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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > International relations
Moving beyond state-centric and elitist perspectives, this volume examines everyday security in the Central Asian country of Kyrgyzstan. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and written by scholars from Central Asia and beyond, it shows how insecurity is experienced, what people consider existential threats, and how they go about securing themselves. It concentrates on individuals who feel threatened because of their ethnic belonging, gender or sexual orientation. It develops the concept of 'securityscapes', which draws attention to the more subtle means that people take to secure themselves - practices bent on invisibility and avoidance, on disguise and trickery, and on continually adapting to shifting circumstances. By broadening the concept of security practice, this book is an important contribution to debates in Critical Security Studies as well as to Central Asian and Area Studies.
"European Security after Iraq" examines the impact of the'second' Gulf War on European politics. It explores key questions about the impact of the conflict on national, European and transatlantic politics such as the extent to which the war has created new cleavages between the foreign and security policies of European states or merely confirmed existing ones. Its national focus is on states on both the so-called 'old' and 'new' Europe (a classification the book, in fact, calls into question). Important issues around the instiutional architecture of European security before and after the war are also discussed. The book's nine chapters deal with background issues, such as the place of the war in the broader discourse of European security, institutional analyses of NATO and the EU, and area studies of France, the Balkans, eastern Europe and Turkey. It will be of particular use in upper level undergraduate and taught postgraduate courses on contemporary Europe, transatlantic relations and international security.
For over a decade the Middle East has monopolized news headlines in
the West. Journalists and commentators regularly speculate that the
region's turmoil may stem from the psychological momentum of its
cultural traditions or of a "tribal" or "fatalistic" mentality. Yet
few studies of the region's cultural psychology have provided a
critical synthesis of psychological research on Middle Eastern
societies.
This text explores the nature and possibility of revolution and civil strife in the context of international politics. "Terrorism, Civil War, and Revolution" analyzes the role of revolution and civil strife in the present day world. Expanding on the 2nd edition of Calvert's "Revolution and International Politics", this new work reflects the drastic changes that have taken place in the world order since 2001. With an increased focus on terrorism and civil war, the book looks into such key issues as the use of force by the state in the international system, challenges to states, wars of national liberation, counterinsurgency, and more. Written in a clear and accessible manner by a respected expert in the field, the book features the most recent examples of events, such as the insurgency in Sri Lanka, the rise of Al-Qaeda, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This approach will help situate revolutions in the larger context of political violence and will appeal to anyone interested in comparative politics, international relations, and revolutions.
National Human Rights Institutions (NHRIs), defined by the UN as bodies established to promote and protect human rights, have increased in number since the General Assembly adopted principles governing their effectiveness in 1993. The UN and others have encouraged states to set up such institutions as an indication of their commitment to human rights, and now over 20 such institutions exist in Africa and many more will follow. These institutions have taken various forms including ombudsmen, commissions, or a combination of the two. They differ in terms of how they are established; some by constitution, some by legislation and some by decree. These NHRIs have varying functions, usually both promotional and protective, such as giving advice to government, parliament, and others, making recommendations on compliance with human rights standards, awareness raising, and analysis of law and policy. Despite the considerable variations in the method of their creation, powers and composition, most of these institutions have chosen or indeed been mandated, to become involved in international and regional fora. This book examines these institutions in the African region, the way in which they use the international and regional fora, the effectiveness of their contributions and how they are able to participate.
The Europa Directory of International Organizations 2020 serves as an unequalled one-volume guide to the contemporary international system. Within a clear, unique framework the recent activities of all major international organizations are described in detail. Given alongside extensive background information the reader is able to assess the role and evolving functions of these organizations in today's world. The contact details, key personnel and activities of more than 2,000 international and regional entities have again been thoroughly researched and updated for this 20th edition. Highlights in this edition include: - a fully revised Who's Who section with biographical details of the key players in the international system. - the response of the international community to crises and conflicts throughout the world. - introductory essays, written and updated by experts in their field, which consider topics including global environmental governance, the international criminal justice system, international humanitarian co-operation, and governance of the global economy.
This title looks at borders as transitional zones. The past two decades have seen an intense, interdisciplinary interest in the border areas between states - inhabited territories located on the margins of a power center or between power centers. This timely and highly original collection of essays edited by noted scholar William Zartman is an attempt 'to begin to understand both these areas and the interactions that occur within and across them' - that is, to understand how borders affect the groups living along them and the nature of the land and people abutting on and divided by boundaries. These essays highlight three defining features of border areas: border landers constitute an experiential and culturally identifiable unit; borderlands are characterized by constant movement (in time, space, and activity); and in their mobility, borderlands always prepare for the next move at the same time as they respond to the last one. The ten case studies presented range over four millennia and provide windows for observing the dynamics of life in borderlands. They also have policy relevance, especially in creating an awareness of borderlands as dynamic social spheres and of the need to anticipate the changes that given policies will engender - changes that will in turn require their own solutions. Contrary to what one would expect in this age of globalization, says Zartman, borderlands maintain their own dynamics and identities and indeed spread beyond the fringes of the border and reach deep into the hinterland itself.
The Middle East in the Global Era features scholarly perspectives that explore a variety of topics related to the Middle East and North African regions, including politics, international relations, economics, history, gender issues, and culture. Students are encouraged to think analytically regarding issues of prosperity, peace, stability, sustainable development, and more. Section I explores the physical and political landscapes of the Middle East, underscoring the importance of geography in shaping contemporary affairs. In Section II, students read articles about regional powers, including the rivalry of Iran and Saudi Arabia and the role of Turkey in the Middle East. Section III focuses on political economy with chapters that cover the regional impact of the 2011 Arab uprisings and the rentier economy that prevails in many Gulf states. Section IV examines recent changes in the region that consider political, cultural, and social changes. In the final section, students consider the intricacies involved in pursuing peace in the Middle East. The Middle East in the Global Era is an ideal textbook for any course that explores the social, political, and cultural facets of the Middle East.
A potential competition exists between India and China, and there is also no doubt that China started the war. Highlighting the mistakes made by India rather than empirically analysing the available data can be regarded as the primary causes for the confusion that exists today. Though complete details and evidence of the developments are available and documented, few of us have attempted to draw up a pragmatic and realist analysis. The consequences of that war have yet to die down entirely and are frequently raked up with issues on recent developments which are not widely dissimilar to those of 1962. China is a complex country. To understand this rapidly progressing nation is even more difficult. There are many perceptions on this country and many of them are formed on account of some international events and China's growing assertiveness. It may be far-fetched to expect for a paradigm change in stance and motive which could give China an uncertain negotiating position. This edited volume provides the reader an excellent blend of the historical run-up to the aberration, the military developments and consequences. It is also provides useful material to understand the geographical boundary issues between India and China and developing Chinese strategies both on the political and military front.
External relations is currently among the most dynamic areas of EU
law, its institutional structures profoundly affected by the Lisbon
Treaty. This volume gathers leading analysts to assess core recent
developments in the field, taking stock of the current law and
potential developments in major policy areas.
This book provides a new understanding of the eurozone crisis across three of the worst hit cases: Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. In contrast to accounts which stress the 'immaturity' of the European 'periphery', as well as more critical narratives that understand these countries as victims of German and core 'economic domination', this book recognises that individual peripheral countries have followed dramatically different paths to crisis, making it difficult to speak of the eurozone crisis as a single phenomenon. Bringing literature from Comparative Political Economy into dialogue with scholarship on Europeanisation, this book contributes the concept of 'divergence via Europeanisation'. It explores the much-overlooked ways in which the negotiation of a 'one size fits all' project of European financial integration has been generative of precarious patterns of economic growth across Greece, Portugal, and Ireland. The book shows that far from their failure or inability to do so, it has been the European periphery's attempt to 'follow the rules' of European integration that explains their current difficulties. This novel understanding of the eurozone crisis should appeal to students and scholars in International Political Economy, European and European Union Studies, Comparative Political Economy, Irish Politics, Greek Politics, and Portuguese Politics.
These are uncertain times. The balance of power is continually shifting worldwide. In The Next Great Clash, Michael Levin presents evidence of a global political order on the verge of a historic power shift from West to East. A reemerging China is the only nation with the latent capacity to challenge American hegemony, and Levin demonstrates that such challenges to the status quo usually lead to war. Russia, even in its diminished capacity since the end of the Cold War, has deftly positioned itself as the "swing player" in a future conflict between the United States and China. Levin contends that, since the turn of the century, the global War on Terror has distracted the United States from these developments, as China and Russia draw closer together in an alliance that may well displace American primacy. The Next Great Clash, augmented by personal experience in China, Russia, and the United States, combines years of scholarly research and political analysis--along with a riveting and up-to-date history of Chinese-Russian relations. This bold and iconoclastic tour de horizon is a must-read for anyone interested in international affairs.
Following the defeat of the Greek Army in 1922 by nationalist Turkish forces, the Convention of Lausanne in 1923 specified the first compulsory exchange of populations ratified by an international organization. The arrival in Greece of over 1.2 million refugees and their settlement proved to be a watershed with far-reaching consequences for the country. Dr Kontogiorgi examines the exchange of populations and the agricultural settlement in Greek Macedonia of hundreds of thousands of refugees from Asia Minor and the Pontus, Eastern Thrace, the Caucasus, and Bulgaria during the inter-war period. She examines Greek state policy and the role of the Refugee Settlement Commission which, under the auspices of the League of Nations, carried out the refugee resettlement project. Macedonia, a multilingual and ethnically diverse society, experienced a transformation so dramatic that it literally changed its character. Kontogiorgi charts that change and attempts to provide the means of understanding it. The consequences of the settlement of refugees for the ethnological composition of the population, and its political, social, demographic, and economic implications are treated in the light of new archival material. Reality is separated from myth in examining the factors involved in the process of integration of the newcomers and assimilation of the inhabitants - both refugees and indigenous - of the New Lands into the nation-state. Kontogiorgi examines the impact of the agrarian reforms and land distribution and makes an effort to convert the climate of the rural society of Macedonia during the inter-war period. The antagonisms between Slavophone and Vlach-speaking natives and refugee newcomers regarding the reallocation of former Muslim properties had significant ramifications for the political events in the region in the years to come. Other recurring themes in the book include the geographical distribution of the refugees, changing patterns of settlement and toponyms, the organisation of health services in the countryside, as well as the execution of irrigation and drainage works in marshlands. Kontogiorgi also throws light upon and analyses the puzzling mixture of achievement and failure which characterizes the history of the region during this transitional period. As the first successful refugee resettlement project of its kind, the 'refugee experiment' in Macedonia could provide a template for similar projects involving refugee movements in many parts of the world today.
Since the 1950s, China and India have been locked in a monumental battle for geopolitical supremacy. Chinese interest in the ethnic insurgencies in northeastern India, the still unresolved issue of the McMahon Line, the border established by the British imperial government, and competition for strategic access to the Indian Ocean have given rise to tense gamesmanship, political intrigue, and rivalry between the two Asian giants. Former Far Eastern Economic Review correspondent Bertil Lintner has drawn from his extensive personal interviews with insurgency leaders and civilians in remote tribal areas in northeastern India, newly declassified intelligence reports, and his many years of firsthand experience in Asia to chronicle this ongoing struggle. His history of the "Great Game East" is the first significant account of a regional conflict which has led to open warfare on several occasions, most notably the Sino-India border war of 1962, and will have a major impact on global affairs in the decades ahead.
Since the age of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 AD), Iran and the West have time and again appeared to be at odds. Iran and the West charts this contentious and complex relationship by examining the myriad ways the two have perceived each other, from antiquity to today. Across disciplines, perspectives and periods contributors consider literary, imagined, mythical, visual, filmic, political and historical representations of the 'other' and the ways in which these have been constructed in, and often in spite of, their specific historical contexts. Many of these narratives, for example, have their origin in the ancient world but have since been altered, recycled and manipulated to fit a particular agenda. Ranging from Tacitus, Leonidas and Xerxes via Shahriar Mandanipour and Azar Nafisi to Rosewater, Argo and 300, this inter-disciplinary and wide-ranging volume is essential reading for anyone working on the complex history, present and future of Iranian-Western relations.
European governments have re-discovered labor migration, but are
eager to be perceived as controlling unsolicited forms of
migration, especially through asylum and family reunion. The
emerging paradigm of managed migration combines the construction of
more permissive channels for desirable and actively recruited labor
migrants with ever more restrictive approaches towards asylum
seekers. Non-state actors, especially employer organizations, trade
unions, and humanitarian non-governmental organizations, attempt to
shape regulatory measures, but their success varies depending on
organizational characteristics. Labor market interest associations'
lobbying strategies regarding quantities and skill profile of labor
migrants will be influenced by the respective system of political
economy they are embedded in. Trade unions are generally supportive
of well-managed labor recruitment strategies. But migration
policy-making also proceeds at the European Union (EU) level. While
national actors seek to upload their national model as a blueprint
for future EU policy to avoid costly adaptation, top-down
Europeanization is re-casting national regulation in important
ways, notwithstanding highly divergent national regulatory
philosophies.
Kofi Annan has confronted numerous challenges, both before and during his tenure as Secretary-General of the United Nations. Citing inaction from the UN in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 and the Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal in 2004, critics allege that Annan failed in his responsibilities in the face of the challenges. Annan's proponents, however, say he lit the world with his gospel of peace and prosperity for all, sanctity of the rule of law and respect for one another. They point to his creativity and mastery of diplomacy, within the limits of his authority and human frailty, as hallmarks of his success. But what has Annan been judged on? Facts or fiction? Skills or skin color? Performance or prejudice? And how will Annan be judged by posterity? In answering these questions, Judging Annan reveals how Annan's avowed critics have allowed prejudice to cloud their sense of judgment. In this book, Richard Bagudu exposes the deliberate public misinformation on topics like the genocide in Rwandan, the Oil-for-Food scandal and the behind-the-scene roles that some nations have played in ensuring the failure of the UN in critical situations.
Conflict resolution, as a defined field of study, has been facing stiff challenges in the post Cold War world. The multipolar setting of the globalised world with rising incidence of intra-state conflicts and growing convergence between security and development issues have generated fresh as well as severely mutated old challenges which most often do not fit well within traditional theoretical explanatory categories evolved within Peace and Conflict Studies. This disjunction is often generated by the fact that the modern conflict zones are mostly located in the developing and underdeveloped parts of the global South whereas the discourses of Conflict resolution continue to be largely western in origin and focus. Dissatisfaction with this process led to the search for alternative values in non-western discourses either philosophical such as Buddhism, or Gandhian methodology of peaceful satyagraha. Attempts made by Peace and Conflict resolution theorists to borrow and integrate non-western concepts within the paradigm, however important, are but small steps which indicate the growing complexities associated with the process as well as academic analyses and discussions related to conflict resolution. More micro-level studies of attempts towards conflict resolution from primarily non-western conflict zones as well as alternative theorisations about no-western norms(if any) and discourses would be necessary to ascertain whether a non-western alternative paradigm for conflict resolution is possible, desirable, and whether it could be integrated and absorbed successfully within the already established theoretical models of conflict. The present edited volume represents some of these viewpoints. It includes nine essays which try to look into the process of conflict resolution from various angles, the primary aim being to discover whether it could be done through non-western prism and would be of interest to both practitioners and academics and, ofcourse, students.
At the height of the Cold War, the John F. Kennedy administration designed an ambitious plan for the Middle East-its aim was to seek rapprochement with Nasser's Egypt in order to keep the Arab world neutral and contain the perceived communist threat. In order to offset this approach, Kennedy sought to grow relations with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and embrace Israel's defense priorities-a decision which would begin the US-Israeli 'special relationship'. Here, Antonio Perra shows for the first time how new relations with Saudi Arabia and Israel which would come to shape the Middle East for decades were in fact a by-product of Kennedy's efforts at Soviet containment. The Saudi's in particular were increasingly viewed as 'an atavistic regime who would soon disappear' but Kennedy's support for them-which hardened during the Yemen Crisis even as he sought to placate Nasser-had the unintended effect of making them, as today, the US' great pillar of support in the Middle East.
Ending the U.S. war in Iraq required redeploying 100,000 military and civilian personnel; handing off responsibility for 431 activities to the Iraqi government, U.S. embassy, USCENTCOM, or other U.S. government entities; and moving or transferring ownership of over a million pieces of property in accordance with U.S. and Iraqi laws, national policy, and DoD requirements. This book examines the planning and execution of this transition. |
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