Padraig O'Malley's Perils & Prospects of a United Ireland presents the definitive study of the questions around the future of Northern Irish politics, including the idea of reunification. Focusing on the topics of the Northern Ireland Protocol, the Good Friday Agreement, Brexit, Unionism, Nationalism, the economics of potential reunification or continued partition, and the wide range of Northern Irish identities, this work encompasses the most up-to-date and considered review of political actions so far. A must-read for those interested in the future of Northern Ireland.

This book brings together leading figures in democratic reform and civic engagement to show why and how better state-citizen cooperation is needed to improve democracy and public service. It explains why the problem of civic disengagement poses a major threat and shows how obstacles to democratic cooperation between citizens and state institutions can be overcome.

With this multivolume study, Anthony H. Cordesman once again proves that he is a leading authority on the affairs of the Middle Eastern states. Cordesman led this comprehensive net assessment of the political, economic, energy, security (both internal and external), and military trends in each of the Gulf states, as well as the power projection capabilities of the U.S. forces in the Gulf.

This volume provides analysis of the state of Iraq's security and of current Western policy toward the country in the wake of the Gulf War. It also examines the political, economic, and security impact of sanctions, Iraq's future role as an oil exporter, the U.S. policy of "dual containment" in relation to Iraq, and options for dealing with Iraq in the future.

With the thoroughness that this recently spotlighted nation of Kuwait requires, this volume examines Kuwait's internal and external security situation after the turbulent days of the Gulf War and investigates continued Western involvement in its safekeeping. It also examines Kuwait's changing role as an energy exporter.

Global processes have an increasing influence on local contexts and the nature and distribution of opportunities among populations across the globe. While capital and population mobility, advances in information and communications technology, and economic liberalization have fostered economic development, industrialization, and wealth for some, they have also engendered growing inequalities in income, prosperity, well-being, and access. Those left behind by these global transformations often experience not only material deprivation, but broader dislocation from the contexts, institutions, and capabilities that provide access to social and economic opportunity. The concept of "social exclusion" has been widely adopted to describe the conditions of economic, social, political, and/or cultural marginalization experienced by particular groups of people due to extreme poverty, discrimination, dislocation, and disenfranchisement. This book explores the dynamics of social exclusion within the context of globalization across four countries-China, India, South Korea, and the United States. In particular, it examines how social exclusion is defined, manifested, and responded to with regard to diverse social arenas and processes, varying mechanisms and scales, and a range of impacted populations. Based on collaborative research activities and in-depth deliberation among leading scholars from major academic institutions in each of the four aforementioned countries, the volume provides a rich account of the interplay between globalization and social exclusion, while highlighting the ways in which responses may be more or less effective in different contexts. Its insights will be of particular interest to academics, researchers, and students across diverse social science disciplines.

Members of Congress from racial minority groups often find themselves in a unique predicament. For one thing, they tend to represent constituencies that are more economically disadvantaged than those of their white colleagues. Moreover, they themselves experience marginalization during the process of policy formulation on Capitol Hill. In Twists of Fate, Vanessa C. Tyson illuminates the experiences of racial minority members of the House of Representatives as they endeavor to provide much-needed resources for their districts. In doing so, she devises a framework for understanding the federal legislative behavior of House members representing marginalized communities. She points to the unique ways in which they conceive of political influence as well as the strategies they have adopted for success. Black, Hispanic, and Asian Pacific American Caucuses, among other minority groups, have built cross-racial coalitions that reflect their linked political fate. This strategy differs considerably from competitive approaches often espoused at the local level and from the more atomized interactions of representatives at the federal level of the policy process. Tyson draws on two years of personal experience observing and interacting with members of the House of Representatives in session, in their home districts, at functions sponsored by racial minority caucuses, and at White House events to illustrate her argument. Despite variation of experience and ideology within and amongst racial minority groups, she shows that representatives of minority coalitions have repeatedly and successfully worked together as they advocate for equality and social justice. She also points to a willingness among these coalitions to champion a non-discrimination agenda that extends beyond "traditional" issues of race and ethnicity to issues of class, gender and orientation. Twists of Fate provides a compelling model for understanding how diverse groups can work together to forge hopeful political futures.

While Mossad is known as one of the world's most successful terrorist-fighting organizations, the state of Israel has, more than once and on many levels, risked the lives of its agents and soldiers through unwise intelligence-based intervention. The elimination of Palestinian leaders and militants has not decreased the incidence of Palestinian terrorism, for example. In fact, these incidents have become more lethal than ever, and ample evidence suggests that the actions of Israeli intelligence have fueled terrorist activities across the globe.

An expert on terror and political extremism, Ami Pedahzur argues that Israel's strict reliance on the elite units of the intelligence community is fundamentally flawed. A unique synthesis of memoir, academic research, and information gathered from print and online sources, Pedahzur's complex study explores this issue through Israel's past encounters with terrorists, specifically hostage rescue missions, the first and second wars in Lebanon, the challenges of the West Bank and Gaza, Palestinian terrorist groups, and Hezbollah. He brings a rare transparency to Israel's counterterrorist activities, highlighting their successes and failures and the factors that have contributed to these results. From the foundations of this analysis, Pedahzur ultimately builds a strategy for future confrontation that will be relevant not only to Israel but also to other countries that have adopted Israel's intelligence-based model.

Sovereignty in Exile explores sovereignty and state power through the case of a liberation movement that set out to make itself into a state. The Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) was founded by the Polisario Front in the wake of Spain's abandonment of its former colony, the disputed Western Sahara. Morocco laid claim to the same territory, and the conflict has locked Polisario and Morocco in a political stalemate that has lasted forty years. Complicating the situation is the fact that Polisario conducts its day-to-day operations in refugee camps near Tindouf, in Algeria, which house most of the Sahrawi exile community. SADR (a partially recognized state) and Polisario (Western Sahara's liberation movement) together form an unusual governing authority, originally premised on the dismantling of a perceived threat to national (Sahrawi) unity: tribes. Drawing on unprecedented long-term research gained by living with Sahrawi refugee families, Alice Wilson examines how tribal social relations are undermined, recycled, and have reemerged as the refugee community negotiates governance, resolves disputes, manages social inequalities, and improvises alternatives to taxation. Wilson trains an ethnographic lens on the creation of administrative categories, legal reforms, aid distribution, marriage practices, local markets, and contested elections within the camps. Tracing social, political, and economic changes among Sahrawi refugees, Sovereignty in Exile reveals the dynamics of a postcolonial liberation movement that has endured for decades in the deserts of North Africa while trying to bring about the revolutionary transformation of a society which identifies with a Bedouin past.

This book provides research findings and practical information on online communication strategies in politics. Based on communication research and real-world political-campaign experience, the author examines how to use the Web and social media to create public visibility, build trust and consensus and boost political participation. It offers a useful guide for practitioners working in the political arena, as well as for those managing communication projects in institutions or companies.

In Arab Revolution in the 21st Century?, Nader Fergany presents a compassionate analysis of the Arab popular uprisings in the 21st century, with particular reference to the cases of Egypt and Tunisia. Under authoritarian rule, relentless injustice creates the objective conditions for expressions of popular protest which may culminate in popular uprisings, as witnessed in many Arab countries at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Unsurprisingly, the slogans of the Arab Liberation Tide (ALT) popular revolts centered around freedom, implying sound democratic governance, social justice, and human dignity for all. In reality, the short-lived governance arrangements which followed the January 2011 popular revolt in Egypt, for example, were little more than extensions of the authoritarian governance system the revolt set out to overthrow. There were differences, of course, between the three short-lived regimes that took power since then, but in form, rather than substance. This book uses a structuralist political economy framework rather than a detailed historical account as it considers how the ALT may prove to be an historic opportunity for human renaissance in the Arab World - or alternatively a disaster of epic proportions.

Dismal spending on government health services is often considered a necessary consequence of a low per-capita GDP, but are poor patients in poor countries really fated to be denied the fruits of modern medicine? In many countries, officials speak of proper health care as a luxury, and convincing politicians to ensure citizens have access to quality health services is a constant struggle. Yet, in many of the poorest nations, health care has long received a tiny share of public spending. Colonial and postcolonial governments alike have used political, rhetorical, and even martial campaigns to rebuff demands by patients and health professionals for improved medical provision, even when more funds were available. No More to Spend challenges the inevitability of inadequate social services in twentieth-century Africa, focusing on the political history of Malawi. Using the stories of doctors, patients, and political leaders, Luke Messac demonstrates how both colonial and postcolonial administrations in this nation used claims of scarcity to justify the poor state of health care. During periods of burgeoning global discourse on welfare and social protection, forestalling improvements in health care required varied forms of rationalization and denial. Calls for better medical care compelled governments, like that of Malawi, to either increase public health spending or offer reasons for their inaction. Because medical care is still sparse in many regions in Africa, the recurring tactics for prolonged neglect have important implications for global health today.

This book examines how social media have transformed politics in established democracies. Specifically, the authors examine the influence of the unique qualities of social media on the power balance between and within parties. They present a general theory as well as an in-depth case study of the Netherlands and compare it to the US and European democracies. The authors show how and why social media's introduction leads to equalization for some and normalization for others. Additional to national politics, Jacobs and Spierings investigate often-overlooked topics such as local and European politics and the impact on women and ethnic minorities.

Asked about queer work in international relations, most IR scholars would almost certainly answer that queer studies is a non-issue for the subdiscipline - a topic beyond the scope and understanding of international politics. Yet queer work tackles problems that IR scholars themselves believe are central to their discipline: questions about political economies, the geopolitics of war and terror, and the national manifestations of sexual, racial, and gendered hierarchies, not to mention their implications for empire, globalization, neoliberalism, sovereignty, and terrorism. And since the introduction of queer work in the 1980s, IR scholars have used queer concepts like "performativity" or "crossing" in relation to important issues like sovereignty and security without acknowledging either their queer sources or their queer function. This agenda-setting book asks how "sexuality" and "queer" are constituted as domains of international political practice and mobilized so that they bear on questions of state and nation formation, war and peace, and international political economy. How are sovereignty and sexuality entangled in contemporary international politics? What understandings of sovereignty and sexuality inform contemporary theories and foreign policies on development, immigration, terrorism, human rights, and regional integration? How specifically is "the homosexual" figured in these theories and policies to support or contest traditional understandings of sovereignty? Queer International Relations puts international relations scholarship and transnational/global queer studies scholarship in conversation to address these questions and their implications for contemporary international politics.

The United States is a nation in crisis. While Washington's ability to address our most pressing challenges has been rendered nearly impotent by ongoing partisan warfare, we face an array of foreign-policy crises for which we seem increasingly unprepared. Among these, none is more formidable than the unprecedented partnership developing between Russia and China, suspicious neighbors for centuries and fellow Communist antagonists during the Cold War. The two longtime foes have drawn increasingly close together because of a confluence of geostrategic, political, and economic interests--all of which have a common theme of diminishing, subverting, or displacing American power. While America's influence around the world recedes--in its military and diplomatic power, in its political leverage, in its economic might, and, perhaps most dangerously, in the power and appeal of its ideas--Russia and China have seen their influence increase. From their support for rogue regimes such as those in Iran, North Korea, and Syria to their military and nuclear buildups to their aggressive use of cyber warfare and intelligence theft, Moscow and Beijing are playing the game for keeps. Meanwhile America, pledged to "leading from behind," no longer does much leading at all. In Return to Winter, Douglas E. Schoen and Melik Kaylan systematically chronicle the growing threat from the Russian-Chinese Axis, and they argue that only a rebirth of American global leadership can counter the corrosive impact of this antidemocratic alliance, which may soon threaten the peace and security of the world.

In this straightforward exploration of core problems facing humanity, Harold Saunders outlines how concerned citizens can bring about social and political change. Using examples from the U.S. to South Africa, Tajikistan to China, this book is full of real stories of how building 'relationship' among people can empower citizens outside government.

We live in an age of crises that are global in scale and potentially apocalyptic in severity, affecting the lives of millions billions of people. Peter Lee examines the struggle for truth at the heart of these crises to show how political leaders attempt to shape individual behavior, attitudes and identity.

In the last two decades, the rise of global health studies at universities across the world reflects the interest of a growing generation of students motivated to be involved in progressive global change. Grassroots advocacy for health equity and strong leadership in the global South have catalyzed a paradigm shift from primarily preventative health programs to holistic systems providing health care as a human right. To succeed in this field, students must not only understand the elements needed to deliver equitable health care but also the historical and social factors that cause and propagate health disparities. An Introduction to Global Health Delivery, Second Edition is an immersive introduction to global health's origins, actors, interventions, and challenges from the ongoing impacts of racism to the momentum for the delivery of care that began with the AIDS movement through to the current era of COVID-19. Informed by physician Joia Mukherjee's quarter-century of experience fighting disease and poverty in more than a dozen countries, it delivers a clear-eyed overview of the movement underway to address injustice, reduce global health disparities, and deliver health care as a human right. This second edition extends the lens of global health delivery to address the challenges of COVID-19 and the prevention of future pandemics. It features updated chapters exploring pandemics, preparedness, and the intersection of key social movements with the right to health care, including Black Lives Matter, decolonization, and climate justice. Enriched with case studies and exercises that encourage readers to think critically about equitable global health delivery, An Introduction to Global Health Delivery, Second Edition is the essential starting point for readers of any background seeking a practical grounding in global health's promise and progress.

Bouwer draws on literary criticism, a thorough grounding in the historical literature, and her own interviews with one of Lumumba's wives in her efforts to use gender as a means of understanding Lumumba's life and legacy. Her book is an exemplary example of interdisciplinary scholarship and provides a model for scholars seeking to weave literary and historical methods together. This outstanding work deserves a wide audience of scholars. Essential. - CHOICE 'Although a significant amount of writing exists on the history of Congo's decolonization, almost all of it focuses on the political process. With this book, Karen Bouwer adds a much needed gender perspective to this body of work. Gender and Decolonization in the Congo is both a book about women and one that seeks to employ a gender analysis to understand Patrice Lumumba's writings and his life's legacy. In all, this book makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on Congo's decolonization from an understudied perspective, and demonstrates how political legacies are shaped.'

What drug provides Americans with the greatest pleasure and the greatest pain? The answer, hands down, is alcohol. The pain comes not only from drunk driving and lost lives but also addiction, family strife, crime, violence, poor health, and squandered human potential. Young and old, drinkers and abstainers alike, all are affected. Every American is paying for alcohol abuse. Paying the Tab, the first comprehensive analysis of this complex policy issue, calls for broadening our approach to curbing destructive drinking. Over the last few decades, efforts to reduce the societal costs--curbing youth drinking and cracking down on drunk driving--have been somewhat effective, but woefully incomplete. In fact, American policymakers have ignored the influence of the supply side of the equation. Beer and liquor are far cheaper and more readily available today than in the 1950s and 1960s. Philip Cook's well-researched and engaging account chronicles the history of our attempts to "legislate morality," the overlooked lessons from Prohibition, and the rise of Alcoholics Anonymous. He provides a thorough account of the scientific evidence that has accumulated over the last twenty-five years of economic and public-health research, which demonstrates that higher alcohol excise taxes and other supply restrictions are effective and underutilized policy tools that can cut abuse while preserving the pleasures of moderate consumption. Paying the Tab makes a powerful case for a policy course correction. Alcohol is too cheap, and it's costing all of us.

Events of protest and dissent have been the subject of much global debate and media attention. However, no one book has dealt with the wide range of protests nor with the terminology associated with the state and police response to it. This dictionary explores a variety of issues related to the policing of public order, protest and political violence providing a comprehensive overview of international protest since 1945. It defines the key terms associated with these activities and, through the use of a number of international case studies, it includes numerous examples of protest and dissent that have taken place across the world, and the groups and organisations which have utilized these forms of political expression.Written in an accessible style, each entry is accompanied by a list of sources and suggestions for further reading through which readers can extend their knowledge of each of the topics. This unique and in-depth resource will be an essential guide for scholars across Criminology, Criminal Justice, Policing, Political History and International Relations.

In 1991, certain political and military leaders in Somalia, wishing to gain exclusive control over the state, mobilized their followers to use terror--wounding, raping, and killing--to expel a vast number of Somalis from the capital city of Mogadishu and south-central and southern Somalia. Manipulating clan sentiment, they succeeded in turning ordinary civilians against neighbors, friends, and coworkers. Although this episode of organized communal violence is common knowledge among Somalis, its real nature has not been publicly acknowledged and has been ignored, concealed, or misrepresented in scholarly works and political memoirs--until now. Marshaling a vast amount of source material, including Somali poetry and survivor accounts, "Clan Cleansing in Somalia" analyzes this campaign of clan cleansing against the historical background of a violent and divisive military dictatorship, in the contemporary context of regime collapse, and in relationship to the rampant militia warfare that followed in its wake."Clan Cleansing in Somalia" also reflects on the relationship between history, truth, and postconflict reconstruction in Somalia. Documenting the organization and intent behind the campaign of clan cleansing, Lidwien Kapteijns traces the emergence of the hate narratives and code words that came to serve as rationales and triggers for the violence. However, it was not clans that killed, she insists, but people who killed in the name of clan. Kapteijns argues that the mutual forgiveness for which politicians often so lightly call is not a feasible proposition as long as the violent acts for which Somalis should forgive each other remain suppressed and undiscussed. "Clan Cleansing in Somalia" establishes that public acknowledgment of the ruinous turn to communal violence is indispensable to social and moral repair, and can provide a gateway for the critical memory work required from Somalis on all sides of this multifaceted conflict.