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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Terrorism, freedom fighters, armed struggle > General
Paying tribute to a noted scholar by digging deep into the issues he explored.Long-time Brookings senior fellow Stephen Philip Cohen was the first American scholar to work in the field of South Asian security studies. He largely defined the field, trained many of is leading analysts, and was himself its most experienced and insightful scholar-practitioner until his death in 2019. This book of essays by several of his students who have made an impact on the field, along contributions from academics who knew Cohen well as well as former students in policy fields, is an intellectual homage to Cohen. It is also an impressive overview of a number of the vital questions facing the nations of that region as well as their neighbors both near and far. Major enduring issues in regional security include India-Pakistan relations, India-China relations, conventional forces-and perhaps the most sensitive issue of all, nuclear weapons. But other important issues remain underexplored, especially outside the region, and are addressed in this book. They include Pakistan's political culture, the politics of the insurgency in Baluchistan, political legitimacy and governance in India and China, and internal security threats facing Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, and the Maldives. Governments and societies in the region have grappled with these issues for decades, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. To varying degrees, the issues have important implications for U.S. foreign policy in and beyond South Asia. Anyone interested in the security of South Asia will be rewarded with new insights from academics and analysts who address a wide range of subjects Stephen Philip Cohen covered during his long and distinguished career.
Drawing on critical geopolitics and related strands of social theory, this book combines new case studies with theoretical and methodological reflections on the geographical analysis of security and insecurity. It brings together a mixture of early career and more established scholars and interprets security and the war on terror across a number of domains, including: international law, religion, migration, development, diaspora, art, nature and social movements. At a time when powerful projects of globalization and security continue to extend their reach over an increasingly wide circle of people and places, the book demonstrates the relevance of critical geographical imaginations to an interrogation of the present.
This book presents a holistic view of the geopolitics of cyberspace that have arisen over the past decade, utilizing recent events to explain the international security dimension of cyber threat and vulnerability, and to document the challenges of controlling information resources and protecting computer systems. How are the evolving cases of cyber attack and breach as well as the actions of government and corporations shaping how cyberspace is governed? What object lessons are there in security cases such as those involving Wikileaks and the Snowden affair? An essential read for practitioners, scholars, and students of international affairs and security, this book examines the widely pervasive and enormously effective nature of cyber threats today, explaining why cyber attacks happen, how they matter, and how they may be managed. The book addresses a chronology of events starting in 2005 to comprehensively explain the international security dimension of cyber threat and vulnerability. It begins with an explanation of contemporary information technology, including the economics of contemporary cloud, mobile, and control systems software as well as how computing and networking-principally the Internet-are interwoven in the concept of cyberspace. Author Chris Bronk, PhD, then documents the national struggles with controlling information resources and protecting computer systems. The book considers major security cases such as Wikileaks, Stuxnet, the cyber attack on Estonia, Shamoon, and the recent exploits of the Syrian Electronic Army. Readers will understand how cyber security in the 21st century is far more than a military or defense issue, but is a critical matter of international law, diplomacy, commerce, and civil society as well. Provides relevant, rigorous information to those in the computer security field while also being accessible to a general audience of policy, international security, and military readers who seek to understand the cyber security issue and how it has evolved Documents how contemporary society is dependent upon cyberspace for its function, and that the understanding of how it works and how it can be broken is knowledge held by a precious few Informs both technically savvy readers who build and maintain the infrastructure of cyberspace and the policymakers who develop rules, processes, and laws on how the cyber security problem is managed
The authors argue that the potential threat of a resurgence of "fascism" has been consistently exaggerated from 1945 until present day; that the ongoing lack of conceptual and definitional clarity with respect to terms like "fascism," the "radical right," the "alt right," "white supremacism," "populism," "racism," etc., has enabled ill-informed or dishonest commentators to distort their meaning and abusively misapply those labels so as to delegitimize their political opponents-that the political and economic elites in charge of contemporary Western societies are now deliberately exaggerating and exploiting the threat posed by the domestic radical right in order to facilitate vilifying, harassing, de-platforming, censoring, "canceling," and repressing disgruntled citizens (no matter where they may lie along the political spectrum) who openly criticize and vigorously oppose their agendas. They also advocate the use of well-established scholarly methods for carrying out research on the right and provide precise definitions of various terms in order to facilitate the development of more accurate categorizations.
This book explores the challenges of creating a secure and stable Iraq in the wake of the military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Analyzing the impact of the fight against ISIS, the collection provides answers to questions relating to both political and humanitarian considerations in Iraqi post-war recovery. In their analysis, the editors and authors develop policy recommendations for the international and Iraqi political communities. It is essential reading for those interested in politics, international relations, post-war recovery, counter-terrorism, Middle Eastern studies and Iraqi studies scholars.
This interdisciplinary Handbook offers a comprehensive and detailed overview of the relationship between gender and war, exploring the conduct of war, its impact, aftermath, and opposition to it. Offering sophisticated theoretical insights and empirical research from the First World War to contemporary conflicts around the world, this Handbook underscores the centrality of gender to critical examinations of war. A standout characteristic of this volume is its synthesis of both scholarly and policy-relevant debates as well as detailed case studies addressing both war and post-conflict realities. Including feminist perspectives with critical attention to men and masculinities, this Handbook proves itself to be both expansive and meticulous in its scholarly approach and critiques. The Handbook on Gender and War draws upon research from a wide variety of disciplines and will be of interest to scholars and researchers of gender and sexuality studies, international relations, sociology, peace and conflict studies, and cultural studies. It will also hold great appeal to policymakers and field workers engaged in projects in post-conflict re-construction, human rights, development, and gender justice. Contributors include: L. Ahall, M. Alam, S. Basu, V.M. Basham, D. Berkowitz, J. Burkett, J. Chan, M. Denov, I.R. Feinman, L. Feitz, C.E. Gentry, C. Hamilton, P. Higate, C. Hills, A. Howell, J.P. Jacobsen, T. Kaiser, Q. Lin, M. MacKenzie, M. Manjikian, J. Nagel, C. O'Rourke, J. Pattinson, J. Pedersen, A. Ricard-Guay, C. Rowe, L. Sjoberg, S. Sharoni, L.J. Shepherd, L. Steiner, J. Welland, Z.H. Wool
Critically analyzing the specific security threat posed by COVID-19 to global society, the contributors to this book offer a comprehensive and critical examination of global challenges and responses while suggesting more balanced and nuanced approaches to handling these security impacts. The COVID-19 pandemic brought about a huge challenge to health security across the globe. Several countries were pushed into lockdown repeatedly to prevent the spread of infection. The global economy has seen a major slowdown and disruption of supply chains around the world. There have also been major implications from changes to traditional security systems as well as diverse societal change even down to aspects of daily life. The chapters in this book show that progressive initiatives have expended a mixture of soft and hard response strategies that include understanding, containing, fighting, and preventing COVID-19. They look at major sectors including defense, trade, health, and bioterrorism among others. In doing so, they highlight the best practices used around the world to minimize the threat posed by COVID-19's impact. A vital resource for security studies scholars and policymakers.
This book investigates why Chile suddenly confronted a violent social revolt in October 2019, after almost thirty years of political stability, during which time the country was broadly regarded as Latin America's most successful nation. Since democratic restoration in 1990, Chile's relatively high levels of political stability, increasing prosperity and social modernisation have stood out in a region shaken by political convulsion and economic malaise. In early October 2019, President Sebastian Pinera confidently claimed that Chile represented a true 'oasis' of political stability and economic vitality in Latin America. However, just weeks later, the announcement of a small increase in the price of Santiago's underground transport system unleashed an unprecedented wave of violent anti-government protests in the country, with protestors ultimately demanding Pinera's resignation and the end of neoliberalism and the 1980 Constitution, among many other demands. This book analyses the causes of Chile's socio-political upheaval, arguing that the fast social and economic modernisation produced by the neoliberal system led to a series of destabilising socio-political processes in the country. At a time when much analysis of the October uprising tends to be superficial or polarised on ideological grounds, this book provides a much-needed sociological and institutional analysis of the crisis. It will be an important read for scholars of Latin American politics and development, as well as those with a broader interest in state legitimacy, social movements and political contestation against neoliberalism.
The Islamist Challenge and Africa explores Islamist militancy in Africa south of the Sahara, one of the most dangerous regions in the world. More people have died from political conflict in Africa than in any other place on earth. Between 1999 and 2008, Africa experienced thirteen major armed conflicts, the highest of any region. Between 1993 and 2014 Africa witnessed no less than 50 per cent of the world's genocides and politicides. The Islamist Challenge examines, (1) al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda ally, (2) al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, (3) Boko Haram, an ISIS ally and (4) other Islamist insurgencies among Africans. Boko Haram alone may have killed as many as 31, 000 mostly African civilians since 2009, a figure that ranks among the highest in the world. Boko Haram's leader has threatened the West, the US and its President, making his challenge both African and international despite the fact that most Americans have never heard of him. But the Paris attacks of 2015 with roots in France's 2005 "riots" by mostly brown and black militants with links to North and West Africa suggests the danger is no less real. Africa has never been a priority among policy makers and is the only world region whose top military command center, AFRICOM is located a continent away in Stuttgart, Germany. But a 6,000-page classified report released in 2018 after the ambush and killing of four US soldiers in Niger in 2017 suggests that this may be about to change. The Islamist Challenge examines Islamist militancy's longstanding presence among Africans, Islamist militancy's distinct ideological features among Africans and ways to minimize if not eliminate its violence. One critic describes the challenge as one that presents a choice not between war and peace but between war and endless war! Whether this is true or not, a change in Africa's status among policy makers is long overdue. The adage: let not the important be the enemy of the urgent may be a warning to policy makers to abandon the error of marginalizing Africa and Africans before it is too late. The Islamist Challenge underscores this warning.
This book develops a detailed, disaggregated theoretical and empirical framework that explains variations in mass killing by authoritarian regimes globally, with a specific focus on Pakistan, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Using a combination of game-theoretic, statistical, and qualitative approaches, this project explicates when civilians within nondemocratic states will mobilize against the ruling elite, and when such mobilization will result in mass killing. In doing so, it illustrates the important role urbanization and food insecurity historically played, and will continue to play, in generating extreme forms of civilian victimization.
Conflict at the Edge of the African State: The ADF Rebel Group in the Congo-Uganda Borderland studies one of the oldest and most secretive rebel groups in the eastern Congo warscape: the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF). Operating in the Rwenzori borderland of western Uganda and eastern Congo for nearly three decades now, they have proven to be an extremely resilient rebel force, surviving longer than nearly any other violent actor in the area. The ADF have come under increased scrutiny from regional governments and global conflict management actors recently, due to their Islamic character and alleged connections to the Islamic State and other international terrorist actors. Yet, there is a lack of informed discussion on the rebellion and very little understanding of the structures and constitution of the group. In Conflict at the Edge of the African State, Lindsay Scorgie offers a nuanced and ultimately corrective framework for understanding the ADF. Conflict at the Edge of the African State moves away from traditional state-centric concepts of cross-border conflict and instead situates the rebels within a borderland context, examining how their deeply embedded position in local cross-border histories has fueled their resiliency.
This book examines the phenomenon of paramilitarism across Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia, offering a nuanced perspective while identifying key patterns in the way paramilitary violence is implicated in processes of capital accumulation, state-building, and the reproduction of social power. Paramilitary violence, a key modality of coercion in the era of globalization, has been pursued by states and dominant classes in the Global South, to reproduce or extend their power over subaltern groups. Paramilitary groups are responsible for atrocities, including extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, rape, and forced displacement. The book integrates empirically rich investigations into an emergent theory of political violence, capturing the relationship between parastatal armed actors, capital, and the state. The analysis sheds light on globally relevant phenomena such as the end of the Cold War, the shifting role of US hegemony, and evolving nature of the nation-state. The book is suitable for academics, graduate and upper-year undergraduate students, and policy-makers in development, human rights, and violence prevention. Given its interdisciplinary subject, it appeals to scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, sociology, political anthropology, development, peace and conflict, security and terrorism, international relations, and global studies.
Virtually every nation has had to confront tensions between the rule-of-law demands for transparency and accountability and the need for confidentiality with respect to terrorism and national security. This book provides a global and comparative overview of the implications of governmental secrecy in a variety of contexts. Expert contributors from around the world discuss the dilemmas posed by the necessity for - and evils of - secrecy, and assess constitutional mechanisms for checking the abuse of secrecy by national and international institutions in the field of counter-terrorism. In recent years, nations have relied on secret evidence to detain suspected terrorists and freeze their assets, have barred lawsuits alleging human rights violations by invoking 'state secrets', and have implemented secret surveillance and targeted killing programs. The book begins by addressing the issue of secrecy at the institutional level, examining the role of courts and legislatures in regulating the use of secrecy claims by the executive branch of government. From there, the focus shifts to the three most vital areas of anti-terrorism law: preventive detention, criminal trials and administrative measures (notably, targeted economic sanctions). The contributors explore how assertions of secrecy and national security in each of these areas affect the functioning of the legal system and the application of procedural justice and fairness. Students, professors and researchers interested in constitutional law, international law, comparative law and issues of terrorism and security will find this an invaluable addition to the literature. Judges, lawyers and policymakers will also find much of use in this critical volume. Contributors: O. Aronson, K. Clark, D. Cole, D. Curtin, F. Fabbrini, T. Fischer, L. Garlicki, S. Krebs, N. Lomjaria, A. Lynch, J. Mazzone, C.C. Murphy, T. Ojanen, K. Roach, M. Scheinin, S. Schulhofer, S. Sedley, S. Setty, T. Tulich, M. Vashakmadze, A. Vedaschi, S.I. Vladeck, C. Walker, R. Welsh
This volume explores the paramount importance of family to jihadism in France, Spain and in Europe more generally. In France, special focus is given to the Mohammed Merah paradigmatic case study in the Toulouse region. In Spain, attention is given to the North and to Catalonia. With attention to both the concrete family - often in crisis - and the imaginary family invented by radicalized youth to substitute, this book shows the fundamental need among many jihadists to reconstitute the family, whether in the form of a clan or the imagined Caliphate (or neo-Ummah): a form of shared existence that offers escape from societies in which jihadists feel ill-at-ease. Demonstrating the failure of an emphasis on the individual actor to capture the meaning of jihadism, Family and Jihadism reveals the fundamental importance to our understanding of jihadist activity of the family (in an extended anthropological sense) - real or imagined - into which the individual is inserted. A study of the crisis of family and the re-creation of a new, enlarged family in the lives of young jihadists, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, politics and security studies with interests in radicalisation, political violence, social movements and religious violence.
This volume explores the paramount importance of family to jihadism in France, Spain and in Europe more generally. In France, special focus is given to the Mohammed Merah paradigmatic case study in the Toulouse region. In Spain, attention is given to the North and to Catalonia. With attention to both the concrete family - often in crisis - and the imaginary family invented by radicalized youth to substitute, this book shows the fundamental need among many jihadists to reconstitute the family, whether in the form of a clan or the imagined Caliphate (or neo-Ummah): a form of shared existence that offers escape from societies in which jihadists feel ill-at-ease. Demonstrating the failure of an emphasis on the individual actor to capture the meaning of jihadism, Family and Jihadism reveals the fundamental importance to our understanding of jihadist activity of the family (in an extended anthropological sense) - real or imagined - into which the individual is inserted. A study of the crisis of family and the re-creation of a new, enlarged family in the lives of young jihadists, this book will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology, politics and security studies with interests in radicalisation, political violence, social movements and religious violence.
* Provides the latest organizational changes, restructures, and policy developments in DHS * Outlines the role of multi-jurisdictional agencies-this includes stakeholders at all levels of government relative to the various intelligence community, law enforcement, emergency managers, and private sector agencies * Presents a balanced approach to the challenges the federal and state government agencies are faced with in emergency planning and preparedness, countering terrorism, and critical infrastructure protection * Includes full regulatory and oversight legislation passed since the last edition, as well as updates on the global terrorism landscape and prominent terrorist incidents, both domestic and international * Highlights emerging, oftentimes controversial, topics such as the use of drones, border security and immigration, surveillance technologies, and pandemic planning and response * Each chapter contains extensive pedagogy including learning objectives, sidebar boxes, chapter summaries, end of chapter questions, Web links, and references for ease in comprehension
This book, written in honor of Arno Tausch, presents cutting-edge research on globalization, development, and global values. Internationally renowned authors cover topics such as global economic and political cycles, global values, and support for terrorism. Over the last five decades, the Austrian political scientist Arno Tausch was a pioneer in studies on globalization, development and global values. This collection of essays takes up the issues dealt with by Tausch and presents perspectives for the 21st Century. Throughout his work, Tausch applied quantitative methods to study the fundamental issues of the global political economy and the global political system, like dependency, economic and political cycles, and global values, based on a rigorous study of available social scientific data, like the World Values Survey and the Arab Barometer.
This edited book presents international perspectives on the role of mental health problems in understanding and managing the risk of violent extremism. The chapters included in this book address two themes. First, they describe the research findings on the nature and prevalence of the range of mental health problems (psychosis, personality disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and depression, autism spectrum disorders) in young people and adults who have in the past, committed acts of violence motivated at least in part by extremist ideologies, or who have attempted or threatened such acts, or who for other reasons are thought to be at risk of doing so. Second, the chapters examine what is known about the relationship - or the functional link - between mental health problems and violent extremism. The focus of this book is on clinical practice and understanding the nature of the challenge faced by practitioners and their response to it. It will therefore be of interest to mental health practitioners, service managers and commissioners, and policy makers with a remit to understand and mitigate risk of radicalisation and violent extremism. The chapters in this book were originally published in The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology.
Given the extremely high cost of overseas military operations today, the author offers readers scholarly insights as to what motivates kingdoms, countries, and groups to engage in religious conflict, beginning with those found in the Hebrew Bible. To do this, he analyzes three related religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, to determine their similarities and differences regarding the killing of people. The areas of conflict analysis include Fundamentalism, Proselytization, Sacrifice (to include martyrdom), and Revenge (to include genocide). The insights of preeminent religious and political scholars are integrated into this comprehensive analysis of conflict involving religion, leading to an answer to the ultimate question: Is the killing worth it?
In the last few decades, there has been a considerable effort, mainly from Western liberal countries, to create, develop, and diffuse into domestic laws, an internationally harmonized counter-terrorist financing regime through international treaties, recommendations and resolutions. This book aims to explore the penal (criminalization and confiscation) measures of the regime. Belonging to the category of analytical research, the book explores the nature of terrorist financing, and critically and extensively examines how it has been conceptualized and criminalized. The book argues that the application of these penal measures results in over-criminalization due to the vague conceptualization of the concept of terrorist financing, and due to its incompatibility with basic notions of criminalization and fundamental principles of the criminal law of many countries specifically Anglo-American law. Examining a number of ASEAN countries' law on terrorist financing, the book then shows how these controversial measures have been crept into their law, resulting in the violation of human rights and democratic values which Western countries seek to promote.
When we take a look back at the way Western states have fought terrorist organizations in the last 20 years, it is difficult not to think that these alternatives to war might have been more ethical than the decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and in 2003. These cases speak for themselves as they have both led to the death of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, which is highly paradoxical in light of the logic that supported these interventions. There is a need to think of alternatives to war that will imply the legitimization of proactive sets of measures that would allow states to effectively prevent terrorist attacks through the use of kinetic force in a limited extent as a way to avoid the terrible and unpredictable effects of wars. Violent Alternatives to War: Justifying Actions Against Contemporary Terrorism engages in a moral discussion of the challenges associated with violent alternatives to war when confronting terrorism and suggests a comprehensive approach to how this form of violence can be legitimized and how it ought to be used against this contemporary threat.
This study analyses male-female violence in comparison to state-citizen violence. The author argues that norms and values in Turkey are a reflection of processes that accommodate oppression, the intersection of which develops the argument that 'women are to men, what the citizen is for the state, in the context of Turkey.' Gender theory, and patriarchal theory in particular, are explored in this book to describe the logic and design of gender-based violence and its relationship with political sociology.
This book delivers an interpretive framework for making sense of today's geopolitical landscape and casts new light on the impact ideology and technology have had on American foreign policy and contemporary security practices. Edwin Daniel Jacob argues that America's security practices in the Global War on Terror have been guided by an anachronistic Cold War logic that has subordinated strategy to tactics. Jacob shows that deep-rooted prejudices and presuppositions regarding American exceptionalism have had a disastrous impact on the policies of the United States, not only in dealing with terrorism, but also in seeking to impose American hegemony in the Middle East. Ineffectual security practices of dubious moral character, from rendition and torture to preemptive strikes and nation building to drones and assassinations, privilege exigency over ethics. Yet the result of this "post-strategic" approach to security, where interchangeable tactics, like these, masquerade as strategy, only increases insecurity. Jacob offers a fresh perspective on American foreign policy that links national security with human security in regional terms. This approach highlights the need for order, predictability, and stability-the cornerstone of political realism. Making use of insights derived from Machiavelli, Hobbes, Marx, Weber, Schmitt, and Morgenthau, this interdisciplinary work provides an overview of American foreign policy in the twenty-first century and speaks to crucial themes in the fields of history, political science, and sociology.
Necrogeopolitics: On Death and Death-Making in International Relations brings together a diverse array of critical IR scholars, political theorists, critical security studies researchers, and critical geographers to provide a series of interventions on the topic of death and death-making in global politics. Contrary to most existing scholarship, this volume does not place the emphasis on traditional sources or large-scale configurations of power/force leading to death in IR. Instead, it details, theorizes, and challenges more mundane, perhaps banal, and often ordinary modalities of violence perpetrated against human lives and bodies, and often contributing to horrific instances of death and destruction. Concepts such as "slow death," "soft killing," "superfluous bodies," or "extra/ordinary" destruction/disappearance are brought to the fore by prominent voices in these fields alongside more junior creative thinkers to rethink the politics of life and death in the global polity away from dominant IR or political theory paradigms about power, force, and violence. The volume features chapters that offer thought-provoking reconsiderations of key concepts, theories, and practices about death and death-making along with other chapters that seek to challenge some of these concepts, theories, or practices in settings that include the Palestinian territories, Brazilian cities, displaced population flows from the Middle East, sites of immigration policing in North America, and spaces of welfare politics in Scandinavian states.
This book offers an explanation and evaluation of preventative diplomacy in an age of increasing precariousness. It emphasises the importance of pursuing diplomacy and human security in connection with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which promote development grounded in peace, justice, and universal respect for human rights. It explores and uncovers efforts to set up diplomatic channels designed to ensure relations between the great powers, intra- and inter-state conflict, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, human rights, and the global watch over human security do not escalate out of control. Discussing evolving tensions between the United States and China, and the United States and Russia, this book recalls past examples of preventive diplomacy between them, and explores ideas for the exercise of preventive diplomacy in the future. Presenting evidence that contemporary preventive diplomacy is pursued not only by international or regional officials but also by nongovernmental organizations and individuals, the book emphasises the need to pursue and enhance a comprehensive effort to realize SDG16 and human security. The book contains a range of practical recommendations to improve preventive diplomacy and provides a unique optic into understanding the threats facing the planet. It will be of interest to scholars and students of diplomacy, security studies, global governance and practitioners in government and international organisations. . |
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