical terms A bibliography of
international scholarly resources, including government and
military documents
Governing Compact Cities investigates how governments and other
critical actors organise to enable compact urban growth, combining
higher urban densities, mixed use and urban design quality with
more walkable and public transport-oriented urban development.
Philipp Rode draws on empirical evidence from London and Berlin to
examine how urban policymakers, professionals and stakeholders have
worked across disciplinary silos, geographic scales and different
time horizons since the early 1990s. The key mechanisms for
integrated urban governance which enable more compact growth are
identified by focusing on the underlying institutional arrangements
that have connected strategic urban planning, city design and
transport policy in the two case study cities. These include a
hybrid model of hierarchical and network governance, the
effectiveness of continuous adjustment over disruptive, one-off
?integration fixes? and the prioritisation of certain links between
sectoral policy and geographic scales over others. With an
interdisciplinary approach connecting urban studies and planning
with political science, public administration and organisational
studies, this book will be of interest to academics and students in
those disciplines, as well as urban practitioners and the
applied/policy research community.
Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, the Occupied Palestinian Territory has
been the subject of extensive international peacebuilding and
statebuilding efforts coordinated by Western donor states and
international finance institutions. Despite their failure to yield
peace or Palestinian statehood, the role of these organisations in
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is generally overlooked owing to
their depiction as tertiary actors engaged in technical missions.
In Palestine Ltd., Toufic Haddad explores how neoliberal frameworks
have shaped and informed the common understandings of
international, Israeli and Palestinian interactions throughout the
Oslo peace process. Drawing upon more than 20 years of policy
literature, field-based interviews and recently declassified or
leaked documents, he details how these frameworks have led to
struggles over influencing Palestinian political and economic
behaviour, and attempts to mould the class character of Palestinian
society and its leadership. A dystopian vision of Palestine emerges
as the by-product of this complex asymmetrical interaction, where
nationalism, neo-colonialism and `disaster capitalism' both
intersect and diverge. This book is essential for students and
scholars interested in Middle East Studies, Arab-Israeli politics
and international development.
On Thin Ice explores the relationship between the Inuit and the
modern state in the vast but lightly populated North American
Arctic. It chronicles the aspiration of the Inuit to participate in
the formation and implementation of diplomatic and national
security policies across the Arctic region and to contribute to the
reconceptualization of Arctic Security, including the redefinition
of the core values inherent in northern defense policy. With the
warming of the Earth's climate, the Arctic rim states have paid
increasing attention to the commercial opportunities, strategic
challenges, and environmental risks of climate change. As the long
isolation of the Arctic comes to an end, the Inuit who are
indigenous to the region are showing tremendous diplomatic and
political skills as they continue to work with the more populous
states that assert sovereign control over the Arctic in an effort
to mutually assert joint sovereignty across the region Published on
the 50th anniversary of Ken Waltz's classic Man, the State and War,
Zellen's On Thin Ice is at once a tribute to Waltz's elucidation of
the three levels of analysis as well as an enhancement of his
famous "Three Images," with the addition of a new "Fourth Image" to
describe a tribal level of analysis. This model remains salient in
not only the Arctic where modern state sovereignty remains limited,
but in many other conflict zones where tribal peoples retain many
attributes of their indigenous sovereignty.
Since the debut of the iPhone in 2007, the mobile phone has become
a quick, convenient, and immensely popular gateway for accessing
and consuming news. With three billion mobile phone subscribers,
Asian countries have led this seismic shift in news consumption.
They provide a wide range of opportunities to study how, as mobile
technology matures and becomes routinized, mobile news is
increasingly subject to societal constraints and impositions of
political power that reduce the democratic benefits of such news
and call into question the application of these technological
innovations within governments and societies. News in Their Pockets
explores the societal, technological, and user-related factors
behind why and how digital-savvy college students seek news via the
mobile phone across Asia's most mobile cities-Shanghai, Hong Kong,
Singapore, and Taipei. Situating cross-societal comparative
analyses of mobile news consumption in Asia within a digital and
global context, this volume outlines the evolution of the mobile
phone to its prominence in disseminating news, offers predictors of
patterns in mobile news consumption, investigates user needs and
expectations, and illustrates future impacts on civic engagement
from mobile news consumption. By examining the interplay between
game-changing and empowering communication technology and
constraining social systems, News in Their Pockets provides the
framework necessary for constructive, continuing debates over the
promise and peril of digital news and exposes our underlying
reasoning behind the adoption of the mobile phone as the all-in-one
media of choice to stay socialized, entertained, and informed in
the modern digital age.
The Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is of immense strategic significance
on the global maritime map - not just on account of its centrality
to the current trade and energy flows, but also because of the
extreme disparities and inherent volatility of the region. The
region faces an array of security challenges, both traditional and
non-traditional. These include security of SLOCs, the problem of
piracy, the possibility of renewed terrorism at and from the sea
and the pervasive smuggling of people, narcotics and arms. The
narrative of regional maritime security is also characterized by
oscillating economic growth, growing military presence and a
rapidly deteriorating ecological balance in the Indian Ocean. A
stand-out feature of the IOR is the lack of correspondence between
nations on issues concerning 'security'. While using the high seas
for trade, transportation of energy, major powers have tended to
neglect the impact of the economic activities on the sea itself. In
contrast, smaller regional countries and island states with
developing economies have, at best, been able to use only those
resources of the sea which are vital to their survival. As the
challenges rise, the need to factor in and secure effective
management of the Indian Ocean has turned into a compelling
imperative. While governments and authorities grapple with complex
issues trying to forge a coherent maritime policy, there is a
growing recognition that unless solutions are found quickly, lives,
livelihoods, and in some cases the very future of local populations
could be at risk. This book contains a comprehensive overview of
perspectives of some of the stakeholders in the Indian Ocean
Region. It seeks to identify the key maritime security issues and
explores the potential contribution of the stakeholders in meeting
these challenges.
Parodi shows that boundary disputes have and continue to play a
major role in creating tensions in South America. Of the 25
international territorial boundaries that exist in South America,
eight were marked with major wars, eight with lesser wars, and five
with some level of violence. As recently as 1995, the armies of
Ecuador and Peru were at war to define a boundary. In 1982
Argentina went to war, inspired by the call to restore a piece of
its mutilated national territory. Venezuela and Guyana, Guyana and
Suriname, and Suriname and French Guiana have not completed
boundary demarcation agreements. Bolivia's insistence on its right
for sovereign access to the Pacific Ocean is a source of tension
with Chile and Peru. Colombia and Venezuela have unresolved
boundary issues in the Gulf of Venezuela. Clearly, boundary
disputes have and continue to play a major role in creating larger
conflicts within South America.
Territorial boundaries are marks on the ground, but, as Parodi
shows, their staying power or stability depends on their grip on
consciousness. By examining the boundary theory of South American
states and its implementation, he also explains how the symbolic
system of South American boundaries is used to instill national
identity, mobilize people to war, and control population and
territory. This text will be of particular interest to scholars,
students, and researchers involved with Latin American politics,
diplomacy, and international relations.
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