What do we mean by 'gifts' in International Relations? Can foreign aid be conceptualized as a gift? Most foreign aid transactions are unilateral and financially unreciprocated, yet donors expect to benefit from them.Previous research dealing with foreign aid has analyzed the main donor motives and interests in providing financial support. This book offers an in-depth analysis of the invisible political or social 'exchange' taking place between recipient countries and donors when a grant agreement is signed. Focusing on Egypt, Jordan, Palestine and Israel - the main beneficiaries of Western foreign aid - the book uses gift theories and theories of social exchange to show how international social bonds are shaped by foreign aid and in what ways recipient countries are obliged to return the 'gift' they receive. Foreign aid is a means of buying 'stability' or 'democracy' in the region but Beata Paragi is interested here to understand the actual feasibility of Western assistance. Looking at the context of the Arab Spring, the book examines how aid impacts on a recipient country's domestic political events such as war, the quest for self-determination, the struggle against occupation and the fight for dignity. An original contribution to Middle East Studies and International Relations, the research presents an alternative interpretation of foreign aid and show how external funds interact with local developments and realities.

In the long history of the monotheistic tradition, violence - often bloody with warfare - have not just been occasional but defining activities. Since 9/11, sociologists, religious historians, philosophers and anthropologists have examined the question of the roots of religious violence in new ways, and with surprising results. In November 2004, the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion brought together leading theorists at Cornell University to explore the question whether religions are viral forms of a general cultural tendency to violent action. Do religions, and especially the Abrahamic tradition, encourage violence in the imagery of their sacred writings, in their theology, and their tendency to see the world as a cosmos divided between powers of good and forces of evil? Is such violence a historical condition affecting all religious movements, or are some religions more prone to violence than others?;The papers collected in this volume represent the independent and considered thinking of internationally known scholars from a variety of disciplines concerning the relationship between religion and violence, with special reference to the theories of 'just war' and 'jihad', technical terms that arise in connection with the theology of early medieval Christianity and early Islam, respectively.

Interpersonal violence has been the focus of research within the social sciences for some considerable time. Yet inquiries about the causes of interpersonal violence and the effects on the victims have dominated the field of research and clinical practice. Central to the contributions in this volume is the idea that interpersonal violence is a social action embedded in responses from various actors. These include actions, words and behaviour from friends and family, ordinary citizens, social workers and criminal justice professionals. These responses, as the contributors to this volume all show, make a difference in terms of how violence is understood, resisted and come to terms with in its immediate aftermath and over the longer term. Bringing together an international network of scholars and practitioners from a range of disciplines and fields of practice, this book maps and expands research on interpersonal violence. In doing so, it opens an important new terrain on which social responses to violence can be fully interrogated in terms of their intentions, meanings and outcomes.

The book examines how the Belfast Agreement came about and its effect on unionism, nationalism, the paramilitaries, electoral support for local parties and the constitutional position of Northern Ireland. It also considers the extent to which the Agreement may be regarded as an exercise in political cynicism or the basis for lasting peace.

This edited volume brings together a series of contributions exploring the socio-cultural and psychological representation of peace and conflict. It ventures into areas of the humanities and social sciences not typically foregrounded in peace studies, such as psychology, sociology, media studies, cultural studies, history, and geography.

This book is a study of local grassroots activism in two major political areas, the peace and environmental movements, over a period of five years. Interviews with leaders of 166 different groups in five states (Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, California, and Oregon), supplemented by personal observation and participation in several of those groups are the foundations of this analysis. The major concerns are the components of group and movement successes, both short-run and long-run, and activist group adaptations to change in the larger social and political world in light of political upheaval in Eastern Europe, the Gulf War, and several environmental crises that occurred during the period in question. Finally, Zisk focuses on the growing convergence (and barriers to convergence) of the movements. After examining short run accomplishments, Zisk concludes that most of the groups in both movements are faring poorly: few of their concrete goals are achieved, media attention is poor, and membership growth is problematic. For both movements, the transformational wings (those that press for basic changes, use consensus decision making, have few paid staff members) are not doing so well as the incremental wings (those seeking limited goals, using traditional decision techniques, employing larger staffs). This book should be of interest to students and teachers of political science and sociology.

Why do people turn to personal connections to get things done? Exploring the role of favors in social welfare systems in postwar, postsocialist Bosnia and Herzegovina, this volume provides a new theoretical angle on links between ambiguity and power. It demonstrates that favors were not an instrumental tactic of survival, nor a way to reproduce oneself as a moral person. Instead, favors enabled the insertion of personal compassion into the heart of the organization of welfare. Managing Ambiguity follows how neoliberal insistence on local community, flexibility, and self-responsibility was translated into clientelist modes of relating and back, and how this fostered a specific mode of power.

The first comprehensive analysis of Britain's complex relationship with UN peacekeeping operations during two formative decades. It charts the evolution of British views on an international organization running its own military forces and examines policy-makers' efforts to influence, contain and exploit individual operations: in Palestine, Kashmir, Egypt (following the Suez Crisis), Lebanon, Congo and Cyprus. Benefits included shedding colonial responsibilities, containing conflicts, face-saving, and burden-sharing; perceived risks included interference in remaining colonies and threats to postcolonial interests.

What are the human consequences of conflict and what are the appropriate service responses? This book seeks to provide an answer to these important questions, drawing on over twenty-five years of work by the author in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. Focusing on the work undertaken following the Omagh bombing, the book describes how needs were assessed and understood, how evidence-based services were put in place, and the training and education programmes that were developed to assist first those communities affected by the bombing and later the wider population affected by the years of conflict. The author places the mental-health needs of affected communities at the heart of the political and peace processes that follow. This is a practical book and will be of particular interest to those planning for and responding to conflict-related disasters, policy makers, service commissioners and providers, politicians, civil servants and peace makers. -- .

Mary Douglas's innovative explanations for styles of human thought and for the dynamics of institutional change have furnished a distinctive and powerful theory of how conflicts are managed, yet her work remains astonishingly poorly appreciated in social science disciplines. This volume introduces Douglas's theories, and outlines the ways in which her work is of continuing importance for the future of the social sciences. Mary Douglas: Understanding Human Thought and Conflict shows how Douglas laid out the agenda for revitalizing social science by reworking Durkheim's legacy for today, and reviews the growing body of research across the social sciences which has used, tested or developed her approach.

As we continue our Sacred Journey in this third book of his Global Healing Trilogy, Vipin discovers and unfolds the Nature and State of Hope and then explores the Seven Treasures hidden within the Core of Fear. These Seven Treasures work together Creating the Resonance of New Vistas of Hope of Dawning the New Age of Dominion

Petra Scho nemann-Behrens provides an informative review of the life and times of Alfred H. Fried (1864-1921), a significant if underappreciated German pacifist of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. In response to the militarism and international anarchy of the European states, Fried developed his unique notion of "revolutionary" or "scientific" pacifism, differentiating it from reform pacifism, in order to address the material causes of war. As theorist, practitioner, and journalist, Fried advanced radical ideas at the time: the formation of a pan-European union, the establishment of an effective international court of arbitration, the elimination of a secretive diplomatic class, and the expansion of international economic and cultural cooperation. This book is a translation of the German biography Alfred H. Fried: Friedensaktivist - Nobelpreistra ger, published by Ro merhof Verlag in 2011, and commemorates the 100th anniversary of Fried's death.

Israelis and Palestinians have been caught in what seems a "forever war" with routine terror in the promised land for more than 100 years. This book is the first to bring together commentary and anguished personal insights from people on both sides of the battle. Readers get a personal look at--and a clearer, more nuanced understanding of--the psychological trauma that is common for men, women and children there. Psychologists in the regions, as well as scholars from across disciplines, tell their personal stories, interwoven with academic reflections on important issues fueling the conflict such as humiliation, revenge, hate, and the need for a homeland and identity. Readers are brought face-to-face with controversial issues, like the psychological impact of Israel's Separation Wall, and unique perspectives, including the stories of eight Palestinian female martyrs, the insights of a young student helping to save blasted bodies after the bombing of a bus, the compassion of a Jewish doctor treating suicide bombers, the thinking of a Jidhadist woman raised to hate Jews but now working for peace with Israelis, and a doctor bringing together Palestinians and Israelis using meditation to find peace.

Concepts and policies deriving from political and social movements in support of liberal nationalism are hotly debated today. Civil society has actively engaged in controversies over intervention in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq and the Lebanon. Pugh investigates the role of popular liberal internationalism as a social movement in Britain, addressing the use of force for peace through an examination of the impact of civil society actors in between wars. The interwar social movements had a massive and lasting influence on British approaches to international politics and influenced the UN's approach to peacekeeping, use of force and peace-building.

This book considers social movements for peace and security which probe below the level of state policies. Using Gramscian and Foucauldian ideas of civil society and society, it critically examines the factions and fluidities of a movement that was suffused with values at once humane and superior, tolerant and dogmatic, universalistic and imperial. Pugh explores one of the most powerful social movements for collective security in modern history, a movement which trespassed conventional political boundaries and provided innovative ideas for constructing peace through collective security.

"Conflict, Complexity and Mathematical Social Science" provides a foundational mathematical approach to the modelling of social conflict. The book illustrates how theory and evidence can be mathematically deepened and how investigations grounded in social choice theory can provide the evidence needed to inform social practice. Countering criticism from constructivist viewpoints it shows how discourse is grounded in mathematical logic and mathematical structure. The modelling of social conflict is viewed as an application of mathematical social science and relevant models are drawn from each field of mathematical psychology, mathematical sociology, mathematical political science and mathematical economics. Unique in its multidisciplinary focus the book brings together powerful mathematical conceptualisations of the social world from a wide range of separate areas of inquiry, thereby providing a strong conceptual framework and an integrated account of social situations. It is a vital resource for all researchers in peace science, peace and conflict studies, politics, international relations, mathematical modelling in the social sciences and complexity theory.

This textbook is dedicated to an analysis of the emergent role of conflict analysis and resolution. What can this interdisciplinary field contribute to our understanding of, solutions to, or transformations of some of the most pressing problems confronting human societies? The authors, a team of international experts with both academic and professional experience of the field, offer a broad range of geographical and disciplinary perspectives. Covering theory, research and practice, they provide a comprehensive typology of the types of conflict, and a through examination of influences - uctural, strategic and cultural - on conflict. They go on to explore the management and resolution of conflict, discussing negotiation, mediation and peacebuilding. This hopes to be a key text for undergraduates and postgraduates taking courses in the field, and also for professionals, both active and in training.

This book explores the role of horizontal inequalities - inequalities that exist between ethnic, religious or racial groups - as a source of violent conflict. This study shows how political, economic and cultural status inequalities have contributed to conflict, drawing on econometric evidence and in-depth studies of West Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia. It points the way to policies which would reverse inequality and thus reduce the risk of conflict.

This work traces the attempts by the United Nations to bring about the reunification of Cyprus prior to the island's accession to the European Union on 1 May 2004. In addition to charting the course of previous efforts to solve the Cyprus issue, the book recounts the direct discussions between the two sides from January 2002 through to April 2004 and analyses the reasons why the UN plan was rejected in a referendum.

This ground-breaking political history of the two Irish States provides unique new insights into the 'Troubles' and the peace process. It examines the impact of the fraught dynamics between the competing identities of the Nationalist-Catholic-Irish Community on the one hand and the Unionist-Protestant-British community on the other.

Yakinthou throws light on the challenges of adopting political settlements in frozen conflicts and divided societies by focusing on the conflict in Cyprus, the resolution of which has for years been held up, in large part by elite intransigence. The book offers answers for why elites in Cyprus are so unwilling to adopt a power-sharing solution.

This encyclopaedia was compiled to add to the literature and understanding of historic events leading up to the recent efforts of a regional peace process and to the projected evolution of a Middle East/North Africa economic community, with gradual free-movement of capital, goods and services for participating nations. It covers specific facts, events, issues, ideologies, controversies and actions needed to increase understanding in the pursuit of peace, co-operation, and productivity. Much of the material has been drawn from official sources, with special emphasis on interpreting key aspects.

This book is the first to deal with the specific threat of terrorism in Southeast Asia after the Bali blasts of 12 October 2002, and in the wake of the US-led war on Iraq. It offers a comprehensive and critical examination of the ideological nature, sociopolitical motivations, trans-regional linkages, geographic loci and functional characteristics of the terrorist threat in the region. The contributors include leading scholars of political Islam in the region, renowned terrorism and regional security analysts, as well as highly regarded regional journalists and commentators from two of Asia's top think tanks--the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, both based in Singapore. This represents a formidable and hitherto unequalled combination of expertise.

This book looks at the principal consequences of climate change and its possible impact on conflict and security. It clarifies the impact of climate change on natural resources, on the frequency and expansion of natural disasters, and, as a consequence, the repercussions that can be foreseen on environmentally-induced migration.