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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations
That Indonesia's ongoing occupation of West Papua continues to be largely ignored by world governments is one of the great moral and political failures of our time. West Papuans have struggled for more than fifty years to find a way through the long night of Indonesian colonization. However, united in their pursuit of merdeka (freedom) in its many forms, what holds West Papuans together is greater than what divides them. Today, the Morning Star glimmers on the horizon, the supreme symbol of merdeka and a cherished sign of hope for the imminent arrival of peace and justice to West Papua. Morning Star Rising: The Politics of Decolonization in West Papua is an ethnographically framed account of the long, bitter fight for freedom that challenges the dominant international narrative that West Papuans' quest for political independence is fractured and futile. Camellia Webb-Gannon's extensive interviews with the decolonization movement's original architects and its more recent champions shed light on complex diasporic and intergenerational politics as well as social and cultural resurgence. In foregrounding West Papuans' perspectives, the author shows that it is the body politic's unflagging determination and hope, rather than military might or influential allies, that form the movement's most unifying and powerful force for independence. This book examines the many intertwining strands of decolonization in Melanesia. Differences in cultural performance and political diversity throughout the region are generating new, fruitful trajectories. Simultaneously, Black and Indigenous solidarity and a shared Melanesian identity have forged a transnational grassroots power-base from which the movement is gaining momentum. Relevant beyond its West Papua focus, this book is essential reading for those interested in Pacific studies, Native and Indigenous studies, development studies, activism, and decolonization.
The Impact of Innovation on Globalization is the eighth volume of the series China in the World. Like other volumes in the series, this volume includes views of leading Chinese scholars on China's relations with other countries and regions in the world. In view of the theme of "globalization" in this volume, the contributors in this volume pay attention to how the Covid-19 pandemic impacts and challenges globalization, especially how it affects China, the United States, and their mutual relations. However, this is not to say that some issues surrounding globalization-the orientation and interrelationship of political and economic decision-making in China and the United States-have emerged only after the outbreak of the pandemic. The volume focuses on some long-term trends and innovations, from the past to the future. Chapter 2, "Globalization, Convergence, and China's Economic Development," describes the patterns of globalization. Chapter 3, "The Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation is Unstoppable," talks about views on current economic and financial issues. Chapter 4, "Reconstructing Global Industrial Chains under the Pandemic, and China's Response," discusses China's pivotal position in global supply chains. Besides answering these basic questions, the book investigates other important issues, such as Global Value Chains, Changes in the International Order, Changes in the International Economic Landscape, WTO Reform, China's Foreign Economic and Trade Strategies, Towards a Climate Resilience Society, Identity Politics, and the AI "Revolution".
In the year 57 C.E., the court of Later Han dynasty presented a gold seal to an emissary from somewhere in what is now Japan. The seal soon vanished from history, only to be unearthed in 1784 in Japan. In the subsequent two-plus centuries, nearly 400 books and articles (mostly by Japanese) have addressed every conceivable issue surrounding this small object of gold. Joshua Fogel places the conferment of the seal in inter-Asian diplomacy of the first century and then traces four waves of historical analysis that the seal has undergone since its discovery, as the standards of historical judgment have changed over these years and the investment in the seal's meaning have changed accordingly.
Is American Jewish support for Israel waning? As a mobilized diaspora, American Jews played a key role in the establishment and early survival of the modern state of Israel. They created a centralized framework to raise funds, and a powerful, consensus‑oriented political lobby to promote strong U.S. diplomatic, military, and economic support. But now, as federation fundraising declines and sharp differences over the Israeli-Palestinian peace process divide the community, many fear that American Jews are distancing themselves from Israel. In The New American Zionism, Theodore Sasson argues that at the core, we are fundamentally misunderstanding the new relationship between American Jews and Israel. Sasson shows that we are in the midst of a shift from a "mobilization" approach, which first emerged with the new state and focused on supporting Israel through big, centralized organizations, to an "engagement" approach marked by direct and personal relations with the Jewish state as growing numbers of American Jews travel to Israel, consume Israeli news and culture, and connect with their Israeli peers via cyberspace and through formal exchange programs. American Jews have not abandoned their support for Israel, Sasson contends, but they now focus their philanthropy and lobbying in line with their own political viewpoints for the region and they reach out directly to players in Israel, rather than going through centralized institutions. As a result, American Jews may find Israel more personally meaningful than ever before. Yet, at the same time, their ability to impact policy will diminish as they no longer speak with a unified voice. Theodore Sasson is Professor of International Studies at Middlebury College and Senior Research Scientist at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies. He is also Visiting Research Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University and a consultant to the Mandel Foundation.
The EU today is at a crossroads: either it becomes a great supranational union or it goes back to being an array of separate independent states. Alberto Martinelli and Alessandro Cavalli draw a grand fresco of the society in which the European Union is taking shape. Long-term social and cultural trends and main current developments in economics and politics are synthetically outlined. Key questions of identity and nationalism, immigration and inequality, welfare and economic governance, are thoroughly analysed. Main cleavages, conflicts of interest and different visions of member states, as well as institutional reforms and crisis management strategies are critically discussed. A detailed proposal for advancing the process of political integration concludes the volume.
In the Khrushchev era, Soviet citizens were newly encouraged to
imagine themselves exploring the medieval towers of Tallinn's Old
Town, relaxing on the Romanian Black Sea coast, even climbing the
Eiffel Tower. By the mid 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Soviet
citizens each year crossed previously closed Soviet borders to
travel abroad. All this is your World explores the revolutionary
integration of the Soviet Union into global processes of cultural
exchange in which a de-Stalinizing Soviet Union increasingly, if
anxiously, participated in the transnational circulation of people,
ideas, and items. Anne E. Gorsuch examines what it meant to be
"Soviet" in a country no longer defined as Stalinist.
An up-to-date examination of Mexico's version of the "War on Drugs" that exposes the evolution of major cartels and their corruption of politicians, law-enforcement agencies, and the Army. What can President Enrique Pena Nieto do to curb the narcotics-induced mayhem in Mexico, and what would be the consequences to the United States if he fails? This book analyzes Mexico's transition from a relatively peaceful kleptocracy controlled by the Tammany-Hall style Institutional Revolutionary Party/PRI (1929-2000) to a country plagued by rural and urban enclaves of grotesque violence. The author examines the major drug cartels and their success in infiltrating American and Mexican businesses; details the response from the Obama administration; assesses the threat that the continuing bloodshed represents for the United States; and emphasizes the constraints on America's ability to solve Mexico's crisis, despite U.S. contributions of intelligence, military equipment, training, and diplomatic support. Documents the origins of Mexico's drug industry to explain today's situation involving a graft-ridden Army, suborned police, ruthless capos, unethical office-holders, and U.S. security forces Emphasizes the threat that the widespread criminality represents to the United States, as well as the constraints on Washington's ability to solve its neighbor's crisis Exposes the linkages between elected officials, particularly governors, and the underworld Illustrates the challenges that will remain, even if the cartels were shattered, by the presence of a human infrastructure of 500,000 men, women, and children skilled in kidnapping, extortion, torture, murder for hire, human smuggling, and dozens of other crimes
Sayyid Qutb is widely considered the guiding intellectual of
radical Islam, with a direct line connecting him to Osama bin
Laden. But Qutb has too often been treated maliciously or
reductively-"the Philosopher of Islamic Terror," as Paul Berman
famously put it in the New York Times Magazine.
'The House of the Priest' presents and discusses the hitherto unpublished and untranslated memoirs of Niqula Khoury, a senior member of the Orthodox Church and Arab nationalist in late Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine. It discusses the complicated relationships between language, religion, diplomacy and identity in the Middle East in the interwar period. This original annotated translation and accompanying articles provide a thorough explication of Khoury's memoirs and their significance for the social, political and religious histories of twentieth-century Palestine and Arab relations with the Greek Orthodox church. Khoury played a major role in these dynamics as a leading member of the fight for Arab presence in the Greek-dominated clergy, and for an independent Palestine, travelling in 1937 to Eastern Europe and the League of Nations on behalf of the national movement. Contributors: Sarah Irving, Charbel Nassif, Konstantinos Papastathis, Karene Sanchez Summerer, Cyrus Schayegh
In this collection, practitioners from EU institutions and academics provide unique insight into EU practice in EU external relations and institutional law.
The book discusses the failure of many African governments in providing the social needs of the masses, thereby placing the citizenry on the desperate quest for economic resources. Unfortunately, in many African States, mineral resources are owned, explored and marketed by the machinery of the state. The problem arises when the masses begin to challenge state access and ownership of resources that are domiciled within their ancestral land, communities, and constituencies. Often the challenge and resistance to state ownership of resources is generated by communal or group sense of exploitation, negligence and widespread poverty in the face of high resource endowment and waste by the government officials. Paradoxically, in Niger Delta of Nigeria, as discussed in the book, the state has unleashed unlimited might upon all social groups and agitators, thereby leading to the increased act of taking arms by such groups. When the informal resource agitators succeed in arming themselves, they begin to demand social and environmental justice, thereby leading to mass armed conflict between them and the government security agencies. Sometimes, the confrontation could be between them and other rival local resource actors in the informal sector of their country’s economy bearing in mind that the resources within their jurisdiction have become the central determinant of national commonwealth.  It is at that state of desperado to control access, extraction and sale of natural resources in a State, by different armed groups that the process of natural resources extraction qualifies as the most visible cause of conflicts and crises around the African continent that is the centrepiece of the book. This is quite understandable given that mineral resource is a gift of nature; and nature is that phenomenon that every human, group and nation claim to represent, or, believe to represent them.
For the past three decades, Sino-African relations have attracted widespread coverage for the political, economic, and diplomatic engagements between African countries and China, as well as grassroots interactions and encounters between Africans and Chinese. Such engagements and interactions feature controversies, tensions, and biases fueled by the subjective viewpoints of various actors and observers. China in Africa examines these issues following interviews with African and Chinese policymakers, diplomats, professionals, and corporate managers. It also includes discussions, observations, and interviews with the members of the general public in Senegal, Namibia, and South Africa, as well as in China. It includes four key areas of Sino-African relations: economic relations, environmental and sustainable development issues, African migration to China, and Chinese migration to Africa.
Antisemitism in the twenty-first century remains a major threat to Jewish communities around the world, and a potent challenge to the liberal international order. But it can so often be a more hidden form of racism, relying on codes, images, cues, and ciphers embedded in the cultural mythology of prejudice against Jews. It is about the invocation of the blood libel, attacks on so-called "cosmopolitans," accusations of "dual loyalty," and conspiratorial notions of malign "Jewish power." It is also a highly protean prejudice, ever adaptable to a multitude of changes in political and social circumstances, always ready to mutate and shape-shift to fit a new environment. That is why it has so easily become a feature of the modern anti-Israel movement. This short volume will explore how anti-Israelism has reproduced many of the canards, tropes, and ciphers of historic Jew-hatred and regurgitated them as attacks on Zionism and Israel. The adverse treatment of Jews within Gentile societies has also been replicated in an endless array of double standards against Israel in the international community. Today, the "Jewish question" has been replaced by the "Israel question," with a similarly obsessive and ritualistic form of demonization and delegitimization. Anyone concerned about the future of liberal democracy should take note.
Ulrich Krotz's Flying Tiger takes a relatively obscure episode-the joint Franco-German production of a state-of-the-art and very expensive military helicopter, the Tiger Helicopter (used in the James Bond film Goldeneye, incidentally)-to make a groundbreaking theoretical contribution to international relations scholarship. The rivalry between Germany and France in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is of course well known. It was directly or indirectly responsible for four cataclysmic wars, and until relatively recently, the idea that these two states could become close partners seemed implausible. Yet following World War II and the birth of the European Union, they became the closest of allies. In fact, they collaborated for three decades on the most sophisticated weapon that the EU has produced: the Tiger. How did this occur, and what does this happy albeit unforeseen outcome tell us about how interstate relations really work? Through the lens of the Tiger, Krotz draws from two theoretical approaches-social constructivism and historical institutionalism-to reframe our understanding of how international relationships evolve. International relations scholars have always focused on relations between states, yet have failed to think in any sustained way about how interstate relationships both remold domestic realities and derive from them. How does a relationship between states impact upon a state internally? And how do the internal institutional dynamics of a state limit such relationships? While International Relations scholars have touched on these issues, until now no one has provided a sustained, finely grained, and historically informed analysis that explains how international relations socially constructs domestic realities and how in turn domestic politics and institutions structure interstate relationships. Krotz's account of how the Tiger project was funded and how the device was built perfectly illustrates his theoretical claims about the dialectical relationship of 'high' interstate politics and 'low' domestic politics. Two famous rivals completely reshaped their relationship through a complicated, decades-long process in which the nuts and bolts of domestic politics-approvals for state funding as well as laws regarding corporations and technology transfer, for instance-were instrumental in creating a new reality.
World leaders have not been able to find solutions to the growing problem of global insecurity associated with failed and failing states in many regions. Governance and Security As A Unitary Concept is the first compilation of contemporary commentaries - from twenty contributing authors on six continents - to examine governance and security together rather than as complementary yet separate entities. This is the potency of its design. Governance in modern human affairs determines action or gridlock, wealth or penury, peace or conflict, health or illness, progress or arrested development. Security does not mean just physical security but also human, environmental, economic, resource and cultural security. The construct of the book is an innovative approach to governance and security as a unitary concept. The strength and virtue of the book is the diversity and overlapping perspectives of the authors, looking in, from within. Tom Rippon and Graham Kemp, editors Published by Agio Publishing House in collaboration with Avalon Institute Inc.
An Intelligence Studies Anthology: Foundational Concepts and Case Studies for the 21st Century is designed to provide undergraduate students with an introduction to the U.S. government's collection and use of intelligence. Through a carefully curated selection of readings, students gain an understanding of the history of the intelligence process and the agencies involved in it. They also learn about the intelligence cycle, types of intelligence products, best practices for writing and briefing intelligence, covert operations, counterintelligence, technical tools and legal concepts, and the ways in which law enforcement collects and uses intelligence. The anthology provides students with a novel collection of information discussing the ways the intelligence process can be used to stop health crises, including pandemics, and includes the editor's original article discussing the creation of a new department in the U.S. government devoted to fighting future pandemics. Illuminating and insightful, An Intelligence Studies Anthology is an exemplary resource for introductory courses in intelligence, criminal justice, criminology, government, and health/public health.
Women are significantly underrepresented in politics in the Pacific Islands, given that only one in twenty Pacific parliamentarians are female, compared to one in five globally. A common, but controversial, method of increasing the number of women in politics is the use of gender quotas, or measures designed to ensure a minimum level of women's representation. In those cases where quotas have been effective, they have managed to change the face of power in previously male-dominated political spheres. How do political actors in the Pacific islands region make sense of the success (or failure) of parliamentary gender quota campaigns? To answer the question, Kerryn Baker explores the workings of four campaigns in the region. In Samoa, the campaign culminated in a "safety net" quota to guarantee a minimum level of representation, set at five female members of Parliament. In Papua New Guinea, between 2007 and 2012 there were successive campaigns for nominated and reserved seats in parliament, without success, although the constitution was amended in 2011 to allow for the possibility of reserved seats for women. In post-conflict Bougainville, women campaigned for reserved seats during the constitution-making process and eventually won three reserved seats in the House of Representatives, as well as one reserved ministerial position. Finally, in the French Pacific territories of New Caledonia, French Polynesia, and Wallis and Futuna, Baker finds that there were campaigns both for and against the implementation of the so-called "parity laws." Baker argues that the meanings of success in quota campaigns, and related notions of gender and representation, are interpreted by actors through drawing on different traditions, and renegotiating and redefining them according to their goals, pressures, and dilemmas. Broadening the definition of success thus is a key to an understanding of realities of quota campaigns. Pacific Women in Politics is a pathbreaking work that offers an original contribution to gender relations within the Pacific and to contemporary Pacific politics.
Widely known as the "Family Jewels," this document consists of almost 700 pages of responses from CIA employees to a 1973 directive from Director of Central Intelligence James Schlesinger asking them to report activities they thought might be inconsistent with the Agency's charter.The reports describe numerous activities conducted by the CIA during the 1950s to 1970s that violated its charter. According to a briefing provided by CIA Director William Colby to the Justice Department on December 31, 1974, these included 18 issues which were of legal concern: Confinement of a KGB defector, Yuri Ivanovich Nosenko, that "might be regarded as a violation of the kidnapping laws." Wiretapping of two syndicated columnists, Robert Allen and Paul Scott, approved by US Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (see also Project Mockingbird). Physical surveillance of investigative journalist and muckraker Jack Anderson and his associates, including Les Whitten of the Washington Post and future Fox News Channel anchor and managing editor Brit Hume. Jack Anderson had written two articles on CIA-backed assassination attempts on Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Physical surveillance of then-Washington Post reporter Michael Getler, who later was an ombudsman for the Washington Post and PBS. Break-in at the home of a former CIA employee. Break-in at the office of a former defector. Warrantless entry into the apartment of a former CIA employee. Opening of mail to and from the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1973 (including letters associated with actress Jane Fonda) (project SRPOINTER/HTLINGUAL at JFK airport). Opening of mail to and from the People's Republic of China from 1969 to 1972 (project SRPOINTER/HTLINGUAL at JFK airport - see also Project SHAMROCK by the NSA). Funding of behavior modification research on unwitting US citizens, including unscientific, non-consensual human experiments. (see also Project MKULTRA concerning LSD experiments). Assassination plots against Cuban President Fidel Castro (authorized by Robert Kennedy) 8]; Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba; President Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic; and Rene Schneider, Commander-in-chief of the Chilean Army. All of these plots were said to be unsuccessful ones. Surveillance of dissident groups between 1967 and 1971 (see Project RESISTANCE, Project MERRIMAC and Operation CHAOS). Surveillance of a particular Latin American female, and of US citizens in Detroit. Surveillance of former CIA officer and Agency critic, Victor Marchetti, author of the book, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, published in 1974. Amassing of files on 9,900-plus US citizens related to the antiwar movement (see Project RESISTANCE, Project MERRIMAC and Operation CHAOS). Polygraph experiments with the sheriff of San Mateo County, California. Fake CIA identification documents that might violate state laws. Testing of electronic equipment on US telephone circuits.
In a growing number of instances after the cold war, the United
Nations and other international actors have sought to rebuild or
establish new political institutions in states or territories
recovering from violent conflict. From Afghanistan, Iraq, and the
western Balkans to less prominent wars in Africa, Asia, the
Caribbean, Central America, and the South Pacific, the
international community's response involves extensive intrusions
into the domestic affairs of sovereign states. Extending beyond the
narrow mandates of traditional peacekeeping and humanitarian relief
operations, these interventions aspire to reconstitute local power
within a democratic framework. Democratic Peacebuilding examines
the evolution of international peacebuilding during this tumultuous
period, identifying the factors that limit the progress of
international actors to institutionalize democratic authority and
the rule of law in war-shattered societies.
The Peace of Utrecht (1713), which brought an end to the War of the Spanish Succession, was a milestone in global history. Performances of Peace aims to rethink the significance of the Peace of Utrecht by exploring the nexus between culture and politics. For too long, cultural and political historians have studied early modern international relations in isolation. By studying the political as well as the cultural aspects of this peace (and its concomitant paradoxes) from a broader perspective, this volume aims to shed new light on the relation between diplomacy and performative culture in the public sphere. Contributors are: Samia Al-Shayban, Lucien Bely, Renger E. de Bruin, Suzan van Dijk, Heinz Duchhardt, Julie Farguson, Linda Frey, Marsha Frey, Willem Frijhoff, Henriette Goldwyn, Cornelis van der Haven, Clare Jackson, Lotte Jensen, Phil McCluskey, Jane O. Newman, Aaron Alejandro Olivas, David Onnekink. This book is available in Open Access.
Positing that presidents shape America's foreign policy according to their ethnic heritage, this intriguing volume examines two groups that have dominated the presidency and the distinctly different agendas that have resulted. How is American foreign policy determined? The Great Anglo-Celtic Divide in the History of American Foreign Relations approaches that question from a fascinating perspective, arguing that, to a large extent, the answer lies in the ethnicity of the president. To make its point, this book examines the key foreign policies of American presidents from George Washington to George W. Bush and shows how their most important foreign policy decisions have tended to follow an ethnic pattern. The presidency has been dominated by Americans from English or Celtic backgrounds since the nation's founding, and as readers will discover, the foreign policies of the two groups have been very different. To document those differences, this book analyzes seven alternating periods of political domination by Anglo-Americans and Celtic-Americans, demonstrating how the cycle of change affected the shape and distinguishing characteristics of U.S. foreign policy in matters of war and peace and in relations with other countries. A bibliography |
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