In 2007, Martin Luther Agwai was deployed to Darfur as Force Commander of UNAMID, which, as the first African Union–UN hybrid mission, was to become the largest peacekeeping operation in the world. Four years earlier, Darfur had imploded, descending into violent conflicts. The international community – in the form of both activists and state actors – felt it could not remain uninvolved lest a genocide on the scale of Rwanda occurred. Despite such lofty intentions, UNAMID proved to be high on promise but low on commitment and delivery. Ultimately, it failed to address the conflicts taking place, much less build a sustainable peace. Agwai provides unique insight into what went wrong in Darfur, and the myriad challenges facing international peacekeeping operations more generally. Crucially, he highlights the lack of multi-level cooperation between the people of Darfur and the intervening parties, and how the absence of a bottom-up approach to peacebuilding works against peace being both achieved and maintained.

This book cuts through the misunderstandings about Russia's geopolitical challenge to the West, presenting this not as 'hybrid war' but 'political war.' Russia seeks to antagonise: its diplomats castigate Western 'Russophobia' and cultivate populist sentiment abroad, while its media sells Russia as a peaceable neighbour and a bastion of traditional social values. Its spies snoop, and even kill, and its hackers and trolls mount a 24/7 onslaught on Western systems and discourses. This is generally characterised as 'hybrid war,' but this is a misunderstanding of Russian strategy. Drawing extensively not just on their writings but also decades of interactions with Russian military, security and government officials, this study demonstrates that the Kremlin has updated traditional forms of non-military 'political war' for the modern world. Aware that the West, if united, is vastly richer and stronger, Putin is seeking to divide, and distract, in the hope it will either accept his claim to Russia's great-power status - or at least be unable to prevent him. In the process, Russia may be foreshadowing how the very nature of war is changing: political war may be the future. This book will be of much interest to students of strategic studies, war studies, Russian politics and security studies.

"The Other Israel" is an urgent and passionate intervention by Israeli citizens challenging the continued occupation of Palestinian territory and the failed policies of Ariel Sharon's government. Against a backdrop of increasing violence on both sides, the book presents a broad range of dissenting voices that articulate practical, legal, and moral objections to the occupation. Written from within the throes of the unfolding tragedy, it includes contributions from journalists, novelists, activists, military reservists, and former government officials.

Needed now more than ever, this book challenges narrow American perceptions of public opinion in Israel, and will act as a catalyst in prompting vital debate about the future of Israel and the path to peace for all citizens of the Middle East.

Contributors include: Shulamit Aloni Uri Avnery Ami Ayalon Meron Benvenisti Michael Ben-Yair Yigal Bronner Neta Golan and Ian Urbina Neve Gordon David Grossman Jeff Halper Amira Hass Baruch Kimmerling Aviv Lavie Shamai Leibowitz Gideon Levy Yitzhak Loar Ishai Menuchin Adi Ophir Assaf Oron Ilan Pappe Tanya Reinhart Avi Shlaim Yigal Shochat Ze'ev Sternhell Gila Svirsky Sergio Yahni

"This is a must-read book for anyone searching for insight into the peace process of the divided Korean peninsula. As a peace researcher and activist, the author highlights the role of civil society in making peacebuilding possible and sustainable on the Korean peninsula. This volume opens a new horizon to the study of peace and conflict." -Koo, Kab Woo, Professor, University of North Korean Studies "This book makes an enormous contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of peace and conflict on the Korean peninsula and expands our understanding of the requirements of sustainable peacebuilding. The emphasis on the role of civil society as part of an inclusive approach to strategic peacebuilding is especially helpful."-Iain Atack, Assistant Professor in International Peace Studies, Trinity College Dublin "This expertly crafted book makes an original contribution to understanding peacebuilding theory and the critical role of civil society in strategic peacebuilding. It offers valuable lessons and hope for peaceful transformation of the Korean conflict as well as the negotiation of a sustainable peace in other protracted conflict settings."-Wendy Lambourne, Senior Lecturer, Department of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney The Post-Cold War era witnessed a dramatic rise in breakthroughs for peace processes, including the Korean peninsula, between parties mired in protracted conflict. However, many such processes broke down within a short period of time. This book explores the possibilities for comprehensive and sustainable peacebuilding strategy in the Korean peace process, beyond reaching an agreement, by reviewing diverse peacebuilding activities from government and civil society.

Peace and War: Historical, Philosophical, and Anthropological Perspectives is an accessible, higher-level critical discussion of philosophical commentaries on the nature of peace and war. It introduces and analyses various philosophies of peace and war, and their continuing theoretical and practical relevance for peace studies and conflict resolution. Using a combination of both historical and contemporary philosophical perspectives, the book is at once eclectic in its approach and broad in its inquiry of these enduring phenomena of human existence.

"Conceptually and empirically, this is the most thoughtful analysis of the role of EU's peace missions I have read so far. It starts with the 'action for the sake of action' logic of CSDP development and offers a new interpretation of what CSDP could be, if just peace was part of its political agenda. A rare gem in European studies."- Xymena Kurowska, Associate Professor of International Relations at Central European University, Hungary "This impressive research monograph provides a critical account of EUs peace missions by asking what these missions offer, how peace is built, and whom these missions serve. To address these important questions, Birgit Poopuu develops and employs an original and sophisticated discursive framework of telling and acting to conduct an in-depth investigation of EU peace missions Artemis in the DRC, EUFOR Althea in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and EULEX in Kosovo. This book's ground-breaking exploration advances the study of the EU as a peacebuilder."- Annika Bjoerkdahl, Professor of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden, and Editor in Chief of Cooperation and Conflict This book critically explores the European Union's brand of peacebuilding in the form of its Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). A contextually close reading of EU missions - using the fluid categories of telling and acting, stressing the dialogical ways of being, and taking heed of the concept of just peace as a particular guide to building peace - allows the book to tap into the specific meanings the EU has of peace, the ways in which it imagines its relationships with its varied partners, and perhaps most controversially, the way that being/becoming a global actor has been front and center of the CSDP. The analysis focuses on three core missions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo. One of the recurring themes that emerges from the empirical chapters is the significance attached to acting, and that acting per se constitutes success of a mission, without much thought given to its substance, or the outcome of the EU's engagement. The imaginative force of this book rests on developing a set of context-sensitive analytical tools, encapsulated in the dialogical model of identity formation and the dynamic approach to analysing identity through telling and acting.

This interdisciplinary edited collection establishes a new dialogue between translation, conflict and memory studies focusing on fictional texts, reports from war zones and audiovisual representations of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship. It explores the significant role of translation in transmitting a recent past that continues to resonate within current debates on how to memorialize this inconclusive historical episode. The volume combines a detailed analysis of well-known authors such as Langston Hughes and John Dos Passos, with an investigation into the challenges found in translating novels such as The Group by Mary McCarthy (considered a threat to the policies established by the dictatorial regime), and includes more recent works such as El tiempo entre costuras by Maria Duenas. Further, it examines the reception of the translations and whether the narratives cross over effectively in various contexts. In doing so it provides an analysis of the landscape of the Spanish conflict and dictatorship in translation that allows for an intergenerational and transcultural dialogue. It will appeal to students and scholars of translation, history, literature and cultural studies.

Northern Ireland presents a fundamental challenge for the sociology of religion - how do religious beliefs, attitudes and identities relate to practices, violence and conflict? In other words, what does religion do? These interrogations are at the core of this book. It is the first critical and comprehensive review of the ways in which the social sciences have interpreted religion's significance in Northern Ireland. In particular, it examines the shortcomings of existing interpretations and, in turn, suggests alternative lines of thinking for more robust and compelling analyses of the role(s) religion might play in Northern Irish culture and politics. Through, and beyond, the case of Northern Ireland, the second objective of this book is to outline a critical agenda for the social study of religion, which has theoretical and methodological underpinnings. Finally, this work engages with epistemological issues which never have been addressed as such in the Northern Irish context: how do conflict settings affect the research undertaken on religion, when religion is an object of political and violent contentions? By analysing the scope for objective and critical thinking in such research context, this critical essay intends to contribute to a sociology of the sociology of religion.

This book asks the question: what is the role of memory during a political transition? Drawing on Ethiopian history, transitional justice, and scholarly fields concerned with memory, museums and trauma, the author reveals a complex picture of global, transnational, national and local forces as they converge in the story of the creation and continued life of one modest museum in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa-the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum. It is a study from multiple margins: neither the case of Ethiopia nor memorialization is central to transitional justice discourse, and within Ethiopia, the history of the Red Terror is sidelined in contemporary politics. From these nested margins, traumatic memory emerges as an ambiguous social and political force. The contributions, meaning and limitations of memory emerge at the point of discrete interactions between memory advocates, survivor-docents and visitors. Memory from the margins is revealed as powerful for how it disrupts, not builds, new forms of community.

This book explores how, and if, formal education affects peacebuilding in post-conflict societies. As schooling is often negatively implicated in violent conflict, the author highlights the widely expressed need to 'build back better' and 'transform' schooling by changing both its structures and processes, and its curriculum. Drawing upon research from a wide range of post-conflict developing societies including Cambodia, Colombia and Kenya, the author examines whether there is any empirical support for the idea that schooling can be transformed so it can contribute to more peaceful and democratic societies. In doing so, the author reveals how the 'myth' of building back better is perpetuated by academics and international organisations, and explains why formal education in post-conflict developing societies is so impervious to radical change. This important volume will appeal to students and scholars of education in post-conflict societies.

Ending humanitarian atrocities has become as important for the United Nations as preventing interstate war. This book examines the transformation of UN operations, analysing its changing role and structure. Ramesh Thakur asks why, when and how force may be used, and argues that the growing gulf between legality and legitimacy is evidence of an eroded sense of international community. He considers the tension between the United States, with its capacity to use force and project power, and the United Nations, as the centre of the international law enforcement system. He asserts the central importance of the rule of law and a rules-based order focused on the United Nations as the foundation of a civilised system of international relations. This book will be of interest to students of the United Nations and international organisations in politics, law and international relations departments, as well as policymakers in governmental and non-governmental international organisations.

This volume explores and develops new social-scientific tools for the analysis and understanding of contemporary military missions in theatre. Despite the advent of new types of armed conflict, the social-scientific study of militaries in action continues to focus on tools developed in the hey-day of conventional wars. These tools focus on such classic issues as cohesion and leadership, communication and unit dynamics, or discipline and motivation. While these issues continue to be important, most studies focus on organic units (up to and including brigades). By contrast, this volume suggests the utility of concepts related to mission formations - as opposed to 'units' or 'components' - to better capture the (ongoing) processual nature of the amalgamations and combinations that military involvement in conflicts necessitates. The study of these formations by the social sciences - sociology, social psychology, anthropology, political science and organization science - requires the introduction of new analytical tools to the study of militaries in theatre. As such, this volume utilizes new approaches to social life, organizational dynamics and to armed violence to understand the place of the armed forces in contemporary conflicts and the new tasks they are assigned. This book will be of much interest to students of military studies, sociology, security studies and International Relations in general.

The rise of peace education both in scholarship and in practice has yielded numerous documents, websites, and publications with often divergent perspectives on what the field is, does, and means. The Encyclopedia of Peace Education provides a comprehensive overview of the scholarly developments in the field to date, so as to provide a common denominator for the various actors involved in advancing peace education internationally. Thus, this edited volume serves as an essential reference guide that traces the history and emergence of the field, highlights foundational concepts, contextualizes peace education practice across international and disciplinary borders, and suggests new directions for peace educators. From core conceptual perspectives to the moral and spiritual foundations of the field to the role of the United Nations, the Encyclopedia grounds peace education in a solid theoretical and practical framework through the writings of the field's most renowned scholars. This volume will target undergraduate and graduate students as well as scholars and practitioners working in international and non-governmental organizations in the field of peace education.

This book is a study of the key components and contradictions of the escalating global crisis and their impact on modern Australia. It elaborates the damage being done to democracy, human rights, and the fabric of society. Racism is structured in the universality of the nation-state and capitalism in the 21st century. Racism is a process that discriminates and segregates the human species, creating major conflicts and antagonisms. It generates a global struggle for equality and social justice. The global crisis is energised by the contradiction between a global capitalism that is in effect totalitarian and the imperatives of economic growth driving every nation-state of the world. Racism is embodied in the emergence of a new imperialism to maintain Western global hegemony, a growing source of instability and violence in the world system, endangering the survival of humanity. The book advocates the promotion of full democratic participation in the struggle for social, political, and economic equality.

This book presents commentaries by a leading international group of peace education scholars and practitioners concerning Reardon's peace education theory and intellectual legacy. The guiding question throughout the book is: How can her foundational work be used to advance the theory and practice of peace education? In an attempt to find answers, the contributing authors explore three general areas of inquiry: (1) Theoretical Foundations of Peace and Human Rights Education; (2) Feminism and the Gender Perspective as Pathways of Transformation Toward Peace and Justice; and (3) Peace Education Pedagogy and Practices. A contemplative commentary by Reardon herself rounds out the coverage

We are here to remember what happened and to declare solemnly that ‘they’ must never do it again. But who are ‘they’?

HOW TO SPOT A FASCIST is a selection of three thought-provoking essays on freedom and fascism, censorship and tolerance – including Eco’s iconic essay ‘Ur-Fascism’, which lists the fourteen essential characteristics of fascism, and draws on his own personal experiences growing up in the shadow of Mussolini.

Umberto Eco remains one of the greatest writers and cultural commentators of the last century. In these pertinent pieces, he warns against prejudice and abuses of power and proves a wise and insightful guide for our times.

If we strive to learn from our collective history and come together in challenging times, we can hope for a peaceful and tolerant future.

Freedom and liberation are never-ending tasks. Let this be our motto: ‘Do not forget.’

This volume brings together international scholars reflecting on the theory and practice of international security, human security, natural resources and environmental change. It contributes by 'centring the margins' and privileging alternative conceptions and understandings of environmental (in)security.

Wars often spring out of nowhere with little warning. One need only look at the recent troubles at the Lebanon-Israeli border for evidence of this claim. At other points in history, such as the run-up to the Second World War, wars seem all but foretold. How does one understand a phenomenon that, at times, seems so random, while at others so predictable? Is there an underlying "cause" of war and, if so, what is it? In this book, David Sobek argues that there is no single explanation for war: factors leading to war in one case may well lead to peace in another. Understanding the onset of war, he contends, requires a movement away from single theories towards one that embraces the multi-faceted causes of war. The characteristics of individual states, the strategic interaction of multiple states, and the broad structure of the international system all affect the risk of war. Throughout the book Sobek draws on a wide range of examples - from the rise of Japan in the 19th century to the emergence of Hamas in the 21st century - to show how both domestic and international politics push states to, or pull them from, the brink of armed conflict. While civil war and terrorism are often viewed as a from of violence distinct from interstate war, Sobek examines them as simply an extreme form of asymmetric warfare. From this perspective terrorism emerges as just another tactic used by actors engaged in armed conflict. The Causes of War will be essential reading for students of security and strategic studies as well as anyone seeking to understand the rise of violent conflict in the contemporary world.

Conflicts between agents acting in a multi-agent environment arise for different reasons, involve different concepts, and are dealt with in different ways, depending on the kind of agents and on the domain where they are considered. Agents may have conflicting beliefs, conflicting goals, or may have to share limited resources. Consequently, conflicts may be expressed as mere differences, or as contradictions, or even as social conflicts. They may be avoided, solved, kept, or even created deliberately. Conflicting Agents studies conflicts in the context of multi-agent systems, i.e. artificial societies modeled on the basis of autonomous, interacting agents. This book addresses questions about types of conflicts, conflict definitions and the use of conflicts as trigger functions for activities in multi-agent systems. The book is also dedicated to questions of conflict management, resolution and avoidance, i.e. the question of how agents cope with conflicts and conflicting situations.

This book explores theories of conflict and peacebuilding and applies them to case studies from the Asia Pacific region, seeking to shift attention to the inherency of conflict, the constant danger of re-emergence, and the need to establish mechanisms to resolve it. The authors argue that the central focus of peacebuilding should not be state-building per se, but rather the creation of effective mechanisms for peaceful resolution of both past and newly emerging conflicts. To do so, it is important to consider the entire process of creating peace, to contemplate the linkages between conflict, resolution, and post-conflict peacebuilding, rather than focus only on the period of institution-building.

Before military action, and even before mobilization, the decision on whether to go to war is debated by politicians, pundits, and the public. As they address the right or wrong of such action, it is also a time when, in the language of the just war tradition, the wise would deeply investigate their true claim to jus ad bellum ("the right of war"). Wars have negative consequences, not the least impinging on human life, and offer infrequent and uncertain benefits, yet war is part of the human condition. James G. Murphy's insightful analysis of the jus ad bellum criteria -- competent authority, just cause, right intention, probability of success, last resort, and proportionality -- is grounded in a variety of contemporary examples from World War I through Vietnam, the "soccer war" between Honduras and El Salvador, Afghanistan, and the Middle East conflict. Murphy argues persuasively that understanding jus ad bellum requires a primary focus on the international common good and the good of peace. Only secondarily should the argument about going to war hinge on the right of self-defense; in fact, pursuing the common good requires political action, given that peace is not simply the absence of violence. He moves on to demonstrate the interconnectedness of the jus ad bellum criteria, contending that some criteria depend logically on others -- and that competent authority, not just cause, is ultimately the most significant criterion in an analysis of going to war. This timely study will be of special interest to scholars and students in ethics, war and peace, and international affairs.

In this title, the essays examine how women actively contribute not only to conflict, but also to peace and social change in diverse contexts around the world. This collection of essays explores the role of women as they participate in both conflict and peacemaking. The essays, contributed by scholars and practitioners from around the world, do not look at women as victims or perpetrators, but instead examine their behavior in conflict zones and their involvement in conflict - how it affects them, how they are active participants, and the initiatives they take in intervention, conflict resolution, and peace building. The book thus demonstrates remarkable cases of agency, where women were the authors of change. This may happen in a violent way, as with female suicide bombers or the Black Widows of Chechnya, or women may actively help to stop conflict or participate in peacebuilding activities, as they did in Rwanda or Liberia. The thematically organized chapters cover issues of women waging war, women intervening in war, women waging peace, and women sustaining peace, all substantiated with case studies and first hand accounts. "Women Waging War and Peace" will be an essential resource to anyone researching conflict processes and women's agency.

This work explains and critically examines the main theoretical aspects of operational warfare at sea. It utilizes diverse examples from naval history, ranging from the ancient era to the present day, to offer a comprehensive description and analysis of the key components of operational warfare at sea today. Specifically, it explains the military/naval objectives, levels of war, types of major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns, and their main elements. In contrast to many works, this book focuses on the role of the naval operational commanders in command and control and decision-making. It also describes in great detail the main elements of naval operational leadership and operational thinking, which are illustrated by examples of successful warfighting admirals. This new edition has been completely revised and updated, with three new chapters, and analyses in even more detail the planning and execution of major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns. This book is intended to serve as a primer of how to plan, prepare, and execute major naval/joint operations and maritime campaigns for naval operational commanders and their staffs, but will also be of great interest to students of naval power, strategic studies, and military history in general.

This book explores the powerful role of ordinary people's agency in times of violent conflict. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a Critical Discourse Analysis, the author draws out the motivations, drivers and strategies at individual and community levels. With a focus on people's own voices, this research highlights rich findings showing a wide range of experiences and actions that people engaged in during the violent conflict, and dimensions that are often missed in dominant explanations of violent conflict. Therefore, while looking at peace and conflict from an everyday perspective, the question of power and the meaning of peace knowledge become central. This monograph addresses the power of people's agency not only in shaping the politics and dynamics of violence, but also in redefining what 'peace' and 'change' ought to look like. Essential reading for researchers and students of Peace and Conflict Studies, and also International Relations, Security Studies, Resistance Studies, Anthropology, Politics, International Development.