Secession is one of the richest veins yet to be mined in international relations. The unexplored concept of secession implicates a host of historical accomplices related to the development of industrial modernity and considerable changes in the nature of sovereignty and the state. By historicizing secession it becomes possible not only to explain the historical transformations that have led to the theoretical impasse on secession but to better articulate the possibilities for current transformative interactions. In Forgetting Ourselves, Linda Bishai thoroughly examines why secession has been ignored by international relations both in theory and practice. Mainstream perspectives in international relations theory have, up to this point, questioned neither state formation nor the inside/outside divide of state sovereignty. Bishai, however, historicizes and questions the concept of secession itself, and the component assumptions of territoriality and identity upon which it rests. Forgetting Ourselves places secession in its proper historical context as something possible only in the modern era and only perceived as a global threat within the last century. Bishai argues that understanding the historic contingency of secessionist conflict allows us to contemplate an alternative vision of international relations in which the violence associated with controlling territory is no longer necessary for validating political identities.

... aims to be something more than a biographical dictionary of missionaries, academics, artists, leaders, diplomats, educators, soldiers, engineers, etc. (dead and alive), who established relationships between the US and Africa. The entries include information on institutions, organizations, business firms, even ships that were involved in these contacts. . . . recommended for most libraries. "Choice"

Contacts between the United States and Africa began in the seventeenth century when American slavers arrived on the West African Coast. They were quickly followed by a multitude of colonists, traders, missionaries, soldiers, diplomats, engineers, scientists, authors, artists, explorers, and hunters, among others, as well as a range of American institutions, societies, and businesses.

This unique reference work provides in one alphabetical format a resource on more than 700 people, organizations, and events that have affected the relations between the United States and Africa from the 1600s to the present. The focus is primarily on those individuals and organizations that were actually in Africa and that have left written or visual records of their stay. Each entry is followed by a short bibliography of major sources, including information on existing manuscript material; a useful index completes the text. Of special interest to scholars of African studies, world history, American foreign policy, and colonialism, this comprehensive reference tool will be a valuable aid in understanding American involvement in Africa.

Fridays of Rage reveals Al Jazeera's surprising rise to that most respected of all Western media positions: the watchdog of democracy. Al Jazeera served as the nursery for the Arab world's democratic revolutions, promoting Friday as a "day of rage" and popular protest. This book gives readers a glimpse into how Al Jazeera has strategically cast its journalists as martyrs in the struggle for Arab freedom while promoting itself as the mouthpiece and advocate of the Arab public. In addition to heralding a new era of Arab democracy, Al Jazeera has become a major influence over Arab perceptions of American involvement in the Arab World, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the rise of global Islamic fundamentalism, and the expansion of the political far right. Al Jazeera's blueprint for "Muslim-democracy" was part of a vision announced by the network during its earliest broadcasts. The network embarked upon a mission to reconstruct the Arab mindset and psyche. Al Jazeera introduced exiled Islamist leaders to the larger Arab public while also providing Muslim feminists a platform. The inclusion and consideration of Westerners, Israelis, Hamas, secularists and others earned the network a reputation for pluralism and inclusiveness. Al Jazeera presented a mirror to an Arab world afraid to examine itself and its democratic deficiencies. But rather than assuming that Al Jazeera is a monolithic force for positive transformation in Arab society, Fridays of Rage examines the potentially dark implications of Al Jazeera's radical re-conceptualization of media as a strategic tool or weapon. As a powerful and rapidly evolving source of global influence, Al Jazeera embodies many paradoxes-the manifestations and effects of which we are likely only now becoming apparent. Fridays of Rage guides readers through this murky territory, where journalists are martyrs, words are weapons, and facts are bullets.

In the post-Cold War era, religion and religious extremism has been the cause of most violent conflicts, thereby posing one of the major security challenges confronting the world and, in recent years, the stability and security of the African continent. Unfortunately, some states targeted by terrorist insurgencies, including Nigeria and Kenya, have been reactive, adopting coercive responses rather than proactive long-term measures to address the factors and drivers of religious extremism in a comprehensive and sustained manner. Confronting Islamist Terrorism in Africa: The Cases of Nigeria and Kenya addresses the fragility of state institutions in terms of their ability and capacity to manage diversity, corruption, inequality, human rights violations, environmental degradation, weak security, and judicial problems, as well as the current security challenges in Africa. It also serves as an indispensable comparative study evaluating the similarities and differences in two nations' approaches to the war on terror in Africa.

China's rise is changing the dynamics of the international system. "Middle Powers and the Rise of China" is the first work to examine how the group of states referred to as "middle powers" are responding to China's growing economic, diplomatic, and military power. States with capabilities immediately below those of great powers, middle powers still exercise influence far above most other states. Their role as significant trading partners and allies or adversaries in matters of regional security, nuclear proliferation, and global governance issues such as human rights and climate change are reshaping international politics.

Contributors review middle-power relations with China in the cases of South Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, South Africa, Turkey, and Brazil, addressing how these diverse nations are responding to a rising China, the impact of Chinese power on each, and whether these states are being attracted to China or deterred by its new power and assertiveness. Chapters also explore how much (or how little) China, and for comparison the US, value middle powers and examine whether or not middle powers can actually shape China's behavior. By bringing a new analytic approach to a key issue in international politics, this unique treatment of emerging middle powers and the rise of China will interest scholars and students of international relations, security studies, China, and the diverse countries covered in the book.

This anthology unites in one volume two studies of the Greater Middle East in global politics - each conceptual and empirical. First, it is a historical-comparative study of politics and societies in selected Greater Middle Eastern countries from Napoleon's invasion of Ottoman Egypt in 1798 up until today. It addresses development and change in these societies as results of the complex interactions between external developments, the rise and expansion of European industrialized powers, and internal developments, the disintegration of Islamic Empires, their transformation into nation-states, and their efforts to industrialize and modernize. Second, it is an empirical case study of states and societies of the Greater Middle East in global politics, addressing themes such as nationalism, revolution, political Islam, democracy, globalization, regionalism, revolution, war, energy, and conflict and cooperation. The book is comprised of three parts and nineteen chapters. Contributors include: Mehdi Parvizi Amineh, Simon Bromley, Robert M. Cutler, Louisa Dris-Ait-Hamadouche, S.N. Eisenstadt, Femke Hoogeveen, Henk Houweling, B.M. Jain, Mehran Kamrava, Roger Kangas, Fred H. Lawson, Prithvi Ram Mudiam, Nilgun Onder, Wilbur Perlot, Richard Pomfret, Kurt W. Radtke, Mirzohid Rahimov, Eva Patricia Rakel, and Yahia H. Zoubir.

Warzones are sometimes described as lawless, but this is rarely the case. Armed insurgents often replace the state as the provider of law and justice in areas under their authority. Based on extensive fieldwork, Rebel Courts offers a compelling and unique insight into the judicial governance of armed groups, a phenomenon never studied comprehensively until now. Using a series of detailed case studies of non-state armed groups in a diverse range of conflict situations, including the FARC (Colombia), Islamic State (Syria and Iraq), Taliban (Afghanistan), Tamil Tigers (Sri Lanka), PKK (Turkey), PYD (Syria), and KRG (Iraq), Rebel Courts argues that it is possible for non-state armed groups to legally establish and operate a system of courts to administer justice. Rules of public international law that regulate the conduct of war can be interpreted as authorising the establishment of rebel courts by armed groups. When operating in a manner consistent with due process, rebel courts demand a certain degree of recognition by international states, institutions, and even other non-state armed groups. With legal analysis enriched by insights from other disciplines, Rebel Courts is a must read for all scholars and professionals interested in law, justice, and the effectiveness of global legal standards in situations of armed conflict.

Traditional counter-terrorism approaches, with their emphasis on the military, are failing. This is seen in the fact that there is an average of three terrorist attacks per day in Africa. This study calls for more holistic solutions, with an emphasis on development and better governance to curb the scourge of terrorism.

Race to the Moon is a suspenseful thriller about the 30-year clash between the United States and the Soviet Union to be the first to put a man on the moon. This true account is heavy with intrigue, espionage, and controversy. Beginning with a 1961 pledge by President John F. Kennedy to plant the Stars and Stripes on the lunar surface by the end of the decade, the story flashes back to the first days of World War II. At that time, England was tipped off by a high Nazi official that the Third Reich was developing revolutionary long-range rockets. This same source clandestinely provided documents that shocked British scientists: The Germans were 25 years ahead of England and the United States in rocket development! And then, in September 1944, 60-foot-long V-2 rockets, for which there was no defense, began raining down on London, causing enormous destruction and loss of life. Even while the fighting was still raging in Germany in the spring of 1945, a handful of young U.S. Army officers scored a colossal coup: They connived to steal 100 of the huge V-2s that had been found in an underground factory. They were dismantled and slipped by train out of Germany, destination White Sands, New Mexico. Then began a no-holds-barred search for German rocket scientists in the chaos of a defeated Third Reich, with the Americans and British on one side and the Russians on the other. Within weeks of the close of the war, Wernher von Braun and 126 of his rocket team members were corraled, shipped to the United States, and began working secretly on missile development. At the same time, the Soviets literally kidnapped other German rocket scientists and sent them to Russia to continue their space work. In the years ahead, Wernher von Braun and his German rocket team, nearly all of whom became naturalized citizens of the United States, collaborated with American scientists to overcome enormous space achievements by the Soviets--and bungling by Washington politicians--to send Neil Armstrong scampering about on the moon in 1969.

Terrorism and its manifestations continue to evolve, becoming deadlier and more menacing. This study considers the evolution of terrorism since 1968 and how airlines and governments have attempted to deal with this form of violence through a series of nonforce strategies. Using historical examples, we see how governments, particularly the United States, attempted to counter politically motivated aerial hijacking with metal detectors, legal means, and, finally, in frustration, counterviolence operations to subdue terrorists. As nations witnessed aerial hijacking and sieges, the requirement for paramilitary and military counterterrorist forces became a necessity. Through use of examples from Israel (Entebbe 1976), West Germany (Mogadishu 1977), and Egypt (Malta 1985), Taillon concludes that cooperation--ranging from shared intelligence to forward base access and observers--can provide significant advantages in dealing with low-intensity operations. He hopes to highlight those key aspects of cooperation at an international level which have, at least in part, been vital to successful counterterrorist operations in the past and, as we witnessed again in the campaign in Afghanistan, are destined to remain so in the future.

The Latin American narcotics trade is an important national security issue for the United States because it is destabilizing important Latin American allies and creating serious social problems within the United States. Frustration with the inability to block the flow of cocaine, marijuana, and heroin from Latin America prompted passage of major national anti-drug laws in 1986 and 1988. Throughout the decade, United States narcotics policy has created serious friction between the United States and Latin America yet, according to Mabry, it essentially has failed in its goals. Nine experts on this subject deal with the major issues of United States narcotics policy and offer recommendations for future action. The history of the United States narcotics policy, the nature of the trade, the debate over the use of the United States military in interdiction efforts, the role of Congress in making policy, and the origin and implementation of narcotics policy, be it directed against a specific nation or against the entire region, are presented. In addition, the book also contains a List of Tables covering: Consumption of Drugs, and Columbian Trafficker's Investment Preferences. An extensive bibliography is included designed to give other scholars and those interested in this issue an excellent start for further research.

This work is a critical examination of the dangers which confront the United States in the current era of global instability with historical examples of past crises and prescriptive suggestions for the future. America enters the post-Cold War world as a superpower, but one whose future security, and perhaps even survival, cannot be taken for granted. Only three times in modern history has the world seen such potential instability; in two of those instances, the result was total war. In the coming millennium, major crises and wars are inevitable. Whether or not the United States successfully negotiates such conflicts will depend upon decisions made today.

Only careful analysis and planning can help to assure that the United States will preserve its independence and prosperity. This study includes historical examples which illustrate why the current global situation is exceptionally dangerous and how America should prepare to avoid and survive crises, maintain freedom of action, and improve strategic decision-making. The author reviews the most dangerous strategic shortcomings and makes twenty-six recommendations for the future on such topics as military force structure, foreign policy goals, and domestic policy.

This unique, historical study explores how states have articulated statements about terrorism since the 1930s and what effect these discourses have had on global politics. Ditrych's analysis challenges established understandings of terrorism, providing a new conceptualization of how terrorism discourse emerged historically.

This book offers an original analysis and theorization of the biopolitics of development in the postcolonial present, and draws significantly from the later works of Michel Foucault on biopolitics. Foucault s works have had a massive influence on postcolonial literatures, particularly in political science and international relations, and several authors of this book have themselves made significant contributions to that influence.

While Foucault s thought has been inspirational for understanding colonial biopolitics as well as governmental rationalities concerned with development, his works have too often failed to inspire studies of political subjectivity. Instead, they have been used to stoke the myth of the inevitability of the decline of collective political subjects, often describing an increasingly limited horizon of political possibilities, and provoking a disenchantment with the political itself in postcolonial works and studies.

Working against the grain of current Foucauldian scholarship, this book underlines the importance of Foucault s work for the capacity to recognize how this degraded view of political subjectivity came about, particularly within the framework of the discourses and politics of development, and with particular attention to the predicaments of postcolonial peoples. It explores how we can use Foucault s ideas to recover the vital capacity to think and act politically at a time when fundamentally human capacities to think, know and to act purposively in the world are being pathologized as expressions of the hubris and underdevelopment of postcolonial peoples. Why and how it is that life in postcolonial settings has been depoliticized to such dramatic effect? The immediacy of these themes will be obvious to anyone living in the South of the world. But within the academy they remain heavily under-addressed. In thinking about what it means to read Michel Foucault today, this book tackles some significant questions and problems: Not simply that of how to explain the ways in which postcolonial regimes of governance have achieved the debasements of political subjectivity they have; nor that of how we might better equip them with the means to suborn the life of postcolonial peoples more fully; but that of how such peoples, in their subjection to governance, can and do resist, subvert, escape and defy the imposition of modes of governance which seek to remove their lives of those very capacities for resistance, subversion, flight, and defiance.

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Noted scholars and practitioners describe how America's military strategy is being developed in a post-Cold War eolitical environment to meet future needs confronting the sole surviving world superpower. In defining the domestic constraints and the intense political process that is tied into the formulation of military strategy, they show how difficult it is to build a consensus for American military leadership in a multipolar world. This evaluation of strategic concepts and their application to issues about conventional and nuclear deterrence, technological requirements, and collective security should be required reading for staff officers, civilians in national security bureaucracies, policymakers, and students and scholars concerned with military and security policy.

While European reconstruction after World War II followed the pluralistic Marshall Plan that grounded social order in individual interests and interdependence, the roots of dirigiste planning in South Asia, as in the rest of the Third World, lie mainly in the line of deterministic theories represented by Positivism and Marxism. Despite a national commitment to dirigiste planning, however, India retains substantial interstitial pluralism--pluralism within an overall centralized system--that varies from state to state. This variation is directly reflected in interstate variations in development success.

Pragmatic theory, such as that underlying the Marshall Plan, is committed to seeing indigenous thought in its own terms and provides a far more comprehensive analysis of Indian social realities. This study establishes the continuing viability and practicality of the pluralist alternative and identifies what must be done to convert a centralized system to a pluralistic one.

Envisioned before 1900 as a diplomatic and political model for cooperation among nations in the Americas, Pan Americanism has come to represent a varied set of economic, cultural, and political processes at the core of both inter-American cooperation and conflict. This collection of new essays takes Pan Americanism beyond a mere discussion of inter-American cooperation and a Cold War focus on defense and security. While the Pan American Union and, later, the Organization of American States have often been at the center of Pan American politics and diplomacy, Sheinin offers an overview of the ranging facets of Pan Americanism both inside and outside of these institutions. Themes range from a discussion of U.S. influence in the region and other diplomatic initiatives to new research in women's history and environmentalism. A broad range of scholars consider the impact of the abolition of slavery and the role of nation building in the hemisphere, as well as the ideological foundations of Pan Americanism in the United States. The concept is examined as a propaganda device, but also, through the OAS, as a means for smaller countries in the Americas to exercise a degree of diplomatic influence. Other topics include the First Conference of American States and North American plans for an economic union, Pan American feminism, the problem of wildlife preservation, and the theory and practice of inter-American literature. Finally, the book details crucial success stories of the late 20th century: the American Convention on Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

General answers are hard to imagine for the many puzzling questions that are raised by Soviet relations with the world in the early years of the Cold War. Why was Moscow more frightened by the Marshall Plan than the Truman Doctrine? Why would the Soviet Union abandon its closest socialist ally, Yugoslavia, just when the Cold War was getting under way? How could Khrushchev's de-Stalinized domestic and foreign policies at first cause a warming of relations with China, and then lead to the loss of its most important strategic ally? What can explain Stalin's failure to ally with the leaders of the decolonizing world against imperialism and Khrushchev's enthusiastic embrace of these leaders as anti-imperialist at a time of the first detente of the Cold War?
It would seem that only idiosyncratic explanations could be offered for these seemingly incoherent policy outcomes. Or, at best, they could be explained by the personalities of Stalin and Khrushchev as leaders. The latter, although plausible, is incorrect. In fact, the most Stalinist of Soviet leaders, the secret police chief and sociopath, Lavrentii Beria, was the most enthusiastic proponent of de-Stalinized foreign and domestic policies after Stalin's death in March 1953.
Ted Hopf argues, instead, that it was Soviet identity that explains these anomalies. During Stalin's rule, a discourse of danger prevailed in Soviet society, where any deviations from the idealized version of the New Soviet Man, were understood as threatening the very survival of the Soviet project itself. But the discourse of danger did not go unchallenged. Even under the rule of Stalin, Soviet society understood a socialist Soviet Union as a more secure, diverse, and socially democratic place. This discourse of difference, with its broader conception of what the socialist project meant, and who could contribute to it, was empowered after Stalin's death, first by Beria, then by Malenkov, and then by Khrushchev, and the rest of the post-Stalin Soviet leadership. This discourse of difference allowed for the de-Stalinization of Eastern Europe, with the consequent revolts in Poland and Hungary, a rapprochement with Tito's Yugoslavia, and an initial warming of relations with China. But it also sowed the seeds of the split with China, as the latter moved in the very Stalinist direction at home just rejected by Moscow. And, contrary to conventional and scholarly wisdom, a moderation of authoritarianism at home, a product of the discourse of difference, did not lead to a moderation of Soviet foreign policy abroad. Instead, it led to the opening of an entirely new, and bloody, front in the decolonizing world.
In sum, this book argues for paying attention to how societies understand themselves, even in the most repressive of regimes. Who knows, their ideas about national identity, might come to power sometime, as was the case in Iran in 1979, and throughout the Arab world today.

The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is intended to provide an effective framework for responding to crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It is a response to the many conscious-shocking cases where atrocities - on the worst scale - have occurred even during the post 1945 period when the United Nations was built to save us all from the scourge of genocide. The R2P concept accords to sovereign states and international institutions a responsibility to assist peoples who are at risk - or experiencing - the worst atrocities. R2P maintains that collective action should be taken by members of the United Nations to prevent or halt such gross violations of basic human rights. This Handbook, containing contributions from leading theorists, and practitioners (including former foreign ministers and special advisors), examines the progress that has been made in the last 10 years; it also looks forward to likely developments in the next decade.

This book examines the internet as a form of power in global politics. Focusing on the United States' internet foreign policy, McCarthy combines analyses of global material culture and international relation theory, to reconsider how technology is understood as a form of social power.

The Chinese triangle of mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan constitutes one of the most dynamic regions in the world economy. Since the late 1970s, these three societies have experienced increasing economic integration; however, studies aimed at analyzing and explaining this integration have often overlooked the very important role social institutions have played in the shaping of this process. To fill this gap, this book adopts a systematic institutional approach designed to examine the different patterns of institutions in the three countries and to discuss how such social institutions as the economy, gender, social networks, and the Chinese diaspora have exerted a profound impact on all three societies. The chapters, taken together, argue that different patterns of institutional configuration have led to divergent paths of development, and that this divergence will have significant implications on the prospects for Chinese national reunification in the twenty-first century.

The Introductory chapter provides a historical discussion on the origins and the transformation of the Chinese triangle during the second half of the twentieth century. The remainder of the volume is broken into four topics considered crucial for understanding the transformation of the Chinese triangle: economic transformation, gender, social networks, and the Chinese diaspora. As globalization impacts the Chinese triangle, studies that consider the issues from the perspective of social institutions will be increasingly important to understanding the area as it develops in the world economy.

The twentieth century has been described as the bloodiest in human history, but it was also the century in which people around the world embraced ideas of democracy and human rights as never before. They constructed social, political and legal institutions seeking to contain human behaviour, ensuring that by the turn of the twenty- first century more countries were democratic than non-democratic and the protection of human rights had been extended far beyond the expectations of the creators of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Todd Landman offers an optimistic, yet cautionary tale of these developments, drawing on the literature from politics, international relations and international law. He celebrates the global turn from tyranny and violence towards democracy and rights but he also warns of the precariousness of these achievements in the face of democratic setbacks and the undermining of rights commitments by many countries during the controversial "War on Terror."

With the rise of India and China, the rest of Asia is feeling the great impact of socio-economic changes and challenges created by these twin engines of progress and cooperation. The question on the minds of regional analysts is: Where is Russia in the midst of these vast changes? What is its role? How and why is a great power like Russia adopting such a low profile in the region? In what ways can ASEAN engage Russia? Currently, Russia's interaction with ASEAN is limited to dialogue between both parties; trade between both sides is categorized by Russian arms sales and ASEAN raw materials. This book sets out to help explain these anomalies and puzzles, by examining the state of relations between Russia and selected individual ASEAN countries. Several interesting ideas are offered, such as a proposal for a Russia-ASEAN FTA; building tourism/business bridges through budget airlines; and proposals to strengthen and energize the ASEAN-Russia dialogue.

With the cold war over and the Soviet empire dead, a new examination of American national policies and priorities is beginning. Most of the economic, political and military costs of the American empire, which exceed $1 trillion each year, are being questioned for the first time since World War II. Touted by George Washington as the infant empire, the United States expanded across the North American continent and at the turn of the twentiety century into the Pacific and Caribbean. At the end of World War II, it became the leader of the free world, a world empire of unprecedented power. However, by the 1980s, the strain of world leadership became apparent and signs of economic decline appeared, which is the inevitable fate of all empires. Jim Hanson undertakes this examination of imperial overstretch and decline and calls for a rechanneling of national energies into solving world-wide problems of war, environmental deterioration, and over-population. This historic-based and analytic critique of imperial America will interest scholars and students of American and world history, political and social science, economics, and foreign affairs.