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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations
This book provides a holistic view on the topics of peace and conflict, peace education, international relations and regional studies during the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century. It collects the studies, experience and analysis of faculty members of the University for Peace presented in three sections: regional and institutional outlook, and common challenges and interventions. Some of the topics in this book include the complex concept of peace; governance and security in Africa; peace and conflict in the Middle East; maritime security conflicts in South China Sea, the European Union in a multipolar world, religious fundamentalism and violent extremism; food security, climate change; and participatory action research in the culture of peace. Scholars, capacity building trainers, policy makers, politicians, lawyers, and individuals interested in international affairs among others might find in this book a diverse academic source for further analysis in their respective fields.
This book presents a comprehensive account of the energy and environmental security perspectives of the developing countries. To address the subject comprehensively, it covers four geographically diverse clusters of developing countries from across the world. The regions particularly focused on are: South Asia, South East Asia, Sub Sahara Africa, and Latin America. It is a valuable contribution to the debate, and policy and research activities around the subjects of energy and environmental security in the developing countries and beyond. The book covers the interwoven subjects of energy security and environmental security in the context of developing countries for the first time. It discusses the latest dimensions, challenges, and solutions around taking into account technical, economic, social, and policy perspectives. It incorporates up-to-date data, case studies, and comparative assessment. This edited book has contributions from established as well as emerging scholars from around the world. It benefits a wide range of stakeholders from the fields of energy, environment, and sustainable development. It is of help to academics, researchers, and analysts in these fields besides having appeal for policymakers, and national and international developmental organizations. It also helps developing countries to learn from each other's experiences.
The accords and protocols that underlie the Arab and Israeli peace agreements set into place economic policies and political processes so flawed that they are bound to fail. The chapters in this volume look at the diplomatic and historical precedents that have led to this situation and they debate - some cynically and some sympathetically - the reasons why the institutional structures and trade regimes the process has created are so weak. But for whatever reason, the structural flaws built into the Middle East peace process are not only biased toward the dominant players but against the people who most want peace.
In the midst of ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, civil war, and political discord, courageous civilians from both sides are working together toward mutual understanding and peace. In 40 captivating chapters, experts tell intriguing personal stories, interwoven with psychosocial models and principles, describing how people living in hostile cultures can establish harmony. We come to know established programs like Seeds of Peace and Search for Common Ground, as well as lesser-heralded, yet valiant efforts by children and adults of the region. This hope-filled work will be of interest to everyone who cares about peace, as well as to professionals and students in the social sciences, psychology, international relations, public policy, human rights, and cross-cultural studies. In the midst of ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, civil war, and political discord, courageous civilians from both sides are working together toward mutual understanding and peace. Israeli Jews and Arabs, and Palestinian Muslims and Christians, young and old, men and women, are cooperating in grassroots people-to-people projects, developing educational programs and creating activities to bridge their differences. Beyond Bullets and Bombs showcases such impressive and important projects that deserve more support and world attention. In 40 captivating chapters, experts tell intriguing personal stories interwoven with psychosocial models and principles proving how people living in hostile cultures can establish peace. This collection is the perfect companion to Kuriansky's earlier book, Terror in the Holy Land: Inside the Anguish of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, an unprecedented work that presents more than 30 chapters written by Israelis, Palestinians, and psychological experts on the underpinnings and effects of the conflict. In the volume at hand, we come to know established programs like Seeds of Peace and Search for Common Ground, as well as lesser-heralded, yet valiant efforts by children and adults of the region working together for peace. Both volumes will be of interest to everyone who cares about peace, as well as to professionals and students in the social sciences, psychology, international relations, public policy, human rights, and cross-cultural studies.
The Evolution of Arms Control: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age is the first world history of arms control through time. Drawing on his knowledge of the comparative history of warfare and arms control across preliterate, ancient, medieval, and modern polities, Richard Dean Burns focuses longitudinally on such perennial arms control issues as negotiation, verification, and compliance. Although he does not, for example, allege that war elephants and nuclear weapons are of equal destructive potential, he does discern instructive similarities between Carthage in 202 BCE and Iraq in 1991 AD. Arms control and disarmament measures have been pursued and adopted throughout the history and prehistory of human warfare: sometimes as protocols recognizing evolving humanitarian taboos; sometimes as terms imposed by the victors on the vanquished; and sometimes as accords negotiated between rivals fearful of mutual destruction. Arms control measures ramped up in significance and urgency at the dawn of the 20th century by the introduction of rapid-fire weapons, aircraft, chemical agents, and submarines, and again at mid-century with the advent of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological-with sophisticated delivery systems. As Burns makes clear, the enormous increase in destructive potential brought about by thermonuclear weaponry essentially changed the nature of war and, therefore, of arms control. 15 illustrations
Using an interdisciplinary approach, this book evaluates the complex nexus between climate change and regional food security in Asia Pacific. Feeding the planet puts a lot of stress on the environment. The fundamental challenges we are facing today include how to grow more from less in a sustainable manner; how to optimize the entire food value chain from field to fork to reduce the carbon footprint, protect the environment and support biological diversity, cause less water pollution and soil erosion, raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy. With a robust multi-site study in Southeast Asia, Pacific Island Forum and South Asia, this book examines the regional initiatives on, the current state of, and the future prospects for mitigations and resilience regarding climate change and food security vis-a-vis other regions of the world.
This book mobilises the theory of uneven and combined development to uncover the geopolitical economic drivers of China's rise. The purpose is to explain the formation and trajectory of its economic 'accumulation system' - which remains a confounding hybrid of statist and neoliberal forms of capitalism - as the outcome of China's geopolitical engagement of the USA during the late stages of the Cold War, and its participation in manufacturing global production networks (GPNs). Fear of geopolitical catastrophe drove China to open its economy, while GPNs enabled China to generate substantial export surpluses which could be recycled through state-owned banks as cheap credit and subsidies to large, vertically integrated and politically-controlled state-owned enterprises. In this way, a synergy emerged between the 'neoliberal' and 'Keynesian-Fordist' sectors of the economy, while the national-territorial state retained its form and expanded its functions. The book chronicles how this reliance on export surpluses, however, rendered China extremely vulnerable to external shocks - prompting a dramatic monetary and fiscal stimulus response to the crisis of 2008, even while sustaining the illusion of economic 'decoupling' from the global economy. Finally, it examines the growing role of the state in the current crisis-ridden economic model, as well as China's current geoeconomic and geopolitical expansionism in areas such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the militarisation of the East and South China Seas.
During WW2 there was a rumour that German spies were landing by parachute in Britain, dressed as nuns... Conradin Muller was an unusual spy. He was recruited in Hamburg in June 1943, much against his will, and sent on his first, and only, mission in late September that year. He failed to send a single report back to Germany, and when the War came to an end in May 1945, he fell to his knees and wept with relief. From a highly reluctant German spy who is drawn to an East Anglian nunnery as his only means of escape, to the strange tale of one of the Cambridge spy ring's adventures with a Russian dwarf, these are Alexander McCall Smith's intriguing and typically inventive stories from the world of espionage.
Based on ethnographic research with asylum seekers living in a 'direct provision' centre in Ireland, and comprising participatory visual methods, this work offers a unique examination of the 'direct provision' system that analyses the tensions between exclusion and marginalization, and involvement and engagement with local communities. It gives voice to the perspectives of residents themselves through an analysis of photographic images and texts created by the participants of the project, providing fresh insight into the everyday experiences of living in these liminal zones between borders, and the various forms of attachment, engagement and belonging that they create. While the book's empirical focus is on the Irish context, the analysis sheds light on broader policies and experiences of exclusion and the increasing number of liminal spaces between and within borders in which people seeking protection wait. Situated at the intersection of social anthropology, human geography and participatory arts and visual culture, it will appeal to scholars and students focusing on migration and asylum, ethnicity and integration, as well as those with an interest in participatory and visual research methods.
This book discusses the multilayered legal structures concerning the regulation of crimes under international law. It covers both core crimes and other types of crime under international law, and examines relevant substantive and procedural rules alike. Pursuing such a comprehensive approach is essential to understanding the basic frameworks of international criminal law, since the varied perspectives on international crimes are connected to different systems of enforcement. Being aware of this interrelatedness is conducive to an in-depth examination of individual topics in both substantive and procedural aspects. On the basis of such an inquiry, this book concisely provides a systematic overview of international criminal law.
Flexibility is emerging as a key dynamic of European integration. This shift towards flexibility has major implications. The EU will have to cope with more complexity and less transparency. It also affects the way in which European integration is viewed since it makes a state-like outcome to the process far less likely. Alex Warleigh looks at why flexibility has become such an important feature of the EU. He examines its history, and puts forward a typology to explain the models by which it is understood. He goes on to explore the hazards of flexibility and to look at what it has to offer, arguing that it is best seen as a desirable part of the integration process rather than as a problem. Flexibility, he argues is an important mechanism for the realization of the EU's slogan unity in diversity.
This book addresses the problem of religiously based conflict and violence via six case studies. It stresses particularly the structural and relational aspects of religion as providing a sense of order and a networked structure that enables people to pursue quite prosaic and earthly concerns. The book examines how such concerns link material and spiritual salvation into a holy alliance. As such, whilst the religions concerned may be different, they address the same problems and provide similar explanations for meaning, success, and failure in life. Each author has conducted their own field-work in the religiously based conflict regions they discuss, and together the collection offers perspectives from a variety of different national backgrounds and disciplines.
This book describes the common pitfalls of U.S. military interventions in efforts at stabilization, which supports post-conflict societies by establishing stable governance, rule of law, a safe and secure environment, economic development and social well-being for all members of the population. These efforts are often unsuccessful and can even cause harm when mission teams do not understand both the populations with whom they are engaging and policymakers. The book recommends prioritizing a relational approach to stabilization with a professional and well-resourced Civil Affairs and strategic intelligence approach to engagements over the current preference for transactional, often lethal operations.
This text makes detailed analyses and comments on the MAI from the perspective of a Chinese scholar. The author believes that the "behind closed doors" process of MAI negotiations is unacceptable for developing countries, NGOs, and civil societies, and is inadvisable for any future negotiations on investment rules. The substantive contents of the MAI which include the definition of investor and investment, treatment of foreign investors and investments, treatment for investment protection, and the dispute settlement mechanism are of high standards that render them unreachable and unacceptable for developing countries. The nine chapters of the book include: an introduction; An analysis of the background of the MAI negotiations which briefly reviews the process and results of the negotiations and makes the author's comments on the negotiations; an analysis and evaluation of the main features of MAI provisions and the approaches adopted by the MAI; An exploration of the scope of application of the MAI through the analysis of the respective definition of investor and investment in the MAI, and points out that the purpose of broad definition is to broaden the MAI's scope of application; An analysis and comment on the MAI's general principles of treatment accorded to foreign investors and their investments, and points out that the MAI's provisions in this regard have negative impacts on developing countries; An introduction to the MAI's specific rules of treatment accorded to foreign investors and their investments in such new areas of international investment as performance requirements, investment incentives, key personnel, privatization, as well as monopoly, state enterprises and concessions. There is also: an analysis and commentary on the MAI's treatment provisions on investment protection, that is, the fair and equitable treatment and full and constant protection and security treatment as the general treatment, and the specific treatment with regard to expropriation and compensation, protection from strife and transfers; an introduction to and evaluation of the MAI's dispute settlement mechanism: the state-state procedure and the investor-state procedure, and; a conclusion.
In the era of globalization, foreign trade has an immense impact upon modern economies. To succeed in the global marketplace, sustainable development in trade practices is an imperative goal for countries to reach. Global Perspectives on Trade Integration and Economies in Transition is an authoritative reference source for the latest research on the dynamics of transitional economies and how certain obstacles can disrupt the effectiveness of the transition process. Highlighting the value of trade incorporation at the national and international levels, this book is ideally designed for researchers, professionals, government officials, policy makers, and upper-level students interested in the intersection of globalization, trade, and international economics.
At the start of the 1960s, revolution challenged the established world order. In every corner of the underdeveloped world, discontent with the status quo fueled attempts to revoke colonialism and the strangleholds on power maintained by entrenched local oligarchies. This book examines the causes of revolution in the sixties and the various responses crafted to stop it, in particular, the Alliance for Progress, a program which represented the best products of American developmental and counterinsurgency theory. Equally important, however, is an examination of the independent policies implemented by Latin Americans themselves, often in direct opposition to those pursued by the U.S. For the United States the period represented a challenge to both its sovereignty and its leadership in the so-called "Free World." Perhaps more importantly, the disruptions blanketing the globe also pointed out the dramatic weaknesses of an American policy dominated by preparations for thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union. For Latin America, revolution challenged national stability and, in the cases of the regimes it was directed against, their very survival.
This text offers American and Russian perspectives on the evolution of the US Russian post- Cold War security relationship obstacles and opportunities in bilateral co-operation and critical security challenges for the two countries on the threshold of the 21st-century. American and Russian contributors discuss prospects for managing a range of issues encompassing both traditional military aspects of security, as well as in depth exploration of the broader non military dimensions of international security. The book is designed to challenge readers to think about some of the most pressing security issues of our time and the roles and responsibilities of the United States and Russia in preserving global stability and peace beyond the millennium.
This book provides an overview of contemporary issues in Sudan, Africa's largest nation, examining the country's history and current scene to help readers develop a deeper understanding of how much Sudan matters in today's world. With deep connections to the Sahel and savanna to the west, the African world to the south, the Horn of Africa to the east, and the Middle East to the north, Sudan is important strategically, legally, geopolitically, and militarily-but too often overlooked, or underestimated. Sudan, the country of residence of Osama bin Laden for six years, has played, and will continue to play, a significant role in worldwide security matters. An analysis of the causes, resolutions, and implications of the ongoing Sudanese conflicts (including the genocide in Darfur), this book is essential reading for policymakers, researchers, and students alike. This book considers Sudan's historical foundations, examining how the agendas of countries to the south, east, and north have influenced Sudan's people and government. The author also explains the origins and context of the Darfur conflict, laying out possible steps toward a resolution. Questions concerning Sudanese oil-where is it? how much is there? to whom does it belong?-help focus any discussion of Sudan's emerging importance in the contemporary world. Other issues-such as the influence of Islamism or the Sudanese activities of the Arab League, China, or the African Union-underline the uncertainties that confront the people of Sudan today.
Fatima Meer, a South African academic, public intellectual, and activist, was a tireless fighter for social justice and human rights—for which she various suffered banning and detention by the apartheid government. After the end of apartheid, she declined a parliamentary seat, choosing instead to continue her advocacy work. She did, however, subsequently serve the ANC government in several capacities. She died in 2010, at the age of 81. In Fatima Meer, Shireen Hassim deftly weaves a narrative in which Meer's distinctive individuality unfolds. This serves as an apt context for the second part of the book, which presents Meer's ideas in her own voice and makes palpable her belief in a common humanity.
In the past decade the Asia-Pacific region has become a focus of
international politics and military strategies. Due to China's
rising economic and military strength, North Korea's nuclear tests
and missile launches, tense international disputes over small
island groups in the seas around Asia, and the United States
pivoting a majority of its military forces to the region, the
islands of the western Pacific have increasingly become the center
of global attention. While the Pacific is a cur- rent hotbed of
geopolitical rivalry and intense militarization, the region is also
something else: a homeland to the hundreds of millions of people
that inhabit it.
The Elusive Quest for European Security provides a detailed overview of the various attempts to incorporate a security and defence role in the European integration process. Consideration is given to why these aspects of the integration process have proven so elusive and what progress has been made towards this goal. The assessment includes topics such as the enlargement of NATO, the EU's Amsterdam Treaty, and the role of the revived Western European Union, as well as the role of the main actors which includes Britain's bid for European leadership in defence, and the changing attitudes of administrations in Washington DC.
This book reassesses performance legitimacy in the context of statebuilding and identifies the paradox between state institution building and state legitimacy by looking at the interplay between state legitimacy and leaders' legitimacy The author reviews the significant weaknesses associated with the current measures of state legitimacy and uses this to demonstrate the incompatibility of these measurements with the reality faced by conflict and post-conflict countries. The author uses the Performance Legitimacy Theory of Transition framework to demonstrate the potential legitimacy paths that post-conflict countries can embark on and proposes a new approach for building state legitimacy in post-conflict countries. The author also introduces new indicators to measure performance legitimacy that also reflect its non-exclusive nature. Essential reading for students and researchers of Peace and Conflict Studies and especially of post-conflict development, peacebuilding, statebuilding, intervention, and democracy promotion. Also accessible to policy makers. |
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