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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism
Across the world, millions of people are taking to the streets demanding urgent action on climate breakdown and other environmental emergencies. Extinction Rebellion, Fridays for Future and Climate Strikes are part of a new lexicon of environmental protest advocating civil disobedience to leverage change. This groundbreaking book -- also a Special Issue of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment -- critically unveils the legal and political context of this new wave of eco-activisms. It illustrates how the practise of dissent builds on a long tradition of grassroots activism, such as the Anti-Nuclear movement, but brings into focus new participants, such as school children, and new distinctive aesthetic tactics, such as the mass 'die-ins' and 'discobedience' theatrics in public spaces. Expert international authors offer fresh insights into the strategies and goals of these protest movements, the changing vocabulary of environmental activism, such as the 'climate emergency', and the contribution of specific protest actors, particularly youth and Indigenous peoples. They also consider how some governments have responded to these actions with draconian anti-protest legislation, and by using the Covid-19 pandemic as cover to keep protesters off the streets. The scholarly analyses are complemented with first-hand interviews of some leading protagonists, including Extinction Rebellion leaders and Green Party politicians. The result is an unrivalled analysis of the role of new environmental protest movements seeking to drive a new generation of policies and laws for climate action and social justice. This impressive book will prove an important and insightful read for students and scholars interested in environmental law, climate law, and grass roots activism specifically.
This incisive book provides an extensive analysis of the robust array of international law applicable across the spectrum of international conflict and security. With a particular focus on new and emerging technologies and domains such as cyber and outer space, Laurie Blank illustrates how international conflict and security law applies to 21st century challenges. From conflict prevention to the use of force, the law of armed conflict to transitional justice, this book offers an in-depth examination of how these legal frameworks address the most fundamental questions for security at the human, national and international levels: how to prevent and reduce escalation of conflict; how to protect States, their territory and their core national interests; how to protect individuals and their rights; how to maintain and restore international peace; how to resolve conflicts; and how to promote justice and reconciliation after conflict. Overall, the book creates a multifaceted and insightful picture of how the international legal system functions as a comprehensive - if still sometimes fractured - framework. International Conflict and Security Law will be essential reading for both graduate and undergraduate students studying security policy, international law, conflict resolution and armed conflict. It will also provide a well-rounded exploration of the field as a whole for policy makers, practitioners and academics.
1994 symbolised the triumphal defeat of almost three and a half centuries of racial separation since the Dutch East India Company planted a bitter almond hedge to keep indigenous people out of `their' Cape outpost in 1659. But for the majority of people in the world's most unequal society, the taste of bitter almonds linger as their exclusion from a dignified life remain the rule. In the year of South Africa's troubled coming-of-age, veteran investigative journalist Michael Schmidt brings to bear 21 years of his scribbled field notes to weave a tapestry of the view from below: here in the demi-monde of our transition from autocracy to democracy, in the half-light glow of the rusted rainbow, you will meet neo-Nazis and the newly dispossessed, Boers and Bushmen, black illegal coal miners and a bank robber, witches and wastrels, love children and land claimants. With their feet in the mud, the Born Free youth have their eyes on the stars.
This cutting-edge book illuminates the key characteristics of inclusivity in mediation during armed conflicts and post-conflict peacebuilding. Daisaku Higashi illustrates the importance of mediators taking flexible approaches to inclusivity in arbitration during armed conflicts, highlighting the crucial balance between the need to select conflicting parties to make an agreement feasible and the need to include a multiplicity of parties to make the peace sustainable. Higashi also emphasizes the importance of inclusive processes in the phase of post-conflict peacebuilding. Higashi draws on first-hand experience as a team leader for reconciliation and reintegration in UNAMA, as well as interviews with leaders in conflicting states and UN missions, and recommends various roles for the UN, neighboring states and global powers in mediation during and after armed conflicts. Utilizing extensive field research and analysis, the book focuses on conflict regions in Afghanistan, South Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq and East Timor to demonstrate the significance of addressing inclusivity in mediation and peacebuilding with different approaches. Engaging with a range of empirical sources to make key policy recommendations, this book is crucial reading for practitioners working in mediation and peacebuilding, particularly UN officials, think-tank experts, government officials and NGOs. It will also benefit scholars and students of political science and international relations in need of unique, real-world accounts of global mediation, peacebuilding and conflict management.
How was it that this well-educated, mixed-race, middle-class girl from a respectable family came to be fighting with the Tamil Tigers? Two days before Christmas in 1987, at the age of seventeen, Niromi de Soyza found herself in an ambush as part of a small platoon of militant Tamil Tigers fighting government forces in the bloody civil war that was to engulf Sri Lanka for decades. With her was her lifelong friend Ajanthi, also aged seventeen. Leaving behind them their shocked middle-class families, the teenagers had become part of the Tamil Tigers' first female contingent. Equipped with little more than a rifle and a cyanide capsule each, Niromi's group managed to survive on their wits in the jungle, facing not only the perils of war but starvation, illness and growing internal tensions among the militant Tigers. But then events erupted in ways that she could no longer bear.
Ethnography is at the heart of what researchers in management and organization studies do. This crucial book offers a robust and original overview of ''doing'' organizational ethnography, guiding readers through the essential qualitative methods for the study of organizations. Preparing students to enter the field with a confident outlook and a toolkit of skills, chapters present a series of action-learning projects to arm readers with practical exercises that will hone the abilities of the organizational ethnographer. Expert contributors offer crucial outlines into a variety of essential skills, including shadowing, autoethnography, interviews, media analysis and storytelling. The book concludes with a chapter by a doctoral student, providing unique insights into the development of the ethnographic understanding of organizational realities. Featuring useful exercises and an accessible style, this book is critical reading for PhD and Masters students in business administration and organizational theory, as well as social science students undertaking qualitative methodology programmes. It will also be useful for students on MBA courses in need of a humanistic approach to organizations.
This book asks why socially innovative initiatives, including attempts to rejuvenate democracy by introducing new modes of participation, are not leading to a democratization of the State or overcoming the gap between political leaders and people. It offers a vivid and thought-provoking conversation on why we are at such an impasse and explores concrete possibilities for change. Offering insights on the failures of modern democracies from three leading voices of contemporary social science, the book interrogates the possibilities of progressive socio-political agendas, strategies, and movements seeking to overcome these failures. It highlights examples of bottom-linked forms of governance that provide signs of positive change and focuses on the essential role that progressive institutions play in enabling socio-political transformation. It also analyses how processes of self-emancipation driven by social innovation and political mobilization movements represent the most promising form of political engagement today. Students and scholars of social innovation and governance will find this to be an invigorating read. It will also be helpful to politicians and government officials seeking to understand, respond to, and explore efforts towards democratizing political change.
The recent activism film Just Do It (2011) had a message: 'Get off your arse and change the world'. But, as Michael Norton here implores, no-one has to be that energetic. Click2Change advocates sitting back and changing the world from computers, iPads and iPhones. Click2Change offers a wide range of world-changing thing to do on the internet: such as becoming an e-activist or recycling unwanted stuff. With plenty of ideas, information and lots of websites to access, readers will be able to make their mark on the world with a click of the mouse.
In 1985 Jennifer and Ian Hartley left their home, bought a caravan and moved to Cambridgeshire to witness against the sighting of Cruise missiles at RAF Molesworth. This memoir recounts their day to day life living in this unusual place and the dialogue they had with MPs, the military, police, peace campaigners, the local community and the church.
Through a pioneering analysis of two critical junctures in EU counter-terrorism, this topical book examines the drivers, conditions and impediments for policy integration and information-exchange institutionalisation in EU counter-terrorism. Taking a deep dive into the key questions surrounding EU counter-terrorism, Christine Andreeva utilises distinct terrorism case studies over two decades to investigate the evolution of information-sharing in EU counter-terrorism. Using an innovative theoretical framework combining historical and constructivist institutionalism, the book examines key events in EU counter-terrorism development: the 2015-2016 Paris and Brussels attacks and the 2004-2005 Madrid and London attacks. Identifying a post-2015 paradigm policy shift, the book traces the increased efficiency of cross-border and inter-agency co-ordination in the EU's counter-terrorism policy. Andreeva demonstrates how institutionalisation, information-sharing and improved legislative frameworks have led to further policy integration and added significant value to international EU counter-terrorism efforts. Illustrating the importance of practitioners' perception of EU added value in counter-terrorism, this book will be essential to scholars and students of public policy, particularly those studying EU and international politics and EU counter-terrorism. Its empirical findings will also be useful to policymakers and practitioners in security and counter-terrorism fields.
An absorbing account of how two Jewish brothers devoted themselves to the struggle for racial equality in the United States. In the late nineteenth century, Joel and Arthur Spingarn grew up in New York City as brothers with very different personalities, interests, and professional goals. Joel was impetuous and high-spirited; Arthur was reasoned and studious. Yet together they would become essential leaders in the struggle for racial justice and equality, serving as presidents of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, exposing inequities, overseeing key court cases, and lobbying presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy. In The Spingarn Brothers, Katherine Reynolds Chaddock sheds new light on the story of these fascinating brothers and explores how their Jewish heritage and experience as second-generation immigrants led to their fight for racial equality. Upon graduating from Columbia University, Arthur joined a top Manhattan law practice, while Joel became a professor of comparative literature. The two soon witnessed growing racial injustices in the city and joined the NAACP in 1909, its founding year. Arthur began to aim his legal practice toward issues of discrimination, while Joel founded the NAACP's New York City branch. Drawing from personal letters, journals, and archives, Chaddock uncovers some of the motivations and influences that guided the Spingarns. Both brothers served in World War I, married, and pursued numerous interests that ranged from running for Congress to collecting rare books and manuscripts by Black authors around the world. In this dual biography, Chaddock illustrates how the Spingarn brothers' unique personalities, Jewish heritage, and family history shaped their personal and professional lives into an ongoing fight for racial justice.
The Confederate surrender at Vicksburg on the 4th July 1863 was a disaster for the South during the American Civil War, because it caused the loss of control of the Mississippi River Valley. President Jefferson Davis was ultimately responsible, not because the Union had superior resources, but because of his own shortcomings, chief of which were: not providing a co-ordinated defence plan for the West, incorrectly assessing the capabilities of his western generals, failing to understand the deficiencies in his own capabilities, and not reacting to the change needed, as the North developed new tactics to prosecute the war. In early 1863, the Confederate geographical command structure was split along the line of the Mississippi River, but the Union attacked using both banks. General Joseph E. Johnston had Vicksburg within his in command, but he was based in Chattanooga. His subordinate, Lieutenant-General John C. Pemberton was left in isolation at Vicksburg, but he did enjoy the direct support of Davis. They agreed on the wrong defensive strategy, contrary to Johnston's wishes, which left him in an impossible position. This work has studied the interaction between these Southern leaders, as they lost the supposedly impregnable city of Vicksburg.
The Jameson Raid was a pivotal moment in the history of South Africa, linking events from the Anglo-Boer War to the declaration of the Union of South Africa in 1910. For over a century the failed revolution has been interpreted through the lens of British imperialism, with responsibility laid at the feet of Cecil John Rhodes. Yet the wild adventurism that characterised the raid resembles a cowboy expedition more than a serious attempt to overthrow a Boer government. In The Cowboy Capitalist, Charles van Onselen challenges a historiography of over 120 years, locating the raid in American rather than British history and forcing us to rethink the histories of at least three nations. Through a close look at the little-remembered figure of John Hays Hammond, a confidant of both Rhodes and Jameson, he discovers the American Old West on the South African Highveld. This radical reinterpretation challenges the commonly held belief that the Jameson Raid was quintessentially British and, in doing so, drives splinters into our understanding of events as far forward as South Africa’s critical 1948 general election, with which the foundations of Grand Apartheid were laid.
'It's damned hard lines asking for bread and only getting a bullet!' The dramatic and chaotic events surrounding the Russian Revolution have been studied and written about extensively for the last hundred years, by historians and journalists alike. However, some of the most compelling and valuable accounts are those recorded by eyewitnesses, many of whom were foreign nationals caught in Petrograd at the time. Drawing from the Bodleian Library's rich collections, this book features extracts from letters, journals, diaries and memoirs written by a diverse cast of onlookers. Primarily British, the authors include Sydney Gibbes, English tutor to the royal children, Bertie Stopford, an antiques dealer who smuggled the Vladimir tiara and other Romanov jewels into the UK, and the private secretary to Lord Milner in the British War Cabinet. Contrasting with these are a memoir by Stinton Jones, an engineer who found himself sharing a train compartment with Rasputin, a newspaper report by governess Janet Jeffrey who survived a violent confrontation with the Red Army, and letters home from Labour politician, Arthur Henderson. Accompanied by seventy contemporary illustrations, these first-hand accounts are put into context with introductory notes, giving a fascinating insight into the tumultuous year of 1917.
Nelson Mandela's comrade in the struggle, Denis Goldberg, spent 22 years in an Apartheid South African political prison from 1963 to 1985. In this memoir, Denis, the perennial optimist, writes about the human side of the often painful road to freedom; about the joy of love and death, human dignity, political passion, comradeship, conflict between comrades...and a very long imprisonment. These memoirs offer the reader an insight into an important chapter in the history of our struggle from a different viewpoint because the racist dogmas of apartheid dictated that he would be incarcerated apart from his Black comrades and colleagues. That segregation denied him both the companionship and the counsel of his fellow accused. His was consequently an exceedingly lonely sojourn. But, true to himself and the cause he had espoused from his youth, he bore it with courage and immense dignity.
This timely Handbook examines the causes, costs and consequences of state fragility, advancing key debates in the field. Demonstrating the multidimensionality of fragility by applying diverse theories and methodologies, it provides new insights on effective policy development and application in the context of fragile states. Drawing on a wide variety of disciplines, approaches and case studies, the Handbook pays particular attention to the root causes and drivers of fragility. It centres authority, legitimacy and the citizen-state relationship alongside state capacity, revealing the flaws in the reasoning behind previous Western policy interventions in fragile states. Chapters address a broad range of issues facing fragile states, from fragility traps, refugees and urbanisation to recent events including the Covid-19 pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and the increasing pressures of climate change. Ultimately, the Handbook advances the state of both academic and policy knowledge on state fragility, revealing the deep links between the two. This Handbook will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of political science, international relations, development studies, economics, and sociology. It will also benefit practitioners seeking to improve the effectiveness of their policy proposals. |
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