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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations > General
This annotated guide to English language materials dealing with all aspects of the history of the borderlands since the 1700s gives special attention to conflicts between Germans and Poles and issues that are again critical in Central Europe. Students, teachers, and scholars will find this bibliography of over 1200 entries to primary sources, books, chapters in books, dissertations, journal articles, government documents, fiction, and films easy to use. The introduction points to different names given to the region and puts the bibliography into historical context. The chapters cover different historical periods and organize material either by genre of work or by topics significant to a particular era. Author, title, and subject indexes make the material easily accessible for a wide variety of research needs.
Since 2001, the United States has created or reorganized more than two counterterrorism organizations for every terrorist arrest or apprehension it has made of people plotting to do damage within the country. Central to this massive enterprise is 'ghost-chasing,' as less than one alarm in 10,000 is an actual threat-the rest all point to ghosts. And the vast majority of the leads deemed to be productive have led to terrorist enterprises that were either trivial or at most aspirational. As John Mueller and Mark Stewart suggest in Chasing Ghosts, this is often an exercise in dueling delusions: a Muslim hothead has delusions about changing the world by blowing something up, and the authorities have delusions that he might actually be able to overcome his patent inadequacies to do so. Mueller and Stewart systematically examine this expensive, exhausting, bewildering, chaotic, and paranoia-inducing process. They evaluate the counterterrorism efforts of the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and local policing agencies. In addition, applying a new set of case studies, they appraise the capacities of the terrorist 'adversary' and discuss what they calls 'the myth of the mastermind.' They also assess public opinion, a key driving force for counterterrorism efforts. The yearly chance an American will be killed by a terrorist within the country is about one in four million under present conditions. However, polling data suggest that, although over a trillion dollars has been spent on domestic counterterrorism since 2001, Americans continue to be alarmed and say they do not feel safer. No defense of civil liberties is likely to be terribly effective as long as officials and the population at large continue to believe that the threat from terrorism is massive, even existential. Mueller and Stewart do not argue that there is nothing for the ghost-chasers to find-the terrorist 'adversary' is real and does exist. The question that is central to the exercise, but one the ghost-chasers never really probe, is an important and rather straight-forward one to which standard evaluative procedures can be applied: is the chase worth the effort? Or is it excessive given a serious consideration of the danger that terrorism actually presents?
Intellectual property is one of the most valuable forms of property in the modern world. From the perspective of companies producing knowledge-intensive goods, it encourages technological innovations for the benefit of humanity. For consumers of technology, it can be seen as a restriction on access to knowledge that inflates corporate rents. When genetic material crucial for human life is isolated from the commons, engineered and turned into private intellectual property, dissent is likely to emerge. Felipe Filomeno uses the case of Monsanto in South American soybean agriculture to theorize about the emergence and change of intellectual property regimes. Based on official documents, interviews, journalistic material, and academic literature, the study shows not only the relations of competition, coercion, and alliances that lie behind the post-1980 global upward ratchet of intellectual property protection but also the strategies that have the potential to reverse it.
Established in 1955, the Leipzig International Documentary Film Festival became a central arena for staging the cultural politics of the German Democratic Republic, both domestically and in relation to West Germany and the rest of the world. Screened Encounters represents the definitive history of this key event, recounting the political and artistic exchanges it enabled from its founding until German unification, and tracing the outsize influence it exerted on international cultural relations during the Cold War.
Providing a coherent and current account of how the U.S. manages to 'pivot to Asia' amid a rising China, this book provides an insightful glimpse into China-US relations, and the complexities of the two nations' economic and defense issues as China asserts is financial and military might in Asia and beyond.
Do the news media have any role in the transformation of war and warfare? A constellation of labels by academics and practitioners have been coined in the last twenty years to describe the new forms of a phenomenon as old as the human race. However, this book claims that it remains to be fully understood what the specific role of the news media is in this process. It argues that the news media, old and new alike, alter the cognitive and strategic environment of the actors of war and politics and change the way these interact with one another. Building on a four-dimensional definition of power and focusing on the role of television, this book recognises the importance of interactions upon the understanding of any social phenomenon. It suggests that the nature of war is changing partly because it is no longer just a matter of linear strategic interactions but also, and mainly, of 'mediated' ones.
This volume explores the conditions under which regional organizations engage in governance transfer in and to areas of limited statehood. The authors argue that a global script of governance transfer by regional organizations is emerging, where regional and national actors are adapting governance standards and instruments to their local context.
This book""examines diplomatic influence and collective decision-making within the transatlantic security regime, focusing on the four major member states of NATO: France, Germany, the UK, and the United States. Two cases of post-Cold War transatlantic military intervention are examined in which regime member states sought to develop and adopt a single, collective policy on the use of military force outside of NATO's territorial area of operations: Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. The question is, what conditions or factors increase or decrease the likelihood of the member states of the transatlantic security regime adopting a common, collective policy with regard to military intervention in a given case? The author answers that question by testing the roles of six alternative rival explanations: power, threat perception, international institutions, risk analysis, perceptual lenses, and domestic political pressures.
Manzo examines, by means of historical analysis, the effects of global power relationships on the politics of South Africa. The author looks at the ways in which global power constructs identity, normalizes relations of domination, and shapes the form that resistance takes. She asks, for example, why dominated people are so often waging conflicts among themselves rather than directing their resistance unfailingly toward their oppressors. Why, too, is open defiance relatively rare and mass action infrequently used? South Africa, as an example, is used to illustrate the much broader experience of oppressed populations as they struggle against western domination. The book vividly portrays the complexity of relationships in South Africa and the role played by black resistance in economic and political change over time. Manzo's sound interpretation unifies and enriches the historical progression and establishes a solid foundation for analyzing the lessons South Africa offers about the use of power in international relations.
During the Cold War, few regions offered the American policy-makers a greater challenge than the Middle East. The Eisenhower administration's attempt to balance its Cold War requirements with the demands of the new forces of nationalism established the blueprint of America's policy toward the Middle East for the next four decades. In a richly comprehensive account, Dr. Takeyh employs new documentary evidence to reevaluate US policy toward the revolutionary Egyptian regime; the dynamics of the Anglo-American relations; the evolving nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict; and the Suez crisis and the Eisenhower Doctrine.
A lively, first hand account of the ideas and activities of women and men in anti-war, anti-militarist and peace movements. The author looks at the tensions and divergences in and between organizations, and their potential for cohering into a powerful worldwide counter-hegemonic movement for violence reduction.
The Saudi "ulama" are known for their strong opposition to Shi'a theology, Shi'a communities in Saudi Arabia, and external Shi'a influences such as Iran and Hezbollah. Their potent hostility, combined with the influence of the 'ulama' within the Saudi state and the Muslim world, has led some commentators to blame the Saudi 'ulama' for what they see as growing sectarian conflict in the Middle East. However, there is very little understanding of what reasoning lies behind the positions of the 'ulama' and there is a significant gap in the literature dealing with the polemics directed at the Shi'a by the Saudi religious establishment. In Saudi Clerics and Shi'a Islam, Raihan Ismail looks at the discourse of the Saudi "ulama" regarding Shiism and Shi'a communities, analysing their sermons, lectures, publications and religious rulings. The book finds that the attitudes of the "ulama" are not only governed by their theological convictions regarding Shiism, but are motivated by political events involving the Shi'a within the Saudi state and abroad. It also discovers that political events affect the intensity and frequency of the rhetoric of the ulama at any given time.
At the end of the deadliest century known to mankind, the world still finds itself mired in bloodshed. In addition to formal inter-state conflict, we see an increase in other forms of organized violence, including ethnic warfare, terrorism, civil conflict, and internationally necessitated police actions. Cornered by these powerful global forces, nation-states continue their quest for security. Theirs is a search plagued by futility since the very meaning of the word security is being eroded by the pace and tenor of change in an evolving international environment more complex and confusing than ever. The explanatory power of traditional notions of international security, which has provided a cornerstone for international relations theory as a whole, seems increasingly inadequate in helping to understand the makings of global security. A novel approach is needed--one that integrates discerning insights from the study of language, history, geography, religion, economics, and technology, with more traditional understandings of the workings of power on an international level and on an intranational scale. "Of Fears and Foes" presents just this kind of innovative thinking by some of the most creative scholars working on these issues today. Ciprut invites us to consider a fundamental reassessment of what constitutes security and insecurity in an emerging global environment.
Combining theoretical and empirical insights, this book provides an in-depth analysis of South Asia's transition in the areas of democracy, political economy and security since the end of the Cold War. It provides a close scrutiny to the state of democracy and political economy in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The United States must devise entirely new military and political strategies because threats to the nation's security have shifted so markedly. This work provides the first comparative analysis of unconventional conflicts, using Malaya and Vietnam as lessons for developing effective policies and operations to counter strife, drug wars, and new types of Third World conflict today. This text for students, experts, and policymakers in military studies, history, and international relations combines insights from primary and secondary sources, participant-observer experiences, and scholarly and professional thinking in order to formulate practical recommendations for future policy. Sarkesian provides a comparative framework for analyzing unconventional conflicts, describing past strategies used by Great Britain, France, and the United States. He defines the military posture and nature of conflict, leadership, and indigenous situations in Malaya and Vietnam. He analyzes the nature of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary systems. Sarkesian describes a new U.S. national security agenda to deal with a transformed geostrategic world landscape. A lengthy bibliography adds to the usefulness of this provocative text for classes in contemporary military studies, world history, war and peace, U.S. foreign policy, and conflict management.
Supranationalism in the New World Order argues that in the post-Cold War distribution of global power and configuration of global players, the European Union is just one among a growing number of regional regimes that are acquiring prominent roles in the process of global governance, to some extent through the operation of differentiated zones of geo-political management. The EU is currently the most advanced and influential example of a regional regime by virtue of having the novel European Community at its core - the EC being uniquely constructed around supranational institutions, decision-making and laws. But the EC's uniqueness is unlikely to last. The evident competitive advantages of supranational regional regimes, in conjunction with the realism generally adopted by the various global players, is conducive to the consolidation and proliferation of SRRs in a manner consistent with the neo-functionalist perspective on the progress of the EU. Other prospective SRRs include the Association of South-East Asian Nations, the East Asian Economic Caucus, the South Asian Society for Regional Cooperation, the North American Free Trade Area, and the Andean Community. It is argued that the emerging character of the global system will increasingly depend on SRRs, the relationships among such organisations, and accordingly the doctrine of supranationalism. The book offers a distinctive way of representing and interpreting the global system, global processes and global developments with the help of a set of freshly articulated concepts. The result is a novel, but highly contentious, treatise.
The dangerous, decades-long arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War begged a fundamental question: how did these superpowers actually plan to survive a nuclear strike? In Armageddon Insurance, the first historical account of Soviet civil defense and a pioneering reappraisal of its American counterpart, Edward M. Geist compares how the two superpowers tried, and mostly failed, to reinforce their societies to withstand the ultimate catastrophe. Drawing on previously unexamined documents from archives in America, Russia, and Ukraine, Geist places these civil defense programs in their political and cultural contexts, demonstrating how each country's efforts reflected its cultural preoccupations and blind spots, and revealing how American and Soviet civil defense related to profound issues of nuclear strategy and national values. This work challenges prevailing historical assumptions and unearths the ways Moscow and Washington developed nuclear weapons policies based not on rational strategic or technical considerations, but in power struggles between different institutions pursuing their own narrow self-interests.
The post-Cold War period has seen the emergence of the Black Sea as a region of key strategic importance. As a conduit point for energy pipelines, the sea and its surrounding states are inextricably linked with the exploitation of energy resources in the Caspian Sea and beyond. The heightened risk of ethnic conflict, territorial disputes and instability has been matched by opportunities for regional co-operation on pressing economic and ecological matters. In 1992 the Black Sea Economic Co-operation Project (BSCP) was instigated by Turkey to further interregional agreements on issues such as environmental pollution, and the exploitation and transportation of oil and energy resources in the region. The BSCP consists of the member states of Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Turkey, and Ukraine. Simultaneously with this development, international companies have begun to move into the area, seeking access to the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea and the Central Asian republics. What are the prospects for the Black Sea? This text assesses the dynamics of interregional relations, and attempts to weigh up the risks and opportunities of the post-Cold War era.
This book addresses the criticisms and explores new angles to just war thinking, analyzing its practical adequacy in the face of modern-day realities. It is written with the aim of stimulating debate, recasting or revivifying critical reservations, but also powerfully demonstrating how just war theory cannot be ignored if we take seriously the moral questions warfare forces upon us.
This study argues that guerrilla insurgencies will be a major feature of the post-Cold War international scene, and that the advisability of intervention in some of them will become a serious issue in American politics. Americans therefore need to refine their understanding of insurgency. Anthony James Joes analyzes several major insurgencies of this century, all of which the United States became involved in to one degree or another. While approaching each guerrilla insurgency as a primarily political phenomenon within a definite historical and cultural context, Joes also provides the reader with a clear understanding of the military aspects of such conflicts. The book deals with a variety of cases, some currently very controversial; provides jargon-free analysis of historical, political, and military factors; challenges some widely cherished views about the potency of third-world nationalism; emphasizes the neglected but often decisive effects of geography; examines the flaws in both the French and the American strategies in Viet Nam; and connects Soviet reverses in Afghanistan with the collapse of their empire in Europe. A major conclusion is that protracted guerrilla insurgency is usually the result of inept government policies; the author outlines a politico-military strategy for bringing an insurgency to an end. Another important conclusion is that our belief in the power of nationalism in insurgencies needs reevaluation. This volume will provide a new perspective for students, teachers, and general readers interested in international affairs, war, and foreign policy.
Why do Britain, France, and Italy provide or refuse military support for U.S.-led uses of force? This book provides a unique, multiple-case study analysis of transatlantic burden-sharing. Sixty original interviews with top policymakers and analysts provide insight into allies' decisions regarding the Kosovo War (1999), Afghanistan (2001), and the Iraq War (2003). The cases show that neoclassical realist factors--alliance value, threat, prestige, and electoral politics--explain allies' decisions better than constructivist factors--identity and norms. The book briefly covers additional cases (Vietnam, Lebanon, the Persian Gulf War, Somalia) and concludes with recommendations for increasing future allied military support.
The United States has long dominated economic as well as political affairs in the Caribbean. Recently, however, the relations between the US and the Caribbean nations have been changing. In the early 1980s, the United States unilaterally announced the Caribbean Basin Initiative, which was a set of tariff concessions to the region designed to improve the overall economic situation. More recently, the Association of Caribbean States was created to bring together the islands and countries on the Caribbean rim in an attempt to reposition the region in light of the development of powerful trading blocs in the western hemisphere and Europe. This volume brings together essays that explore the historical, political, and economic dimensions of US-Caribbean relations. As such, it will be of considerable use to scholars and researchers of the Caribbean, economic development, and international relations. This volume brings together essays that explore the historical, political, and economic dimensions of US-Caribbean relations. As such, it will be of considerable use to scholars and researchers of the Caribbean, economic development, and international relations. |
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