![]() |
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
||
|
Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Peace studies > General
Towards Relational Sociology argues that social worlds comprise networks of interaction and relations. Crossley asserts that relations are lived trajectories of iterated interaction, built up through a history of interaction, but also entailing anticipation of future interaction. In addition, he demonstrates how networks comprise multiple dyadic relations which are mutually transformed through their combination. On this conceptual basis he builds a relational foundation for sociology. Over the course of the book, three central sociological dichotomies are addressed - individualism/holism, structure/agency and micro/macro ? and utilised as a foil against which to construct the case for relational sociology. Through this, Crossley is able to argue that neither individuals nor ?wholes? - in the traditional sociological sense - should take precedence in sociology. Rather sociologists should focus upon evolving and dynamic networks of interaction and relations. The book covers many of the key concepts and concerns of contemporary sociology, including identity, power, exchange and meaning. As such it is an invaluable reference tool for postgraduate students and researchers alike.
The book begins with an agenda-setting introduction which will provide an overview of the central question being addressed, such as the circumstances associated with the move towards a political settlement, the parameters of this settlement and the factors that have assisted in bringing it about. The remaining contributions will focus on a range of cases selected for their diversity and their capacity to highlight the full gamut of political approaches to conflict resolution. The cases vary in:
This book ranges over the world's major geopolitical zones, including Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe and will be of interest to practitioners in the field of international security. This book was published as a special issue of Nationalism and Ethnic Politics.
The Armenian Genocide has lately attracted a lot of attention, despite the Turkish government's attempts at denial. It has been developed into a central obstacle to Turkey's entry into the European Union. As such it attracts the highest political and public attention. What is largely ignored in the debate, however, is the fact that Armenians were not the only victims of the Young Turk's genocidal population policies. What is still largely forgotten is the murder, expulsion and deportation of other ethnic groups like Assyrians, Greeks, Kurds and Arabs by the Young Turks. This not only increases the number of victims, but also changes the perspective on the foundation of modern Turkey and as such on modern Turkish history more generally. The Thematic Issue of the JGR, the republication of which is proposed here, is the first publication, which addresses these wider issues. It contributes not only to our understanding of the Young Turks' population and extermination policies in all its complexities and so helping to bring the forgotten victims' stories "back" into genocide scholarship, but to our understanding of modern Turkey more generally. It is an indispensable tool for everybody interested in one of the great historical controversies of our time. This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Genocide Research.
Neoliberal economics have emerged in the post-Cold War era as the predominant ideological tenet applied to the development of countries in the global south. For much of the global south, however, the promise that markets will bring increased standards of living and emancipation from tyranny has been an empty one. Instead, neoliberalisation has increased the gap between rich and poor and unleashed a firestorm of social ills. This book deals with the post-conflict geographies of violence and neoliberalisation in Cambodia. Applying a geographical analysis to contemporary Cambodian politics, the author employs notions of neoliberalism, public space, and radical democracy as the most substantive components of its theoretical edifice. He argues that the promotion of unfettered marketisation is the foremost causal factor in the country's inability to consolidate democracy following a United Nations sponsored transition. The book demonstrates Cambodian perspectives on the role of public space in Cambodia's process of democratic development and explains the implications of violence and its relationship with neoliberalism. Taking into account the transition from war to peace, authoritarianism to democracy, and command economy to a free market, this book offers a critical appraisal of the political economy in Cambodia.
This study investigates the role of youth in peacebuilding, and addresses the failure of states and existing research to recognise youths as political actors, which can result in their contribution to peacebuilding being ignored.
This book interrogates the philosophical backdrop of Clausewitzian notions of war, and asks whether modern, network-centric militaries can still be said to serve the 'political'. In light of the emerging theories and doctrines of Network-Centric War (NCW), this book traces the philosophical backdrop against which the more common theorizations of war and its conduct take place. Tracing the historical and philosophical roots of modern war from the 17th Century through to the present day, this book reveals that far from paralyzing the project of re-problematisating war, the emergence of NCW affords us an opportunity to rethink war in new and philosophically challenging ways. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, social theory, war studies and political theory/IR. Manabrata Guha is Assistant Professor (ISSSP) at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore, India.
With a Foreword by Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of the European Commission Like conflict prevention and crisis management, 'peacebuilding' forms an integral part of the European Union's external policy efforts to break the cycle of conflict, insecurity and poverty. A concept developed in the context of the United Nations, the EU's Lisbon Treaty mentions 'post-conflict stabilisation' among the tasks which the EU is set to perform in the implementation of the Common Security and Defence Policy. The Union's advance in this field has been universally welcomed by peacebuilding actors, especially since the EU's ongoing contributions in financial, technical and logistical terms in post-conflict areas have been couched in an increasing number of European Security and Defence Policy missions. The proliferation of the EU's institutional and operational mechanisms to build peace in post-conflict environments has led to a whole series of new policy and legal questions, which are addressed by leading practitioners and academics in this unique compilation. Specific to this book: * Contributions take into account the final text of the Lisbon Treaty and the lessons learned from more than twenty military and civilian operations * Addresses policy and legal potential and limits, and outlines the parameters for future decision-making and capacity-building * Combines thematic contributions with concrete case studies, and offers insights into how the EU's peacebuilding tools are implemented in practice
In this book Robert E. Harkavy analyses the modern status and the associated diplomacy of basing access, against the background of past political, military, and technological relationships. He provides a comprehensive description of the major powers' global basing networks, including their types, their locations, and the politics and economics of their acquisition. Professor Harkavy also gives details of the facilities the bases make available - naval, air, ground, missile, intelligence, communications, research and testing, environmental monitoring, and space-related - and provides a wealth of tables and maps depicting US and Soviet global networks. He analyses the roles of these bases for the USA, the USSR and other major powers, and discusses emerging political and technological developments which may alter basing diplomacy: the diffusion of power away from the superpowers, the increasing leverage of the smaller countries that host bases, the strengthened role of satellites in comparison with facilities on land and the possible impact of space defences on basing requirements. The crucial link between arms transfers and the politics of basing is emphasized, and the final section is devoted to the politics and economics of foreign military presence.
The EU's self promotion as a ?conflict manager? is embedded in a discourse about its ?shared values? and their foundation in a connection between security, development and democracy. This book provides a collection of essays based on the latest cutting edge research into the EU's active engagement in conflict management. It maps the evolution of EU policy and strategic thinking about its role, and the development of its institutional capacity to manage conflicts. Case studies of EU conflict management within the Union, in its neighbourhood and further afield, explore the consistency, coherence, and politicization of EU strategy at the implementation stage. The essays examine the extent to which the EU can exert influence on conflict dynamics and outcomes. Such influence depends on a number of changing factors: how the EU conceptualizes conflict and policy solutions; the balance of interests within the EU on the issue (divided or concerted) and the degree of politicization in the EU's role; the scope for an external EU role; and the value attached by the conflict parties to EU engagement ? a value that is almost wholly bound to their interest in a membership perspective (or other strong relationship to the EU) rather than to ?shared values? as an end in themselves. This book was based on a special issue of Ethnopolitics.
Small arms and light artillery are the primary weapons of most armed conflicts. International responses have been shaped by the view that they are abundantly available and easily accessible to all on a global illicit market. This book argues that the arming of conflict is complexly structured and highly dynamic. It uncovers and describes the construction and interaction of structures and dynamics at global and regional levels, which shape the arming patterns of both state and non-state actors.
As one of South Asia's oldest democracies Sri Lanka is a critical case to examine the limits of a liberal peace, peacebuilding and external engagement in the settlement of civil wars. This book is based on nine years of research, and more than 100 interviews with those affected by the war, NGOs, and local and international elites engaged in the peace process. A critical assessment of peacebuilding and the impact of economic recovery programmes on the peace process in Sri Lanka Timely analysis - coming one and a half years after the war ended in Sri Lanka. Based on over nine years of detailed research and over 100 interviews A critical assessment of the liberal peace thesis Addresses gap in the literature on peacebuilding - assessing the impact of peacebuilding-type programmes on the ground and challenging the widespread assumption that these activities link to peace. Includes a first-hand account of the situation in Sri Lanka during the ceasefire in the war-affected district of Manner
Since the turn of the millennium, resistance to the liberal project of global governance has come to occupy centre stage in global and international politics. The Battle of Seattle, the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington and the Bush administration's ambivalent attitude towards multilateralism can all be thought of as conspicuous instances of the growing challenge to global governance. Global Governance, Conflict and Resistance provides a wide-ranging series of analyses of such challenges.
Bringing together both contemporary and historical Just War concepts, Peter Lee shows that Blair's illusion of morality evaporated quickly and irretrievably after the 2003 Iraq invasion because the ideas Blair relied upon were taken out of their historical context and applied in a global political system where they no longer hold sway.
Sharing Security is a unique and comprehensive study of a key yet often neglected feature of modern international society. It begins by assessing how political theory can contribute to an understanding of international burdensharing. It then analyses in turn why some Western states contribute more than others to common defences, the European Union budget and overseas development aid. It highlights the particular burdensharing problems involved in global regimes, focusing on the UN's continuing financial crisis and the costs of combating global warming. It argues that today's burdensharing disparities continue to be shaped by the particular character of the international settlement at the end of the Second World War.
From the terrorist attacks of 9/11 to the assassination of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh to the London transportation bombings, dramatic events of recent years have generated security concerns about Muslim communities in the West. These have added an additional layer to the tensions surrounding Muslim immigrant integration and have generated heated discussions about how governments should address such challenges. This collection assembles leading scholars to address four central themes related to the interactions between Muslims and states in contemporary Europe and North America. Its authors investigate the timing of Muslims? emergence as a perceived security risk; they review the variety of actions undertaken in response to the new concerns; they assess the effectiveness of different kinds of policies in managing the security and social challenges that governmental actors observe; and they identify relevant Muslim sub-groups and their highly divergent views on recent developments. This book thus serves as a foundation for understanding an issue of critical importance and as a touchstone for advancing public, policy, and scholarly debate about Muslim-state interactions. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
The violent confrontation that erupted in September 2000 between Israel and the Palestinians developed into a protracted low-intensity confrontation. The confrontation exacted a heavy human toll on both sides, inflicted severe economic damage, and raised the level of enmity, hostility, and mistrust to levels that are hampering dialogue, not only in regard to the resolution of the conflict but also about its very management. The book focused on the causes of the confrontation, the goals of the sides, the distinctive characteristics of the confrontation as a low intensity conflict, the management strategies adopted by the sides, the reasons for the failure of the efforts to end or moderate the confrontation, the outcomes of the confrontation, its impact on both societies in different domains, and the phenomenon of unilateral disengagement as a unique strategy of conflict management in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
This book explores how creative ways of resolving social conflicts emerge, evolve, and subsequently come to be accepted or rejected in inter-group relations. Creativity and Conflict Resolution explores a subject with which political communities involved in social conflict have always grappled: creative ways of imagining and actualizing visions of conflict resolution. This is an ambitious question, which concerns human communities at many different levels, from families, regional-independence movements, and national governments, to inter-state alliances. The author argues that unconventional viability lies at the heart of creativity for transcending seemingly intractable inter-communal conflicts. More specifically, conflict resolution creativity is a social and epistemological process, whereby actors involved in a given social conflict learn to formulate an unconventional resolution option or procedure. Demystifying the origin of unthinkable breakthroughs for conflict resolution and illuminating theories of creativity based on 17 international case studies, this book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace and conflict studies, human security and IR. Tatsushi Arai is an Assistant Professor of Conflict Transformation at the SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont, USA. He has a PhD in Conflict Resolution from George Mason University, Washington DC, and extensive practical experience in the field.
We are here to remember what happened and to declare solemnly that ‘they’ must never do it again. But who are ‘they’? HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST is a selection of three thought-provoking essays on freedom and fascism, censorship and tolerance – including Eco’s iconic essay ‘Ur-Fascism’, which lists the fourteen essential characteristics of fascism, and draws on his own personal experiences growing up in the shadow of Mussolini. Umberto Eco remains one of the greatest writers and cultural commentators of the last century. In these pertinent pieces, he warns against prejudice and abuses of power and proves a wise and insightful guide for our times. If we strive to learn from our collective history and come together in challenging times, we can hope for a peaceful and tolerant future. Freedom and liberation are never-ending tasks. Let this be our motto: ‘Do not forget.’
It is said that the choices we make determine the lives we lead. In this book you will meet twenty inspiring individuals who have made peace their choice in lifefrom a Vietnamese monk to a Brazilian musician, from a Swedish childrens author to an Iranian-American architect. Exploring a wide range of approaches to peacemaking, Great Peacemakers is organized into five paths to peace: choosing nonviolence, living peace, honoring diversity, valuing all life, and caring for the planet. Each path showcases the true life stories of four amazing peacemakers who have successfully cultivated peace in a variety of ways. As a whole, the book strives for an overall balance of race, nationality, religion, gender, age, and level of fame. Whether you are a parent seeking positive roles models for your children, an educator looking for thought-provoking material for your students, or someone simply wanting an uplifting read, then Great Peacemakers is sure to meet your needs and inspire the peacemaker in you. Great Peacemakers won the 2007 International PeaceWriting Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association and the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice, and Ecology. The book is also endorsed by three heads of state and three Nobel Peace Prize recipients, including Dr. Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica and Nobel Laureate, who said: "Powerful, well-researched and, above all, timely, Great Peacemakers should be required reading for the youth of the world."
The post-Cold War has witnessed enormous levels of western peacekeeping, peacemaking and reconstruction intervention in societies emerging from war. These western-led interventions are often called ?liberal peacebuilding? or ?liberal interventionism?, or statebuilding, and have attracted considerable controversy. In this study, leading proponents and critics of the liberal peace and contemporary post-war reconstruction assess the role of the United States, European Union and other actors in the promotion of the liberal peace, and of peace more generally. Key issues, including transitional justice and the acceptance/rejection of the liberal peace in African states are also considered. The failings of the liberal peace (most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in other locations) have prompted a growing body of critical literature on the motivations, mechanics and consequences of the liberal peace. This volume brings together key protagonists from both sides of the debate to produce a cutting edge, state of the art discussion of one the main trends in contemporary international relations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Society.
Casualties of the New World Order contends that the high rate of failure among post-Cold War UN missions are attributable to common weaknesses which are vulnerable to civil war dynamics. These mission weaknesses derive from the high level of control over the missions' mandates and operations wielded by combinations of self-interested and distracted UN member-states. The effects of these weaknesses are examined in the failed missions in Bosnia, Somalia, and Angola, while their absence is observed in the successful missions to El Salvador, Mozambique, and Cambodia.
This volume presents a range of views on the current state of global nuclear disarmament from eminent scholars from India, Israel and France. Chapters present and analyse the relationships between India, Pakistan and the USA, Russia and the USA, the position of the EU and of Israel. The perspectives presented range from optimism to pessimism on global nuclear disarmament and consequences for human security.
This edited volume is the first detailed exploration of the last phase of the Cold War, taking a critical look at the crisis of detente in Europe in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The transition from detente to a new phase of harsh confrontation and severe crises is an interesting, indeed crucial, phase of the evolution of the international system. This book makes use of previously unreleased archival materials, moving beyond existing interpretations of this period by challenging the traditional bipolar paradigm that focuses mostly on the role of the superpowers in the transformation of the international system. The essays here emphasize the combination and the interplay of a large number of variables- political, ideological, economic and military - and explore the topic from a truly international perspective. Issues covered include human rights, the Euromissiles, the CSCE (Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe), the Revolution in Military Affairs, economic growth and its consequences.
By shifting American security policy away from maximizing military power for the United States and toward maximizing human security for all, policymakers and citizens can also maximize national security for the United States and sustainable peace for the world. Why do war and political violence persist? Political realists argue that violent conflict and the struggle for power are inherent in the international system, and there is little we can do but manage it. However, as Robert Johansen argues in this path-breaking work, there are other ways forward. In Where the Evidence Leads, Johansen develops an "empirical realist" theory to enable the United Sates to respond more effectively to rising security threats. Together, peace research and security studies show that more security benefits are likely to result from maximizing the "causes" or correlates of peace than from maximizing military power. Ironically, a global grand strategy for human security, with national security folded into it, is likely to produce more security for the United States than a national security strategy. Peace reigns when states implement peace correlates, which range from addressing all nations' security fears to making life more predictable through better global governance. This approach, respectful of forgotten insights from Hans Morgenthau and others, revolutionizes thinking about national security policy by bringing it into a human security framework. The analysis shows that the anarchic, militarized balance-of-power system can be gradually changed with help from enhanced lawmaking, enforcement, and governance capacities. This thought-provoking book builds bridges between past policies-many of which have failed-and more deft ways of handling new realities that focus on building peace. In a world of threats, this book opens doors onto a future of sustainable peace, security, and hope. |
You may like...
Decolonisation - Revolution & Evolution
David Boucher, Ayesha Omar
Paperback
|