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Books > Social sciences > Politics & government > Political activism > Revolutions & coups
The Egyptian Social Contract explores the intricacies of the relationship between the state and its citizens, from the establishment of the semi-independent Egyptian nation in 1922 until the 2011 Uprising. The book studies how and why a social contract that had been reformed in the aftermath of World War II became the core of state-citizen relations under President Nasser. It further explores the long and tortuous search for a new social contract in Egypt since the 1970s. Relli Shechter looks at how this social contract channelled socioeconomic development over time, creating an Egyptian middle-class society. Shechter probes a political economy in which class vision and interests in development intertwined with the rise and entrenchment of authoritarianism. The perseverance of this social contract has mostly inhibited socioeconomic and political reforms, or the making of a new social contract, in Egypt. Such reforms would have challenged Egypt's ruling elite, and no less so its middle-class society.
This book, the result of more than a decade of research, focuses on the socio-political dynamics and civil-military relations in a little studied country: Mauritania, located in the troubled North-western part of Africa. Boubacar N'Diaye brings into light the political evolution of this country which holds lessons for African politics, and could affect the future of the West African sub-region. Mauritania's Colonels examines the personalities and policy of five military officers turned heads of state who ruled Mauritania for nearly forty years. After comparing and contrasting the personal traits, social origins, itineraries, and evolution as military officers, it critically evaluates the policies they enacted to address four key challenges their country faces. These are, namely, the difficult cohabitation between the country's ethno-cultural communities, the illusive democratization and military withdrawal from politics, the judicious management of the country's abundant natural resources to meet the socioeconomic needs of their people, and the prudent conduct of foreign policy given Mauritania's location, straddling Arab North Africa and Sub-Saharan Africa. Showing the impact that each Colonel has had on the evolution of Mauritania, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of West Africa, African politics, civil-military relations and democratization processes.
Perhaps no work of history written in the 20th century has done more to undermine an existing consensus and cause its readers to re-evaluate their own preconceptions than has Jonathan Riley-Smith's revisionist account of the motives of the first crusaders. Riley-Smith's thesis – based on extensive original research and firmly rooted in his refusal to uncritically accept the evidence or reasoning of earlier historians – is that the majority of the men who travelled to the east on crusade in the years 1098-1100 were primarily motivated by faith. This finding, which ran directly counter to at least four centuries of consensus that other motives, not least greed for land, were more important, has helped to stimulate exciting reappraisals of the whole crusading movement. Riley-Smith backed it up with forensic examination of the key crusader-inspiring speech delivered by Pope Urban II, looking to clarify the meanings of five competing contemporary accounts in order to understand how an initially simple, and rather confused, appeal for help became a sophisticated rationale for the concept of ‘just war.’
How was the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) of Nicaragua able to resist the Reagan Administration's coercive efforts to rollback their revolution? Hector Perla challenges conventional understandings of this conflict by tracing the process through which Nicaraguans, both at home and in the diaspora, defeated US aggression in a highly unequal confrontation. He argues that beyond traditional diplomatic, military, and domestic state policies a crucial element of the FSLN's defensive strategy was the mobilization of a transnational social movement to build public opposition to Reagan's policy within the United States, thus preventing further escalation of the conflict. Using a contentious politics approach, the author reveals how the extant scholarly assumptions of international relations theory have obscured some of the most consequential dynamics of the case. This is a fascinating study illustrating how supposedly powerless actors were able to constrain the policies of the most powerful nation on earth.
Bringing together experts across Latin America, North America, and Spain, The Cambridge Companion to Latin American Independence innovatively revisits Latin American independence within a larger regional, temporal, and thematic framework to highlight its significance for the Age of Atlantic Revolutions. The volume offers a synthetic yet comprehensive tool for understanding and assessing the most current studies in the field and their analytical contributions to the broader historiography. Organized thematically and across different regions of the Iberian Peninsula and Spanish and Luso America, the essays deepen well-known conclusions and reveal new interpretations. They offer analytical interventions that produce new questions on periodization, the meaning of anti-colonialism, liberalism, and republicanism, as well as the militarization of societies, public opinion, the role of sciences, labor regimes, and gender dynamics. A much-needed addition to the existing scholarship, this volume brings a transnational perspective to a critical period of history in Latin America.
Seventeen million people have died in civil wars and rebel violence has disrupted the lives of millions more. In a fascinating contribution to the active literature on civil wars, this book finds that some contemporary rebel groups actually comply with international law amid the brutality of civil conflicts around the world. Rather than celebrating the existence of compliant rebels, the author traces the cause of this phenomenon and argues that compliant rebels emerge when rebel groups seek legitimacy in the eyes of domestic and international audiences that care about humanitarian consequences and human rights. By examining rebel groups' different behaviors such as civilian killing, child soldiering, and allowing access to detention centers, Compliant Rebels offers key messages and policy lessons about engaging rebel groups with an eye toward reducing civilian suffering in war zones.
Raza Struggle and the Movement for Ethnic Studies: Decolonial Pedagogies, Literacies, and Methodologies presents an investigation of decolonization in the context of education and what this means for ethnic studies projects. It accomplishes this exploration by looking at the history of Raza communities, defined broadly as the Indigenous and mestizo working class peoples from Latin America, with a focus on the complex yet unifying Chicanx-Mexican experience in the Southwest United States. This book bridges the fields of history, pedagogy, and decolonization through a creative and interweaving methodology that includes critical historiography, dialogue, autoethnography, and qualitative inquiry. Collectively, this work opens new ground, challenging scholars and educators to rethink critical education rooted in traditional and Western frameworks. Arguing for decolonial and Indigenous approaches, the author invites educators and cultural workers to reflect on learning and community in their praxis. Raza Struggle and the Movement for Ethnic Studies will be of interest to students of ethnic studies and Latin American and Mexican history. It is also relevant to teachers, teacher educators, and scholars who are intent on creating spaces of hope and possibility rooted in Freirean, decolonial, and Indigenous frameworks.
From Cuba to Vietnam, from China to South Africa, the October Revolution inspired millions of people beyond the territory of Russia. The Revolution proved that the masses could not only overthrow autocratic governments, but also form an opposing government in their own image. The new idea that the working class and the peasantry could be allied, combined with the clear strength and necessity of a vanguard party, guided multiplying revolutions across the globe. This book explains the ideological power of the October Revolution in the Global South. From Ho Chi Minh to Fidel Castro, to reflections on polycentric Communism and collective memories of Communism, it shows how, for a brief moment, another world was possible. It is not a comprehensive study, but a small book with a large hope - that a new generation will come to see the importance of this revolutionary spirit for the working class and peasantry in the parts of the world that suffered under the heel of colonial domination for centuries.
In Arab Revolution in the 21st Century?, Nader Fergany presents a compassionate analysis of the Arab popular uprisings in the 21st century, with particular reference to the cases of Egypt and Tunisia. Under authoritarian rule, relentless injustice creates the objective conditions for expressions of popular protest which may culminate in popular uprisings, as witnessed in many Arab countries at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. Unsurprisingly, the slogans of the Arab Liberation Tide (ALT) popular revolts centered around freedom, implying sound democratic governance, social justice, and human dignity for all. In reality, the short-lived governance arrangements which followed the January 2011 popular revolt in Egypt, for example, were little more than extensions of the authoritarian governance system the revolt set out to overthrow. There were differences, of course, between the three short-lived regimes that took power since then, but in form, rather than substance. This book uses a structuralist political economy framework rather than a detailed historical account as it considers how the ALT may prove to be an historic opportunity for human renaissance in the Arab World - or alternatively a disaster of epic proportions.
This book is about the Egyptian people's 2011 Revolution for freedom, justice, and human dignity, and its aftermath. The Revolution succeeded in toppling the authoritarian Mubarak regime in less than three weeks. It was then co-opted by the Muslim Brotherhood through Egypt's first free and fair elections in 2012, which was in turn crushed in 2013 by a popularly supported military regime whose practices of repression negatively impacted the justice system and human rights. The problems facing the country and its people are daunting, particularly economic, demographic, and social pressures. The contextual analysis of these and other historic and contemporary issues give the reader a comprehensive understanding of what has occurred in the last five years and an insight into where the country is heading. Even though the Revolution has been suppressed and the promise of democracy shunted aside, the majority of the Egyptian people continue to hope for the unachieved dreams of social justice, human dignity, and freedom. Egypt's geopolitical importance makes it indispensable to the stability of the Middle East, and thus important to the world.
Louis XVI was a gentle and unassuming man who did not want to be king but attempted to work for the welfare of his people--until his government was engulfed by the violent upheavals of the French Revolution. Facing the rapidly changing desires of his subjects, he gradually gave way to the policies they demanded. Few rulers have acquiesced to such startling changes of government within such a brief span of time. Louis XVI lacked the charisma of Marie Antoinette, but he is remarkable for the courage he exhibited when facing violent armed men only a few feet away. The quiet dignity and courage with which he approached his execution has been praised by countless people, including Albert Camus and Victor Hugo. This biography traces the painfully exciting events involving Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and their two children. The royal family was first taken by a violent mob from Versailles to Paris. They attempted an escape but it failed when they had almost reached safety. A year later the king and queen were guillotined.
The Islamization of politics in Indonesia after 1998 presents an underexplored puzzle: why has there been a rise in the number of shari'a laws despite the electoral decline of Islamist parties? Michael Buehler presents an analysis of the conditions under which Islamist activists situated outside formal party politics may capture and exert influence in Muslim-majority countries facing democratization. His analysis shows that introducing competitive elections creates new pressures for entrenched elites to mobilize and structure the electorate, thereby opening up new opportunities for Islamist activists to influence politics. Buehler's analysis of changing state-religion relations in formerly authoritarian Islamic countries illuminates broader theoretical debates on Islamization in the context of democratization. This timely text is essential reading for students, scholars, and government analysts.
The American Revolution pitted 13 loosely united colonies in a military, political, and economic struggle against Great Britain: the "mother country" and arguably the most powerful state in the world during the late 18th century. The independent spirit that led many individuals to leave homes in Europe and settle in the New World during the 17th and 18th centuries evolved into the drive that persuaded these same settlers and their descendants to challenge the colonial economic and taxation policies of Great Britain, which lead to the armed conflict that resulted in a declaration of independence. This third edition of Historical Dictionary of the American Revolution contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 1,000 cross-referenced entries on the politics, battles, weaponry, and major personalities of the war. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about the American Revolution.
Born out of the Israeli occupation of the South of Lebanon, the political armed group Hizbullah is a powerful player within both Lebanon and the wider Middle East. Understanding how Hizbullah has, since the 1980s, developed its own reading of the nature of the Lebanese state, national identity and historical narrative is central to grasping the political trajectory of the country. By examining the ideological production of Hizbullah, especially its underground newspaper Al Ahd, Bashir Saade offers an account of the intellectual continuity between the early phases of Hizbullah's emergence onto the political stage and its present day organization. Saade argues here that this early intellectual activity, involving an elaborate understanding of the past and history had a long lasting impact on later cultural production, one in which the notion and practice of Resistance has been central in developing national imaginaries.
The Balkans has long been a place of encounter among different
peoples, religions, and civilizations, resulting in a rich cultural
tapestry and mosaic of nationalities. But it has also been burdened
by a traumatic post-colonial experience. The transition from
traditional multinational empires to modern nation-states has been
accompanied by large-scale political violence that has resulted in
the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the permanent displacement
of millions more.
This book sheds light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution.
Nearly half of all countries emerging from civil conflict relapse into war within a few years of signing a peace agreement. The postwar trajectories of armed groups vary from organizational cohesion to dissolution, demilitarization to remilitarization. In Organized Violence after Civil War, Daly analyzes evidence from thirty-seven militia groups in Colombia, demonstrating that the primary driving force behind these changes is the variation in recruitment patterns within, and between, the warring groups. She documents the transition from war to peace through interviews with militia commanders, combatants and victims. Using rich ex-combatant survey data and geo-coded information on violence over fifty years of war, Daly explains the dynamics inside armed organizations and the strategic interactions among them. She also shows how the theory may be used beyond Colombia, both within the region of Latin America and across the rest of the world.
Leading figures and rising stars in the field present the first contribution explaining the transnational nature of the revolutionary violence of the New Left. Focusing on the processes of dissemination of ideologies and mobilization of ideas and repertoires of action among the revolutionary organizations of the New Left in Latin America, Europe, and the United States, this book contributes to our understanding of the dynamics of the New Left wave and, at the same time, helps explain the "why" of the emergence of very similar armed leftist groups in vastly different geographical and political contexts.
This book sketches the discourse about a new constitution in Libya since 2011. Applying a discourse analytical approach, the author identifies societal cleavages that have come to the fore in Libya's transitional period. The debate has focused on democracy, federalism, decentralisation and localisation, the role of religion, women in politics as well as ethnic minorities. The strategies followed to ensure representation in the constitutional process have included civil disobedience, affirmative action and force. The effects of raising demands in these ways have been changes in the constitutional process and institutional design of Libya's interim political institutions rather than promises that particular demands as to the content of the constitution would be met. The general prevention of a public discourse and competition along societal cleavages under Gaddafi's totalitarian ideology has resulted in an all-out resurgence of splits along ethnic, regional and other lines.The work was awarded the Christoph Schumann Memorial Prize of the University of Erlangen.
Since the disastrous Pompidou years, working-class Paris has been steadily nibbled away, either by destruction or more insidiously by a kind of internal colonization. Take for example a small outlying district populated by Arabs, blacks and poor whites twenty years ago, the L'Olive neighbourhood north of La Chapelle The area is noted as pleasant, people frequent it and explore it, and as the rents are low some settle there. Others follow, first friends and then anyone else. Rents go up, buildings are renovated, bars open, then an organic food shop, a vegan restaurant...The earlier indigenous inhabitants are driven out by the rising rents and settle further away, in Saint-Denis if they are lucky, or else in Garges-les-Gonesse, Goussainville or God knows where. But new neighbourhoods are emerging, for example the Chinese quarter of Bas Belleville, which has grown since the 1970s to the point that in some streets, such as Rue Civiale or Rue Rampal, the restaurants and shops are all Chinese, with many Chinese sex workers on Boulevard de la Villette. These Chinese almost all come from Wenzhou, a large province south of Shanghai, whose inhabitants are reputedly known for their commercial skills. Paris is constantly changing as a living organism, both for better and for worse. This book is an incitement to open our eyes and lend an ear to the tumult of this incomparable capital, from the Peripherique to Place Vendome, its markets of Aligre and Belleville, its cafes and tabacs, its history from Balzac to Sartre. In some thirty succinct vignettes, from bookshops to beggars, Art Nouveau to street sounds, Parisian writers to urban warts, Jacobins to Surrealism, Hazan offers a host of invaluable apercus, illuminated by a matchless knowledge of his native city.
How did Ludwig van Beethoven help overthrow a tsarist regime? With the establishment of the Russian Musical Society and its affiliated branches throughout the empire, Beethoven's music reached substantially larger audiences at a time of increasing political instability. In addition, leading music critics of the regime began hearing Beethoven's dramatic works as nothing less than a call to revolution. Beethoven in Russia deftly explores the interface between music and politics in Russia by examining the reception of Beethoven's works from the late 18th century to the present. In part 1, Frederick W. Skinner's clear and sweeping review examines the role of Beethoven's more dramatic works in the revolutionary struggle that culminated in the Revolution of 1917. In part 2, Skinner reveals how this same power was again harnessed to promote Stalin's campaign of rapid industrialization. The appropriation of Beethoven and his music to serve the interests of the state remained the hallmark of Soviet Beethoven reception until the end of communist rule. With interdisciplinary appeal in the areas of history, music, literature, and political thought, Beethoven in Russia shows how Beethoven's music served as a call to action for citizens and weaponized state propaganda in the great political struggles that shaped modern Russian history.
Sudden change in North Africa manifested through popular protests followed by the end of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya revitalised the scholarly concern with democracy in the region. Democratisation and democracy received fresh attention in the 'Arab Spring'. Arab citizens displayed their grasp and possession of 'democratic knowledge' in a bottom-up groundswell of activism against the wielding of power by authoritarian regimes. In this book, the investigation into democratic knowledge revolves around the idea that good government must be in the first instance rooted in a local system of knowledge. However, no privileging of the 'local' is offered here at the expense of the 'democratic'. Each chapter illustrates the context-specific experiences which provide political actors with the wherewithal in actively learning democracy. The countries examined with reference to a socially constructed democratic knowledge include Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt. Critical focus on local agency in North Africa during the 'Arab Spring' enables a shift from democratisation as an ideology to a 'democratic learning turn'. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of North African Studies.
Terrorist groups with a shared enemy or ideology have ample reason to work together, even if they are primarily pursuing different causes. Although partnering with another terrorist organization has the potential to bolster operational effectiveness, efficiency, and prestige, international alliances may expose partners to infiltration, security breaches, or additional counterterrorism attention. Alliances between such organizations, which are suspicious and secretive by nature, must also overcome significant barriers to trust-the exposure to risk must be balanced by the promise of increased lethality, resiliency, and longevity. In Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances, Tricia Bacon argues that although it may seem natural for terrorist groups to ally, groups actually face substantial hurdles when attempting to ally and, when alliances do form, they are not evenly distributed across pairs. Instead, she demonstrates that when terrorist groups seek allies to obtain new skills, knowledge, or capacities for resource acquisition and mobilization, only a few groups have the ability to provide needed training, safe haven, infrastructure, or cachet. Consequently, these select few emerge as preferable partners and become hubs around which other groups cluster. According to Bacon, shared enemies and common ideologies do not cause alliances to form but create affinity to bind partners and guide partner selection. Bacon examines partnerships formed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Al-Qaida, and Egyptian jihadist groups, among others, in a series of case studies spanning the dawn of international terrorism in the 1960s to the present. Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances advances our understanding of the motivations of terrorist alliances and offers insights useful to counterterrorism efforts to disrupt these dangerous relationships.
The French Revolution transformed the nation's and eventually the world's thinking about citizenship, nationality, and gender roles. At the same time, it created fundamental contradictions between citizenship and family as women acquired new rights and duties but remained dependents within the household. In The Family and the Nation, Jennifer Ngaire Heuer examines the meaning of citizenship during and after the revolution and the relationship between citizenship and gender as these ideas and practices were reworked in the late 1790s and early nineteenth century.Heuer argues that tensions between family and nation shaped men's and women's legal and social identities from the Revolution and Terror through the Restoration. She shows the critical importance of relating nationality to political citizenship and of examining the application, not just the creation, of new categories of membership in the nation. Heuer draws on diverse historical sources from political treatises to police records, immigration reports to court cases to demonstrate the extent of revolutionary concern over national citizenship. This book casts into relief France's evolving attitudes toward patriotism, immigration, and emigration, and the frequently opposing demands of family ties and citizenship."
Situating the 1857 Indian uprising within an imperial context, Jill C. Bender traces its ramifications across the four different colonial sites of Ireland, New Zealand, Jamaica, and southern Africa. Bender argues that the 1857 uprising shaped colonial Britons' perceptions of their own empire, revealing the possibilities of an integrated empire that could provide the resources to generate and 'justify' British power. In response to the uprising, Britons throughout the Empire debated colonial responsibility, methods of counter-insurrection, military recruiting practices, and colonial governance. Even after the rebellion had been suppressed, the violence of 1857 continued to have a lasting effect. The fears generated by the uprising transformed how the British understood their relationship with the 'colonized' and shaped their own expectations of themselves as 'colonizer'. Placing the 1857 Indian uprising within an imperial context reminds us that British power was neither natural nor inevitable, but had to be constructed. |
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