Chapters
Forthcoming
‘Decolonising Resilience: Reading Glissant’s Poetics of Relation in Central Eurasia’ in Elena A. Korosteleva and Irina Petrova (eds) The Making of Resilient Communities in Central Eurasia (Abingdon: Routledge)
In dominant Eurocentric policy imaginaries, a resilient community is able to self-govern and to autonomously manage risk through becoming more adaptive and responsive to potential threats, mitigating harms and maintaining societal equilibrium; ‘bouncing back’ rapidly to normal conditions. This paper seeks to move the discussion forward, suggesting alternative framings for the conceptualisation of community practices and understandings as part of the project of decolonising approaches to Central Eurasia. In drawing upon recent works addressing resilience via Édouard Glissant’s Poetics of Relation, it highlights alternative understandings of resilience which are less subject-centred and more dependent upon becoming with others in relation. Crucial to these practices of relationality is the recognition of opacity – the acceptance that uncertainty and unknowability are integral to life processes and provide a vital invitation or opportunity to experiment and adapt through improvisation rather than mechanically responding to feedback effects in ways which close off alternative possibilities for change.
2022
The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies provides the most accessible, comprehensive, and regularly updated overview of interdisciplinary concepts and approaches to peace and conflict studies written by leading scholars. Combining speed, flexibility, global reach, and academic rigour in the age of digital learning, the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies offers an extensive number of peer-reviewed entries, which will provide readers with an authoritative overview of the theoretical, methodological, and practical examination of a wide range of concepts, approaches, case studies, institutions, policies, and practices. As a living reference work, easily discoverable and searchable, the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies serve the needs of the community of academics as well as practitioners, policy-makers, and the general public in understanding the evolution of local to international peace architectures, frameworks, and practices. It covers the foundational, historical, and contemporary themes, concepts, theories, events, organisations, and frameworks concerning peace, conflict, security, rights, institutions and development. As a novel and multidisciplinary tool and living reference work, the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Peace and Conflict Studies will be updated regularly with new entries online and periodically printed as a multi-volume reference work and static Ebook.
2021
In addition to being a major area of research within International Relations, peacebuilding and statebuilding is a major policy area within the UN and other international and regional organizations. It is also a concern of international financial institutions, including the World Bank, and a significant factor in the foreign and security policies of many established and emerging democracies. Peacebuilding and statebuilding are among the main approaches for preventing, managing, and mitigating global insecurities; dealing with the humanitarian consequences of civil wars; and expanding democracy and neoliberal economic regimes. Peace formation is a relatively new concept, addressing how local actors work in parallel to international and national projects, and helps shape the legitimacy of peace processes and state reform. The Oxford Handbook of Peacebuilding, Statebuilding, and Peace Formation serves as an essential guide to this vast intellectual and policy landscape. It offers a systematic overview of conceptual foundations, political implications, and tensions at the global, regional, and local levels, as well as key policies, practices, examples, and discourses underlining all segments of peacebuilding and statebuilding praxis. Approaching peacebuilding from disciplinary perspectives across the social sciences, the Handbook is organized around four major thematic sections. Section one explores how peacebuilding, statebuilding, and peace formation is conceived by different disciplines and IR approaches, thus offering an overview of the conceptual bedrock of major theories and approaches. Section two situates these approaches among other major global issues, including globalization, civil society, terrorism, and technology to illustrate their global, regional, and local resonance. Section three looks at key themes in the field, including peace agreements, democratization, security reform, human rights, environment, and culture. Finally, section four looks at key features of everyday and civil society peace formation processes, both in theory and in
101. ‘Introduction: International Relations in the Anthropocene’ (with Delf Rothe and Franziska Müller) in David Chandler, Franziska Müller and Delf Rothe (eds) International Relations in the Anthropocene: New Agendas, New Agencies and New Approaches (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), pp.1-20.
This textbook introduces advanced students of International Relations (and beyond) to the ways in which the advent of, and reflections on, the Anthropocene impact on the study of global politics and the disciplinary foundations of IR. The book contains 24 chapters, authored by senior academics as well as early career scholars, and is divided into four parts, detailing, respectively, why the Anthropocene is of importance to IR, challenges to traditional approaches to security, the question of governance and agency in the Anthropocene, and new methods and approaches, going beyond the human/nature divide.
This book explores the concept and practice of resilience that has generated much debate among scholars and practitioners alike. The contributions propose a new understanding of resilience, both as a quality and a way of thinking, taking it to the level of ‘the person’ and ‘the local’, to argue that a more sustainable way to govern the world today is bottom-up and inside-out. While carrying a seemingly unifying message of self-reliance, adaptation and survival in the face of adversity, resilience curiously continues to appear ‘all things to all people’, making it hard for the EU and international institutions to make the full use of its arresting potential. Engendering resilience today, in the highly volatile and uncertain world hit by crises, pandemic, and diminishing control, becomes a priority like never before. This book develops a more comprehensive view of resilience by looking at it both as a quality of the system, and a way of thinking inherent to ‘the local’ that cannot be engineered externally. It is argued in this volume that in some cases the level of ‘the person’ may be the most appropriate focus for understanding change and fostering a sense of ‘good life’. This understanding widens the scope of discussion from what makes an entity/system or a person more adaptable, to how one can best govern today to establish a stable equilibrium between ‘the global’ and ‘the local’; the external and the internal, and become more responsive to the challenges and changes of the today’s highly uncertain world.
2020
As our ideas of the human have come under increasing challenges from technological change, from medical advances, from the existential threat of climate crisis amongst many other things the posthuman has become an increasingly central topic in the Humanities. Bringing together leading scholars from across the world and a wide range of disciplines, this is the most comprehensive available survey of cutting edge contemporary scholarship on posthumanism in literature, culture and theory. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Posthumanism explores: – Central critical concepts and approaches, including transhumanism, new materialism and the Anthropocene – Ethical perspectives on ecology, race, gender and disability – Technology, from data and artificial intelligence to medicine and genetics – A wide range of genres and forms, from literary and science fiction, through film, television and music, to comics, video games and social media.
This book offers the first critical, multi-disciplinary study of how the concepts of resilience and the Anthropocene have combined to shape contemporary thought and governmental practice. Faced with the climate catastrophe of the Anthropocene, theorists and policymakers are increasingly turning to ‘sustainable’, ‘creative’ and ‘bottom-up’ imaginaries of governance. The book brings together cutting-edge insights from leading geographers, international relations scholars and philosophers to explore how the concepts of resilience and the Anthropocene challenge and transform prevailing understandings of Earth, space, time and knowledge, and how these transformations reshape governance, ethics and critique today. This book examines how the Anthropocene calls into question established categories through which modern societies have tended to make sense of the world and engage in critical reflection and analysis. It also considers how resilience approaches attempt to re-stabilize these categories – and the ethical and political effects that result from these resilience-based efforts. Offering innovative insights into the problem of how environmental change is known and governed in the Anthropocene, this book will be of interest to students in fields such as geography, international relations, anthropology, science and technology studies, sociology, and the environmental humanities.
Since the early 1990s, the challenges posed by fragile and failing states have been a contentious and enduring part of the debates on post-Cold War international security. Though extensive, these debates have so far yielded little agreement on either the essential nature of state fragility and failure and what, if anything, potential outside intervenors can and should do to prevent it from developing, restore state functionality, or at least mitigate its impact and consequences. In this book, an international team of authors examine both the conceptual and practical challenges posed by this phenomenon. They consider the essential nature of the problem and through a variety of case studies, examine the effectiveness or otherwise of various regional and wider international responses in Africa, the Middle East and South America. This book will be of interest to both academics and practitioners engaged in studying and responding to the ongoing challenges posed by the existence of fragile and failing states in the contemporary international system.
2019
This innovative Handbook offers a new perspective on the cutting-edge conceptual advances that have shaped – and continue to shape – the field of intervention and statebuilding. Bringing together leading global scholars, the Handbook on Intervention and Statebuilding offers a cross-cutting perspective on a wide array of themes. Chapters cover democracy promotion, transitional justice and humanitarianism, as well as the involvement of drones and cyber technology in conflicts. Employing state-of-the-art perspectives on the most crucial themes, this Handbook explores issues at the heart of contemporary statebuilding. This Handbook will be critical reading for researchers at all levels in the broad field of international relations and peace and conflict studies. Upper-level students of political science will also benefit from the breadth of topics covered.
This volume explores the past, present and future of pessimism in International Relations. It seeks to differentiate pessimism from cynicism and fatalism and assess its possibilities as a respectable perspective on national and international politics. The book traces the origins of pessimism in political thought from antiquity through to the present day, illuminating its role in key schools of International Relations and in the work of important international political theorists. The authors analyse the resurgence of pessimism in contemporary politics, such as in the new populism, attitudes to migration, indigenous politics, and the Anthropocene. This edited volume provides the first collection of scholarly work on pessimism in International Relations theory and practice and offers fresh perspectives on an intellectual position often considered as disreputable as it is venerable.
Available from Jstor here. And as a download here.
This volume explores activism, research and critique in the age of digital subjects and objects and Big Data capitalism after a digital turn said to have radically transformed our political futures. Optimists assert that the ‘digital’ promises: new forms of community and ways of knowing and sensing, innovation, participatory culture, networked activism, and distributed democracy. Pessimists argue that digital technologies have extended domination via new forms of control, networked authoritarianism and exploitation, dehumanization and the surveillance society. Leading international scholars present varied interdisciplinary assessments of such claims – in theory and via dialogue – and of the digital’s impact on society and the potentials, pitfalls, limits and ideologies, of digital activism. They reflect on whether computational social science, digital humanities and ubiquitous datafication lead to digital positivism that threatens critical research or lead to new horizons in theory and society.
Chapter available as PDF download
There are very few figures in history that have exerted as much and as varied an influence as Karl Marx. His work represents an unrivaled intervention into fields as various as philosophy, journalism, economics, history, politics and cultural criticism. His name is invoked across the political spectrum in connection to riot, revolution and insurrection. The Bloomsbury Companion to Marx is the definitive reference guide to Marxs life and work. Written by an international team of leading Marx scholars, the book offers comprehensive coverage of Marxs: life and contexts; sources, influences and encounters; key writings; major themes and topics; and reception and influence. The defining feature of this Companion is its attention to the new directions in Marxism that animate the theoretical, scientific, and political sides of Marxs thought. Gender and the growing importance of Marxist-feminism is treated as equally important to clarifying Marx today as traditional and diverse categories of critique such as class, capital, and mode of production. Similarly, this Companion showcases the methodological and political importance of Marxism to environmentalist politics. Finally the volume examines in detail non-European Marxisms, demonstrating the centrality of Marxist thought to political movements both within and beyond the global north. This book is the ideal research resource for anyone working on Marx and his ideas today.
Throughout history, maps have been a powerful tool in the constitutive imaginary of governments seeking to define or contest the limits of their political reach. Today, new digital technologies have become central to mapping as a way of formulating alternative political visions. Maps now have the power to trace river delta changes, to lay bare the results of war crimes and military drones attacks, to detect logging incursions and ecological changes in the Amazon, and to formulate alternative political visions. Mapping can also help marginalised communities to construct speculative designs using participatory practices. Mapping and Politics in the Digital Age explores how the development of new digital technologies and mapping practices are transforming global politics, power, and cooperation. The book brings together authors from across political and social theory, geography, media studies and anthropology to explore mapping and politics across three sections. Contestations introduces the reader to contemporary developments within mapping and explores the politics of mapping as a form of knowledge and contestation. Governance analyses mapping as a set of institutional practices, providing key methodological frames for understanding global governance in the realms of urban politics, refugee control, health crises and humanitarian interventions and new techniques of biometric regulation and autonomic computation. Imaginaries provides examples of future-oriented analytical frameworks, highlighting the transformation of mapping in an age of digital technologies of control and regulation. In a world conceived as without borders and fixed relations, new forms of mapping stress the need to rethink assumptions of power and knowledge. This book provides a sophisticated and nuanced analysis of the role of mapping in contemporary global governance, and will be of interest to students and researchers working within politics, geography, sociology, media, and digital culture and technology.
2018
Resilience is one of the most important concepts in contemporary sociology. This volume offers a broad overview over the different theories and concepts of this category focusing on the cultural and political aspects of resilience.
Crises have been studied in many disciplines and from diverse perspectives for at least 150 years. Yet recent decades have seen a marked increase in the crisis literature, reflecting growing awareness of crisis phenomena from the 1970s onwards. Responding to this mainstream literature, this edited collection makes six key innovations. First, it distinguishes between crises as event and crises as process, as well as crises as accidental events or as the result of system-generated processes. Second, it distinguishes crises that can be managed through established crisis-management routines from crises of crisis-management. Third, it focuses on the symptomatology of crisis, i.e., the challenge of moving crisis symptoms to understanding underlying causes as a basis for decisive action. Fourth, it goes beyond the cliché that crises are threat and opportunity by distinguishing valid accounts of the origins and present nature of a crisis, from more speculative accounts of what potentially exists. Fifth, it explores how crises can disorient conventional wisdom, thus provoking efforts to interpret and learn about crises and draw lessons after a crisis has ended. Finally, the sixth element is the move away from the conventional focus on executive authorities and disaster management agencies, instead turning attention towards how other social forces construe crises and attempt to learn from them. Offering important insights into the pedagogy of crisis throughout, this collection will offer excellent reading to both researchers and postgraduate students.
This book looks at the worlding of the Global South in the process of assembling conflict resolution expertise. Anna Leander, Ole Waever and their contributors pursue this ambition by following the experts, institutions, databases and creative expressions that are assembled into conflict resolution expertise in the Global South. Expertise is determining for how conflicts in the Global South are understood and consequently dealt with. Yet, expertise is always and necessarily exclusive. The exclusivity of expertise covers on the one hand fashionable, sophisticated and what counts, and on the other hand not admitting everybody. Assembled from a wealth of competing knowledges expertise is always both knowledgeable and ignorant. The ambition of the volume is to explore how this exclusive expertise is assembled and in what ways it is therefore knowledgeable and ignorant of knowledges in/of the Global South. This work will be of significant interest to advanced students and scholars of conflict resolution, peace research, mediation and international relations.
At a time when globalization has side-lined many of the traditional, state-based addressees of legal accountability, it is not clear yet how blame is allocated and contested in the new, highly differentiated, multi-actor governance arrangements of the global economy and world society. Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility investigates how actors in complex governance arrangements assign responsibilities to order the world and negotiate who is responsible for what and how. The book asks how moral duties can be defined beyond the territorial and legal confines of the nation-state; and how obligations and accountability mechanisms for a post-national world, in which responsibility remains vague, ambiguous and contested, can be established. Using an empirical as well as a theoretical perspective, the book explores ontological framings of complexity emphasizing emergence and non-linearity, which challenge classic liberal notions of responsibility and moral agency based on the autonomous subject. Moral Agency and the Politics of Responsibility is perfect for scholars from International Relations, Politics, Philosophy and Political Economy with an interest in the topical and increasingly popular topics of moral agency and complexity.
2017
Contemporary security governance often relies on markets and networks to link public agencies to non-governmental actors. This book explores the rise, nature, and future of these new forms of security governance across various domestic, transnational, and international settings. The chapters reveal similarities and differences in the way security governance operates in various policy settings. The contributors argue that the similarities generally arise because policy elites, at various levels of governance, have come to believe that security depends on building resilience and communities through various joined-up arrangements, networks, and partnerships. Differences nonetheless persist because civil servants, street level bureaucrats, voluntary sector actors, and citizens all draw on diverse traditions to interpret, and at times resist, the joined-up security being promoted by these policy elites. This book therefore decentres security governance, showing how all kinds of local traditions influence the way it works in different settings. It pays particular attention to the meanings, cultures, and ideologies by which policy actors encounter, interpret, and evaluate security dilemmas. This book was originally published as a special issue in Global Crime.
What does it mean to be a liberal in neoliberal times? This collection of short essays attempts to show how liberals and the wider concept of liberalism remain relevant in what many perceive to be a highly illiberal age. Liberalism in the broader sense revolves around tolerance, progress, humanitarianism, objectivity, reason, democracy, and human rights. Liberalism’s emphasis on individual rights opened a theoretical pathway to neoliberalism, through private property, a classically minimal liberal state, and the efficiency of “free markets.” In practice, neoliberalism is associated less with the economic deregulation championed by its advocates than the re-regulation of the economy to protect financial capital. Liberalism in Neoliberal Times engages with the theories, histories, practices, and contradictions of liberalism, viewing it in relation to four central areas of public life: human rights, ethnicity and gender, education, and the media. The contributors explore the transformations in as well as the transformative aspects of liberalism and highlight both its liberating and limiting capacities. The book contends that liberalism — in all its forms — continues to underpin specific institutions such as the university, the free press, the courts, and, of course, parliamentary democracy. Liberal ideas are regularly mobilized in areas such as counterterrorism, minority rights, privacy, and the pursuit of knowledge. This book contends that while we may not agree on much, we can certainly agree that an understanding of liberalism and its emancipatory capacity is simply too important to be left to the liberalsContributorsAlejandro Abraham-Hamanoiel, Patrick Ainley, Abdullahi An-Na’im, Michael Bailey, Haim Bresheeth, Basak Cali, David Chandler, William Davies, Costas Douzinas, Natalie Fenton, Des Freedman, Roberto Gargarella, Priyamvada Gopal, Jonathan Hardy, John Holmwood, Ratna Kapur, Gholam Khiabany, Ray Kiely, Monika Krause, Deepa Kumar, Arun Kundnani, Colin Leys, Howard Littler, Kathleen Lynch, Robert W. McChesney, Nivedita Menon, Toby Miller, Kate Nash, Joan Pedro-Caranana, Julian Petley, Anne Phillips, Jonathan Rosenhead, Annabelle Sreberny, John Steel, Michael Wayne, Milly Williamson.
What does it mean for courts and other legal institutions to be culturally sensitive? What are the institutional implications and consequences of such an aspiration? To what extent is legal discourse capable of accommodating multiple cultural narratives without losing its claim to normative specificity? And how are we to understand meetings of law and culture in the context of formal and informal legal processes, when demands are made to accommodate cultural difference? The encounter of law and culture is a polycentric relation, but these questions draw our attention to law and legal institutions as one site of encounter warranting further investigation, to map out the place of culture in the domains of law by relying on the insights of law, anthropology, politics, and philosophy. Culture in the Domains of Law seeks to examine and answer these questions, resulting in a richer outlook on both law and culture.
2016
Nearly all of those who want to make the world a better place are engaged in paternalism. This book asks how power is intertwined with practices of global compassion. It argues that the concept of paternalism illuminates how care and control are involved in the everyday practices of humanitarianism, human rights, development and other projects designed to improve the lives of others. The authors explore whether and how the paternalism of the nineteenth century differs from the paternalism of today, and offer a provocative look at the power in global ethics, raising the question of whether, when, and how paternalism can be justified.
Resilience is increasingly discussed as a key concept across many fields of international policymaking from sustainable development and climate change, insecurity, conflict and terrorism to urban and rural planning, international aid provision and the prevention of and responses to natural and man-made disasters. Edited by leading academic authorities from a number of disciplines, this is the first handbook to deal with resilience as a new conceptual approach to understanding and addressing a range of interdependent global challenges. The Handbook is divided into nine sections: Introduction: contested paradigms of resilience; the challenges of resilience; governing uncertainty; resilience and neoliberalism; environmental concerns and climate change adaptation; urban planning; disaster risk reduction and response; international security and insecurity; the policy and practices of international development. Highlighting how resilience-thinking is increasingly transforming international policy-making and government and institutional practices, this book will be an indispensable source of information for students, academics and the wider public interested in resilience, international relations and international security.
In this handbook, a diverse range of leading scholars consider the social, cultural, economic, political, and developmental underpinnings of peace. This handbook is a much-needed response to the failures of contemporary peacebuilding missions and narrow disciplinary debates, both of which have outlined the need for more interdisciplinary work in International Relations and Peace and Conflict studies. Scholars, students, and policymakers are often disillusioned with universalist and northern-dominated approaches, and a better understanding of the variations of peace and its building blocks, across different regions, is required. Collectively, these chapters promote a more differentiated notion of peace, employing comparative analysis to explain how peace is debated and contested.
Proof available here.This book is a collection of essays and an edited selection of the work produced by Design Studio 18 (DS18) tutored by Lindsay Bremner and Roberto Bottazzi in the Department of Architecture at the University of Westminster, 2013-2015. The aim of the studio over this period was to approach problems of energy, energy infrastructure and resource extraction as architectural questions i.e. as political, cultural and aesthetic problems, as much as technological ones. Computational tools were used to simulate material processes and to enlist, visualise and enliven data in the service of design.
Recognizing the vital importance of concepts in shaping our understanding of international relations, this ground-breaking new book puts concepts front and centre, systematically unpacking them in a clear, critical and engaging way. With contributions from some of the foremost authorities in the field, Concepts in World Politics explores 17 core concepts, from democracy to globalization, sovereignty to revolution, and covers: The multiple meanings of a concept, where these meanings come from, and how they are employed theoretically and practically; The consequences of using concepts to frame the world in one way or another; The method of concept analysis. A challenging and stimulating read, Concepts in World Politics is an indispensable guide for all students of international relations looking to develop a more nuanced and sophisticated understanding of world politics.
This revised and updated second edition features over twenty new chapters and offers a wide-ranging collection of cutting-edge essays from leading scholars in the field of Security Studies. The field of Security Studies has undergone significant change during the past 20 years, and is now one of the most dynamic sub-disciplines within International Relations. This second edition has been significantly updated to address contemporary and emerging security threats with chapters on organised crime, migration and security, cyber-security, energy security, the Syrian conflict and resilience, amongst many others. Comprising articles by both established and up-and-coming scholars, The Routledge Handbook of Security Studies provides a comprehensive overview of the key contemporary topics of research and debate in the field of Security Studies. The volume is divided into four main parts: • Part I: Theoretical Approaches to Security • Part II: Security Challenges • Part III: Regional (In)Security • Part IV: Security Governance. This new edition of the Handbook is a benchmark publication with major importance for both current research and the future of the field. It will be essential reading for all scholars and students of Security Studies, War and Conflict Studies, and International Relations.
Human Rights: Politics and Practice is the most comprehensive, most topical, and most student-friendly introduction to human rights. Bringing together a range of international experts including political scientists, philosophers, lawyers, and policy-makers, the book provides students with a broad range of perspectives on the theoretical and practical issues in this constantly evolving field. In addition to in-depth theoretical content, the book also features unrivalled coverage of human rights issues in practice, with a wide range of case studies to explore concrete examples from around the world. The third edition has been brought fully up-to-date with the most recent events and latest research developments in the area. Two new chapters have been added: one on religion and human rights, and one on sexual orientation and gender identity and human rights, introducing students to these important topics and expanding the theoretical and practical discussion of issues of universalism and relativism. The new edition also features a range of carefully developed pedagogical features to aid student learning, encourage critical analysis, and challenge students to question their own assumptions. The book is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre to enhance students’ learning and provide valuable support for lecturers.
Humanitarianism as a moral concept and an organized practice has become a major factor in world society. It channels an enormous amount of resources and serves as an argument for different kinds of interference into the “internal affairs” of countries and regions. At the same time, and for these very reasons, it is an ideal testing ground for successful and unsuccessful cooperation across borders. Humanitarianism and the Challenges of Cooperation examines the multiple humanitarianisms of today as a testing ground for new ways of global cooperation. General trends in the contemporary transformation of humanitarianism are studied and individual cases of how humanitarian actors cooperate with others on the ground are investigated. This book offers a highly innovative, empirically informed account of global humanitarianism from the point of view of cooperation research in which internationally renowned contributors analyse broad trends and present case studies based on meticulous fieldwork. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers in the areas of political science, international relations and humanitarianism. It is also a valuable resource for humanitarian aid workers.
The 1990s saw a constant increase in international peace missions, predominantly led by the United Nations, whose mandates were more and more extended to implement societal and political transformations in post-conflict societies. However, in many cases these missions did not meet the high expectations and did not acquire a sufficient legitimacy on the local level. Written by leading experts in the field, this edited volume brings together ‘liberal’ and ‘post-liberal’ approaches to peacebuilding. Besides challenging dominant peacebuilding paradigms, the book scrutinizes how far key concepts of post-liberal peacebuilding offer sound categories and new perspectives to reframe peacebuilding research. It thus moves beyond the ‘liberal’–‘post-liberal’ divide and systematically integrates further perspectives, paving the way for a new era in peacebuilding research which is theory-guided, but also substantiated in the empirical analysis of peacebuilding practices. This book will be essential reading for postgraduate students and scholar-practitioners working in the field of peacebuilding. By embedding the subject area into different research perspectives, the book will also be relevant for scholars who come from related backgrounds, such as democracy promotion, transitional justice, statebuilding, conflict and development research and international relations in general.
2015
One of the most striking aspects of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) doctrine appears to be the gap between the promise and the reality. In 2001 when the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) published its report ‘The Responsibility to Protect’, there was little doubt that, as stated in the ‘Foreword’ the concept of R2P was ‘about the so-called “right of humanitarian intervention” – the question of when, if ever, it is appropriate for states to take coercive – and in particular military – action, against another state for the purpose of protecting people at risk in that other state’ (ICISS 2001: vii). The ICISS was tasked with trying to develop a global political consensus on the question of humanitarian intervention, which it believed it had achieved through reformulating the problem in terms of the ‘responsibility to protect’. Today, the relationship between the R2P and the right of humanitarian intervention appears to be much less clear. This shift in the meaning of R2P will be the subject of this chapter and is at the heart of the apparent gap between the ‘promise’ of R2P and the policy realities, which has been facilitated by the fact that it would appear that R2P’s universal acceptance has come at a cost to both its meaning and application.
This book offers a detailed exploration of three examples of humanitarian uses of new technology, employing key theoretical insights from Foucault. We are currently seeing a humanitarian turn to new digital technologies, such as biometrics, remote sensing, and surveillance drones. However, such humanitarian uses of new technology have not always produced beneficial results for those at the receiving end and have sometimes exposed the subjects of assistance to additional risks and insecurities. Engaging with key insights from the work of Foucault combined with selected concepts from the Science and Technology Studies literature, this book produces an analytical framework that opens up the analysis to details of power and control at the level of materiality that are often ignored in liberal histories of war and modernity. Whereas Foucault details the design of prisons, factories, schools, etc., this book is original in its use of his work, in that it uses these key insights about the details of power embedded in material design, but shifts the attention to the technologies and attending forms of power that have been experimented with in the three humanitarian endeavours presented in the book. In doing so, the book provides new information about aspects of liberal humanitarianism that contemporary critical analyses have largely neglected.
Democracy is in shambles economically and politically. The recent economic meltdown in Europe and the U.S. has substituted democratic deliberation with technocratic decisions. In Athens, Madrid, Lisbon, New York, Pittsburgh or Istanbul, protesters have denounced the incapacity and unwillingness of elected officials to heed to their voices. While the diagnosis of our political-economic illness has been established, remedies are hard to come. What can we do to restore our broken democracy? Which modes of political participation are likely to have an impact? And what are the loci of political innovation in the wake of the crisis? It is with these questions that Reclaiming Democracy engages. We argue that the managerial approach to solving the crisis violates ‘a right to politics’, that is, a right that our collective life be guided by meaningful politics: by discussion of and decision among genuinely alternative principles and policies. The contributors to this volume are united in their commitment to explore how and where this right can be affirmed in a way that resuscitates democracy in the wake of the crisis. Mixing theoretical reflection and empirical analysis the book offers fresh insights into democracy’s current conundrum and makes concrete proposals about how ‘the right to politics’ can be protected.
The Companion on Humanitarian Action addresses the political, ethical, legal and practical issues which influence reactions to humanitarian crisis. It does so by exploring the daily dilemmas faced by a range of actors, including policy makers, aid workers, the private sector and the beneficiaries of aid and by challenging common perceptions regarding humanitarian crisis and the policies put in place to address these. Through such explorations, it provides practitioners and scholars with the knowledge needed to both understand and improve upon current forms of humanitarian action. The Companion will be of use to those interested a range of humanitarian programmes ranging from emergency medical assistance, military interventions, managing refugee flows and the implementation of international humanitarian law. As opposed to addressing specific programmes, it will explore five themes seen as relevant to understanding and engaging in all modes of humanitarian action. The first section explores varying interpretations of humanitarianism, including critical historical and political-economic explanations as well as more practice based explorations focused on notions needs assessments and evaluation. Following this, readers will be exposed to the latest debates on a range of humanitarian principles including neutrality and sovereignty, before exploring the key issues faced by the main actors involved in humanitarian crisis (from international NGOs to local community based organizations). The final two sections address what are seen as key dilemmas in regards to humanitarian action and emerging trends in the humanitarian system, including the increasing role of social media in responding to crises.
2014
The final set of the Central Currents in Globalization series starts off with two volumes that focus on the politics of globalization from ‘above’ and ‘below’. The first volume considers the idea of global political governance, including the impact of globalization on the nation-state and the role of multilateral regimes such as the United Nations. The second volume looks at globalizing political developments at ground level, including the notion of a ‘global civil society’ and the rise of the ‘anti-globalization’ movement. The final two volumes in the series review the various social theories and philosophies of globalization – including cosmopolitanism and human rights – along with the political critiques of globalization as homogenizing, marginalizing and/or exploitative force. Volume Two: Global Social Movements and Global Civil Society (with Paul van Seters, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands).
‘This is a very valuable collection. Michele Acuto has sketched out a new way of looking at humanitarian diplomacy, and brought together an impressive array of humanitarian scholars to examine what it means for humanitarian action to take an ever larger place in local and international politics. An excellent one-stop shop for humanitarian students and professionals alike.’ — Hugo Slim, Senior Research Fellow at the university of Oxford Institute for Ethics, and author of Killing Civilians: Method, Madness and Morality in War. ‘One of the most notable features of modern society is the internationalisation of the human conscience and one of the great advances of the last hundred years has been the universalisation of the human rights norm. What does this signify for public policy in local and international politics? What is the humanitarian community, who are the humanitarian actors, is there such a thing as humanitarian space, and how sacrosanct should it be? A stellar cast of authors is assembled in this impressive volume to guide us towards answers to these critical questions of contested humanitarianism in an increasingly congested global space.’ –Ramesh Thakur, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, and Editor-in-Chief, Global Governance.
2013
Globalization, Difference, and Human Security seeks to advance critical human security studies by re-framing the concept of human security in terms of the thematic of difference. Drawing together a wide range of contributors, the volume is framed, among others, around the following key questions: What are the silences and erasures of advancing a critical human security alternative without making recognition of difference its central plank?How do we rethink the complex interplay of human security and difference in distinct and varied spatial and cultural settings produced by global forces? What is the nexus between human security and the broader field of global development? What new challenges to Human Security and International Relations are produced with the rise of the ‘post-liberal’ or ‘post-secular’ subject? In what ways releasing human security from identification with the territorial state helps reconceptualize culture? How does Human Security serve as a subspecies of modern humanitarian thought or the latter reinforce imperial imaginaries and the structures of order and morality? Is the pursuit of indigenous rights fundamentally counterpoised to the pursuit of human security? What difference it might make to take the ‘doings and beings’ of communities-of-subsistence rather than basic-needs/wealth-seeking individuals as a point of departure in critical human security studies? How does reconstruction bind post-war and post-disaster states and societies into the global capitalist-democratic political structure?
This book offers an original analysis and theorization of the biopolitics of development in the postcolonial present, and draws significantly from the later works of Michel Foucault on biopolitics. Foucault’s works have had a massive influence on postcolonial literatures, particularly in political science and international relations, and several authors of this book have themselves made significant contributions to that influence. While Foucault’s thought has been inspirational for understanding colonial biopolitics as well as governmental rationalities concerned with development, his works have too often failed to inspire studies of political subjectivity. Instead, they have been used to stoke the myth of the inevitability of the decline of collective political subjects, often describing an increasingly limited horizon of political possibilities, and provoking a disenchantment with the political itself in postcolonial works and studies. Working against the grain of current Foucauldian scholarship, this book underlines the importance of Foucault’s work for the capacity to recognize how this degraded view of political subjectivity came about, particularly within the framework of the discourses and politics of ‘development’, and with particular attention to the predicaments of postcolonial peoples. It explores how we can use Foucault’s ideas to recover the vital capacity to think and act politically at a time when fundamentally human capacities to think, know and to act purposively in the world are being pathologized as expressions of the hubris and ‘underdevelopment’ of postcolonial peoples.
This volume examines international statebuilding in terms of language and meanings, rather than focusing narrowly on current policy practices. After two decades of evolution towards more ‘integrated,’ ‘multi-faceted’ or, simply stated, more intrusive statebuilding and peacebuilding operations, a critical literature has slowly emerged on the economic, social and political impacts of these interventions. Scholars have started to analyse the ‘unintended consequences’ of peacebuilding missions, analysing all aspects of interventions. Central to the book is the understanding that language is both the most important tool for building anything of social significance, and the primary repository of meanings in any social setting. Hence, this volume exemplifies how the multiple realities of state, state fragility and statebuilding are being conceptualised in mainstream literature, by highlighting the repercussions this conceptualisation has on ‘good practices’ for statebuilding. Drawing together leading scholars in the field, this project provides a meeting point between constructivism in international relations and the critical perspective on liberal peacebuilding, shedding new light on the commonly accepted meanings and concepts underlying the international (or world) order, as well as the semantics of contemporary statebuilding practices. This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding and intervention, war and conflict studies, security studies and international relations.
What can ‘assemblage thinking’ contribute to international theory? Assemblages have been invoked in several disciplines to make sense of the heterogeneity of the elements of society and the ways in which these are politically intertwined. Can parallel developments be prompted in IR? Reassembling International Theory investigates how the contemporary debates on assemblages in social theory can contribute to generating critical considerations on the connections and dissociation of political agency, physical world and international dynamics. It draws on a variety of international relations experiences and on conversations with key ‘assemblage’ theorists to tease out the theoretical and methodological implications, ontological and material dynamics, as well as the politics of assemblage thinking. Including contributions from Rita Abrahamsen, Roland Bleiker, Antoine Bousquet, Christian Bueger, David Chandler, Stephen Collier, Olaf Corry, Xavier Guillaume, Graham Harman, Debbie Lisle, Maximilian Mayer, Aihwa Ong, Mark Salter, Saskia Sassen, Peer Schouten, Nick Srnicek and Michael Williams, this text will appeal to scholars in International Relations, Political Sociology and Human Geography.
Human security is understood as a response to the proliferation of new security threats which fit awkwardly within the relatively narrow confines of the traditional, state-centric national security paradigm. Human Security is a field of study that has emerged over the last 20 years. It is a sub-section of security studies but encompass a diverse range of academic disciplines and policy discourses (development studies, international relations, environmental studies, public health, economics, gender issues, human rights and foreign policy). It is also increasingly being adopted by policy-makers from individual nation states (Canada and Japan), bodies (European Union and the African Union) as well as institutionalized by the United Nations, and used by non-state actors in such as NGOs and the corporate sector. This volume serves as a valuable compilation of a disparate discourse, and a core reference for scholars and practitioners in a wide range of fields.
Human Rights: Politics and Practice provides a comprehensive introduction to human rights that takes students beyond a purely legal perspective to look at theoretical issues and practical approaches. It brings together international experts including political scientists, philosophers, lawyers, and policy-makers, and is up to date with a constantly evolving field. The second edition sees an expansion of theoretical content, and introduces students to areas of growing importance, including non-western approaches to human rights. It also looks at feminist approaches, and includes more material on group and individual rights. In addition, the book includes more critical perspectives, and there is more material on global civil society and children’s human rights. A new concluding chapter charts the possible future development of human rights and ensures that students are up to date. The book includes carefully considered pedagogical features to aid student learning, and the practical chapters each contain a case study which explores a concrete example in depth. The book is accompanied by an Online Resource Centre, which enhances student learning and provides valuable support for lecturers.
This new Handbook offers a combination of theoretical, thematic and empirical analyses of the statebuilding regime, written by leading international scholars. Over the past decade, international statebuilding has become one of the most important and least understood areas of international policy-making. Today, there are around one billion people living in some 50-60 conflict-affected, ‘fragile’ states, vulnerable to political violence and civil war. The international community grapples with the core challenges and dilemmas of using outside force, aid, and persuasion to build states in the wake of conflict and to prevent such countries from lapsing into devastating violence. The Routledge Handbook of International Statebuilding is a comprehensive resource for this emerging area in International Relations. The volume is designed to guide the reader through the background and development of international statebuilding as a policy area, as well as exploring in depth significant issues such as security, development, democracy and human rights. Divided into three main parts, this Handbook provides a single-source overview of the key topics in international statebuilding: Part One: Concepts and Approaches; Part Two: Security, Development and Democracy; Part Three: Policy Implementation. This Handbook will be essential reading for students of statebuilding, humanitarian intervention, peacebuilding, development, war and conflict studies and IR/Security Studies in general.
2012
This book discusses the European Union’s approach to governance reform in its development assistance relationships with various groups of developing countries. A group of expert authors outline the general features of the position on governance taken by the EU, which is currently the major multilateral donor of development assistance, and discuss the implementation of EU policies in a set of cases: the group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), Southeastern Europe, Central Asia, the Euro-Mediterranean, Latin America and fragile states. The contributions to the book argue that the EU’s position on governance reform, particularly since the adoption of the European Consensus on Development in 2005, has had distinctly neoliberal overtones. The EU’s governance-related strategies have been instrumental to deepening market-based reform in aid-receiving countries. Policies on state-building adopted by the EU reflect mainly the interests of and ideas embraced by the EU and its member states. To an important extent, the rhetoric accompanying EU policies does not match with the political and social dynamics inherent in governance structures on the ground in many of its aid-recipient partner countries. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.
This volume bridges two separate academic debates on the problems of democracy and the political community in a transnational context. The authors discuss the theoretical concerns of citizenship in an age of globalization and the inclusive and exclusive character of citizenship in contemporary society, taking as a starting point the status, role and function of citizenship within democratic systems and multilayered government structures. This novel approach adds a broad array of critical, conceptual and normative perspectives on the borders, territories and political agents of the state, employing a variety of disciplines to explore the possibilities and challenges for citizens as political agents in light of present processes of fragmentation and pluralization.
Du Sud-Soudan au Cambodge, d’Haïti à l’Afghanistan, en passant par le Liberia, le Rwanda, la Somalie, le Liban, l’Irak, la Palestine, la Libye, les experts en “state building” s’affairent auprès d’États “faillis”, “en crise”, récemment “libérés” ou “nouveaux nés”. Côté face, une intention humanitaire : aider des pays déchirés à se doter rapidement d’institutions capables de garantir la paix et le respect des droits de base de leur population. Côté pile, des enjeux économiques et géopolitiques mal cachés, mais aussi la montée en puissance d’une doctrine sécuritaire qui vire à l’obsession. Les zones de « non-droit » étant perçues comme les foyers des grandes menaces du nouveau millénaire (terrorisme, pandémies, vagues d’immigration, criminalité, etc.), les doter d’institutions « souveraines » devient motif légitime d’ingérence aux yeux de la communauté internationale… A l’ambivalence des desseins s’ajoutent les contradictions du terrain. La mise en place d’institutions “pour le bien de la population » est souvent la face civile d’une présence militaire vécue sur le mode de l’imposition par les premiers concernés. Et l’ingénierie institutionnelle mise en œuvre s’inspire davantage des « standards internationaux” que des dynamiques sociopolitiques locales, avec les effets pervers en cascade que cela suppose.
2011
Moving beyond the binary argument between those who buy into the aims of creating liberal democratic states grounded in free markets and rule of law, and those who critique and oppose them, this timely and much-needed critical volume takes a fresh look at the liberal peace debate. In doing so, it examines the validity of this critique in contemporary peacebuilding and statebuilding practice through a multitude of case studies – from Afghanistan to Somalia, Sri Lanka to Kosovo. Going further, it investigates the underlying theoretical assumptions of liberal peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as providing new theoretical propositions for understanding current interventions. Written by some of the most prominent scholars in the field, alongside several new scholars making cutting edge contributions, this is an essential contribution to a rapidly growing interdisciplinary area of study.
The SAGE Library of International Relations brings together the most influential and field-defining articles, both classical and contemporary, in a number of key areas of research and inquiry in International Relations. Each multi-volume set represents a collection of the essential published works collated from the foremost publications in the field by an editor or editorial team of renowned international stature. They also include a full introduction, presenting a rationale for the selection and mapping out the discipline’s past, present and likely future. This series is designed to be a ‘gold standard’ for university libraries throughout the world with an interest in International Relations. Actors in international politics need to navigate a host of ethical challenges when deciding how to act in a certain context. They are confronted by the question: “What, from an ethical point of view, ought I to do?” with regard to a wide range of issues including the conduct of war, the just distribution of aid and trade, human rights, the care of the global environment, the rights of asylum seekers and refugees, genocide, money laundering, global terror and many others. This collection looks at classical and seminal research in the field with the broad framework of the moral standing of states; the moral standing of non-state actors; and the ethics of international relations. Volume One: The Society of States Volume Two: Global Civil Society: Non-State Actors in World Politics Volume Three: The Changing Constitution of Global Politics Volume Four: Ethics and Foreign Policy.
This edited volume critically examines the widely supported doctrine of the ‘Responsibility to Protect’, and investigates the claim that it embodies progressive values in international politics. Since the United Nations World Summit of 2005, a remarkable consensus has emerged in support of the doctrine of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) – the idea that states and the international community bear a joint duty to protect peoples around the world from mass atrocities. While there has been plenty of discussion over how this doctrine can best be implemented, there has been no systematic criticism of the principles underlying R2P. This volume is the first critically to interrogate both the theoretical principles and the policy consequences of this doctrine. The authors in this collection argue that the doctrine of R2P does not in fact embody progressive values, and they explore the possibility that the R2P may undermine political accountability within states and international peace between them. This volume not only advances a novel set of arguments, but will also spur debate by offering views that are seldom heard in discussions of R2P. The aim of the volume is to bring a range of criticisms to bear from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including international law, political science, IR theory and security studies. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, humanitarian intervention, human security, critical security studies and IR in general.
It is often assumed that democracy is both desirable and possible in global politics. Interrogating Democracy in World Politics provides an important counter-argument to this assumption by questioning the history, meaning and concepts of democracy in contemporary international and global politics. Combining viewpoints from the fields of international relations, political theory and history, the book includes: Critical examinations of the concept of democracy as a political order and ethical ideal Assessment of the role and function of democracy in how contemporary political events are understood and evaluated Analysis of the relationship of democracy to international stability, liberalism and the emergence of capitalist economies The book focuses on the move from the concept of ‘international politics’ to ‘world politics’, recognising the equal importance of understanding democratic interaction both within and between states. It reviews current scholarly thinking in the field before providing a complex theoretical re-engagement with the meaning of democracy in contemporary world politics. Interrogating Democracy in World Politics will be of interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations, democratization studies and globalization.
This book presents a critical analysis of the liberal peace project and offers possible alternatives and models. In the past decade, the model used for reconstructing societies after conflicts has been based on liberal assumptions about the pacifiying effects of ‘open markets’ and ‘open societies’. Yet, despite the vast resources invested in helping establish the precepts of this liberal peace, outcomes have left much to be desired. The book argues that failures in the liberal peace project are not only due to efficiency problems related to its adaptation in adverse local environments, but mostly due to problems of legitimacy of turning an ideal into a doctrine for action.? The aim of the book is to scrutinize assumptions about the value of democratization and marketization and realities on the ground by combining theoretical discussions with empirical evidence from key post-conflict settings such as Iraq and Afghanistan. These?show the disparities that exist between the ideals and the reality of the liberal peace project, as seen by external peacebuilders and domestic actors. The book then proposes?various alternatives and modifications to better accommodate local perspectives, values and agency in attempts to forge a new consensus. This book will be of great interest to students of peacebuilding/peacekeeping, statebuilding, war and conflict studies, international security and IR.
2010
‘Here is a valuable collection in which top-rate thinkers offer diverse assessments of the place of transnational counter-publics in contemporary politics. It is an important question, and the book offers novel and interesting answers’ – Jan Aart Scholte, University of Warwick. This book focuses on global activism and uses a power perspective to provide an in-depth and coherent analysis of both the possibilities and limitations of global activism. Bringing together scholars from IR, sociology, and political science, this book offers new and critical insights on global activism and power. It features case studies on the following social and political issues: China and Tibet, HIV/AIDS, climate change, child labour, the WTO, women and the UN, the global public sphere, regional integration, national power, world social forums, policing, media power and global civil society. It will be of interest to students and scholars of globalization, global sociology and international politics.
This new book presents critical approaches towards Human Security, which has become one of the key areas for policy and academic debate within Security Studies and IR. The Human Security paradigm has had considerable significance for academics, policy-makers and practitioners. Under the rubric of Human Security, security policy practices seem to have transformed their goals and approaches, re-prioritising economic and social welfare issues?that were marginal to the state-based geo-political rivalries of the Cold War era. Human Security has reflected and reinforced the reconceptualisation of international security, both broadening and deepening it, and, in so doing, it has helped extend and shape the space within which security concerns inform international policy practices. However, in its wider use, Human Security has become an amorphous and unclear political concept, seen by some as progressive and radical and by others as tainted by association with the imposition of neo-liberal practices and values on non-Western spaces?or as legitimizing attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. This book is concerned with critical perspectives towards Human Security, highlighting some of the tensions which can emerge between critical perspectives which discursively radicalise Human Security within frameworks of emancipatory possibility and those which attempt to deconstruct Human Security within the framework of an externally imposed attempt to regulate and order the globe on behalf of hegemonic power. The chapters gathered in this edited collection represent a range of critical approaches which bring together alternative understandings of human security. This book will be of great interest to students of human security studies and critical security studies, war and conflict studies and international relations.
2009
Jonathan Pugh gathers some of the most innovative and insightful voices from Britain and beyond to stage a series of debates on the central issues facing radical politics today. This collection is a model for the kinds of discussion we need to move forward. – Michael Hardt, Duke University; With impeccable timing, this volume provides a stimulating range of perspectives on what radical politics can offer during this period of crisis and change. It deserves to be widely read and debated. – Ruth Lister, Professor of Social Policy, Loughborough University, UK; At a time when all ideologies are either exhausted or have become irrelevant, the need for a truly radical politics can hardly be exaggerated. Radical politics is about rethinking the common sense, the taken for granted assumptions, of the age. This timely and well-planned collection of essays by distinguished and concerned scholars throws much new light on where we should be looking for new ideas. It represents a major contribution to the ongoing debate on the problems of our times. – Lord Bhikhu Parek
Globalization – the interconnections between national economies, cultures, and governments – has rapidly transformed human perspectives on the world in which we live. It has been a rapidly developing process and since 9/11, nations have increasingly focused on working together to establish collective global security. This work addresses the current need for an authoritative but accessible overview of the impact of globalization on security and its multifaceted aspects. Broad in scope, this two-volume set addresses the economic and political aspects of globalization as well as its social and cultural impacts. More important, it is the first work to focus explicitly on security, including human security broadly conceived, and the role that globalization plays in the world’s new and ever-evolving security environment.
The post-Cold War has witnessed enormous levels of western peacekeeping, peacemaking and reconstruction intervention in societies emerging from war. These western-led interventions are often called ‘liberal peacebuilding’ or ‘liberal interventionism’, or statebuilding, and have attracted considerable controversy. In this study, leading proponents and critics of the liberal peace and contemporary post-war reconstruction assess the role of the United States, European Union and other actors in the promotion of the liberal peace, and of peace more generally. Key issues, including transitional justice and the acceptance/rejection of the liberal peace in African states are also considered. The failings of the liberal peace (most notably in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in other locations) have prompted a growing body of critical literature on the motivations, mechanics and consequences of the liberal peace. This volume brings together key protagonists from both sides of the debate to produce a cutting edge, state of the art discussion of one the main trends in contemporary international relations. This book was originally published as a special issue of Global Society.
This book explores the alternative futures of political community and moves beyond the critique of what is wrong with existing, state-based forms of political community. It does so not with the defence of a particular normative model of political community in mind, but rather in the quest for new ways of thinking about political community itself. Exploring how the political must be rethought in the twenty-first century and beyond, this book is divided into three parts: Part I focuses on the core problem that, despite the obvious need to rethink political community ‘beyond’ the nation state, our conceptual language is still thoroughly shaped by modernity, its prioritisation of the state and sovereignty, and its assumption of unifying progress in history. Part II focuses on postmodern political community, these chapters take up the calls made above for new thinking about political community that goes ‘beyond’ modern conceptions. Part III turns to the question of the emergence and decline of new forms of political community. The purpose of this section is to consider how the transformation of political community occurs in practice, and what the primary driver of this change is globally, locally and historically. This book will be of strong interest to students and scholars of International Relations, Political and Social Theory.
Drawing on a mix of international academic and field expert work, this book presents and analyses contemporary state-building efforts. It offers studies on the theoretical and practical foundations and causes of state-building, identifies the role and responsibilities of key actors and points to vital issues which merit specific attention in state-building undertakings. The book offers lessons for the future of state-building relevant to both practitioners and the academic community.
Human Rights: Politics and Practice is the first comprehensive textbook for politics students. It offers an unparalleled breadth and depth of coverage, with 20 chapters written by international experts. Seven chapters introduce the main theoretical issues and challenges in the study of human rights as a political phenomenon, addressing normative foundations, international law, measurement, international relations, comparative politics, sociological and anthropological approaches, and the ideological (mis)use of human rights. Thirteen thematic chapters then offer detailed analysis and case studies of key issues in the politics and practice of human rights, such as economic globalization, genocide, the environment, and humanitarian intervention. These chapters allow students to deepen their theoretical understanding while learning about important contemporary developments. The book is accompanied by an extensive Online Resource Centre, enhancing student learning and providing valuable support for lecturers. For Students: Monthly updates Links to key documents Web links Flashcard glossary For Lecturers: Test Bank PowerPoint slides.
This edited book sets out and engages with some of the key policies, practices and paradigms of external intervention in the case of state support and reconstruction. Many assumptions about statebuilding have been reconsidered in the wake of Iraq, and ongoing problems in other states such as Afghanistan, Bosnia and Kosovo. Rather than being a regional survey or a policy-orientated ‘lessons learned’ book, this collection explores the broader framing of policy goals, statebuilding practices and the consensus on the need for Western states and international institutions to be engaged in this policy area. The volume is divided into three parts: the first engages with some of the key policy frameworks and conceptual issues raised by recent statebuilding interventions; the second considers core statebuilding practices; and the third reconsiders statebuilding paradigms more broadly. The essays open up debate and critical discussion in the field at a time when many advocates of extending statebuilding intervention suggest that the complex nature of the problems of non-Western states and societies mean that it will inevitably be contradictory and limited in its results.
2008
This book examines the much-neglected question of what constitutes a political economy of peace after civil conflicts and who controls it.The advent of the UN’s Peacebuilding Commission signals a growing international interest in reconstruction during and after conflict. It is original in that it tackles the question of what constitutes a political economy of peace. Currently, how it might be constructed is either assumed to be self-evident and unproblematic or simply ignored. It examines key cross-cutting issues, themes and cases that will provide a more holistic and comprehensive approach to peacebuilding. It provides critical perspectives on peacebuilding that reach beyond the technicist approach of international financial institutions and the liberal peace formulae of cadres of international capital.The book provides critical perspectives that reach beyond the technical approaches of international financial institutions and proponents of the liberal peace formula. It investigates political economies characterized by the legacies of disruption to production and exchange, by population displacement, poverty, and by ‘criminality’.
Written by leading experts in the field, this volume identifies European collective preferences and analyzes to what extent these preferences inform and shape EU foreign policy and are shared by other actors in the international system. While studies of the EU’s foreign policy are not new, this book takes a very different tack from previous research. Specifically it leaves aside the institutional and bureaucratic dimensions of the European Union’s behaviour as an international actor in order to concentrate on the meanings and outcomes of its foreign policy taken in the broadest sense. Two outcomes are possible: Either Europe succeeds in imposing a norms-based international system and thus, in this case, its soft power capacity will not only have been demonstrated but will be enhanced Or, on the contrary, it does not succeed and the global system will become one where realpolitik reigns; especially once China, India and Russia attain a preponderant influence on the international scene. “EU Foreign Policy in a Globalized World” will be of interest to students and scholars of European Union politics, foreign policy and politics and international relations in general.
2007
30. ‘The Politics of Post-Territorial “Community”‘ in Space and Time in World Politics and International Relations: Material from the Fourth Congress of the Russian International Studies Association, Moscow MGIMO University, Vol.2 ‘Identity and Sovereignty: New Approaches’ (Moscow: RISA, 2007), pp.9-22.
State sovereignty is under siege. The classical doctrine of sovereignty is widely seen as totalitarian, producing external aggression and internal repression. Political leaders and opinion-makers throughout the world claim that the sovereign state is a barrier to efficient global governance and the protection of human rights. Scholars from a variety of different approaches – realist, liberal, constructivist and post-structuralist – dispute the idea of a final authority in politics. Politics without Sovereignty challenges this ‘unholy alliance’ against sovereignty. Two central claims are advanced in this book. First, that the sovereign state is being undermined not by the pressures of globalization but by a diminished sense of political possibility. Second, the book demonstrates that those who deny the relevance of sovereignty have failed to offer superior alternatives to the sovereign state. Sovereignty remains the best institution to establish clear lines of political authority and accountability. It preserves the idea that people shape collectively their own destiny. The authors claim that this positive idea of sovereignty as self-determination remains integral to politics both at the domestic and international levels. This key text will be of great interest to students and scholars of Political Science, International Relations, Security Studies, International Law, Development and European Studies.
This book presents a penetrating new examination of state building in international politics, drawing on case studies of key examples, including Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Rwanda. However, this new book does not simply provide case histories. It looks at the key themes of international state-building efforts, such as the relationship between governance and democracy and the problems of ethnic relations. It also brings together a diverse range of experts to provide a well-rounded discussion of state building in the modern era. The reader is presented with a clear explanation of why the issue of state failure has emerged as a central element in post-Cold War international relations. This volume shows why the primacy of sovereign inviolability has been challenged by both the international ascendancy of human rights and by incidents of state collapse. Following incidents where states have been the subject of humanitarian interventions, such as in Kosovo and Afghanistan, or when states have recently emerged from the disintegration of old states, as in Bosnia and East Timor, this is an excellent assessment of why the international community, either collectively or individually, have been compelled to take on the role of transitional administrators during state building.
This new volume moves beyond the limits of current debate to show how today’s foreign policy is increasingly about values rather than interests and why ethics are now playing a central role. Rather than counterposing interests and ethics, trying to find ‘hidden agendas’ or emphasizing the double-standards at play in ethical foreign policy, this book brings together leading international theorists, and a variety of stimulating approaches, to develop a critical understanding of the rise of ethical foreign policy, and to analyze the limits of ethical policy-making on its own terms. They deal with the limits of ‘ethical foreign policy’ both in the light of the internal dynamic of these policies themselves, and with regard to the often unintended consequences of policies designed to better the world. This book also shows how the transformation of both the domestic and the international spheres of politics means that ethics has become a rallying point for non-state actors and experts who gather around values and norms in order to force institutions to justify their behavior. This process results from different structural changes and the transformation of the international system, the individualization of Western societies and the growing importance of expertise in the justification of decisions in risk adverse societies. It leads to a transformation of norms and to a redefinition of a global ethical framework that needs to be clarified. This book will be of great interest to all students and researchers of foreign policy formation, politics and international relations.
2006
The contributors to this book argue that the events of 9/11 and the ‘war on terror’ are having a significant transformative impact on European Foreign and Security Policy. This is demonstrated through an analysis of changes in the attitudes of EU officials and politicians towards the laws and norms governing the use of force and through an analysis of changes in strategies towards the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the United States. The impact of the ‘war on terror’ on EU military affairs is highlighted. It is argued that since 9/11 there has been a widening, deepening, and ‘securitisation’ of European Foreign and Security Policy. The widening is reflected in a broader EU commitment to crisis management and postwar reconstruction at the global level, which at times takes the form of ‘state building’. The deepening is represented by the emergence of groups of EU countries, so called ‘vanguards’, leading in foreign and security policy issues and in EU military affairs. For the first time in its history, the EU Council has also endorsed a notion of threats that is contributing to a process of ‘securitisation’ of aspects of EU internal and external policies. Giovanna Bono is a Senior Associate Fellow in European Foreign and Security Policy at the Institute for European Studies of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium.
The book represents an insight into current human rights developments in Europe and gives an overview of the complex, juridical and political dimensions. The contemporary development and institutionalisation of European human rights norms takes place within the structures of the European Union, OSCE, Council of Europe and a multilayered court system. Chapter II «European Organisations and Human Rights» delivers an up to date introduction into the organisation’s different approaches to human rights. Geographically the volume has a strong focus on human rights developments in Central Eastern and South Eastern Europe. Russia and Turkey are challenging cases for European human rights organisations and are dealt with in separate articles. The issue of minority rights protection forms another challenge for many Central and Eastern European Countries. The protection of Roma people is only one pressing example. Finally the book devotes a whole chapter to the EU’s external relations and human rights. The volume closes with a chapter written by David Chandler who reminds us of the limits of the human rights conception.
This sweeping collection of essays examines the racialized and gendered effects of contemporary politics of belonging, issues which lie at the heart of contemporary political and social lives. It encompasses critical questions of identity and citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, emotional attachments, violent conflicts and local/global relationships. The range – geographically, thematically and theoretically – covered by the chapters reflects current concerns in the world today. A timely contribution to the ongoing debates in the field, it will be a valuable companion to scholars working in the areas of multiculturalism, globalisation and culture, race and ethnic studies, gender studies and studies of post-partition societies.
This study starts from a provocative new premise: the relationship between human rights and their legal expression is far from straightforward and urgently needs a sharp re-examination. The concept of ‘human rights’ as a universal goal is at the centre of the international stage. It is now a key part in discourse, treaties and in domestic jurisdictions. However, as this study shows, the debate around this development is actually about human rights law. This text scrutinizes the extent to which legalization shapes the human rights ideal, and surveys its ethical, political and practical repercussions. How does the law influence what we think about rights? What more is there to such rights than their legal protection? These expert contributors approach these questions from a range of perspectives: political theory/moral theory, anthropology, sociology, international law, international politics and political science, to deliver a diversity of methodologies. This book is essential reading for those wishing to develop a clear understanding of the relationship between human rights ideals and laws and for those working toward the fostering of a genuine human rights culture.
Ten years on from the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement in November 1995, the legacy of the Bosnian war still shapes every aspect of the political, social and economic environment of the tiny state. This state of affairs is highlighted by the fact that Bosnia is still under international control, with the Office of the International High Representative regularly using its powers to dismiss elected presidents, prime-ministers and MPs and to impose legislation over the resistance of elected legislatures at national, regional and local level. What has changed in the ten years since Dayton? Is international regulation helping to establish a sustainable peace in Bosnia? What lessons can be learned for nation-building in Bosnia? This volume was previously published as a special issue of the leading journal International Peacekeeping.
2005
C. Wieland, Introduction – C. Wieland, Demolishing the myth of homogeneous “ethnic” blocks. Bosnia in comparative perspective. part one – facing the past: S. Šelo Šabic, Post-War State Building: Germany in 1945 and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995 – B. Bijelic, Balkans, Stereotypes, Violence and Responsibility – E.D. Gordy, What does it mean to break with the past? part two – ethnic conflict from a distance – a misunderstanding?: C. O’Sullivan, Observations on the U.S. News Media and the Resolution of Ethnic Conflict: its Influence on Public Opinion and the Process of Peace-Building – M. Vandiver, Teaching Students in the United States about Genocide in Bosnia: Challenges and Possiblitie. part three – facing the future: D. Chandler, Undermining Politics: The International Fight against Corruption in Bosnia-Herzegovina – F. Bieber, Power Sharing, Political Representation and Group Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Peacekeeping in Global Politics investigates the changing role of peacekeeping and competing perspectives about what that role should be. It begins by addressing broad issues connected with the transition from a Westphalian international society, the ethical and legal dilemmas provoked by armed intervention and the alternative ways of conceptualising the role that peacekeeping plays. It goes on to critically chart the development of ‘traditional’ peacekeeping before outlining how the role of force in peacekeeping operations has changed and the close links between peacekeeping, conflict prevention and conflict resolution. The final part of the volume focuses specifically on globalization and the effects it has had on peacekeeping practices. In particular, it focuses on the changing conflict environment, the growing tendency towards subcontracting peacekeeping duties and the development of regional peacekeeping capabilities. Overall, this volume makes two contributions to the way we think about peackeeping: first, it demonstrates that the theory and practice of peacekeeping is embedded in global politics and second it shows that there is an ongoing debate about what peacekeeping is for.
For many commentators, global civil society is revolutionising our approach to global politics, as new non-state-based and border-free expressions of political community challenge territorial sovereignty as the exclusive basis for political community and identity. This challenge ‘from below’ to the nation-state system is increasingly seen as promising nothing less than a reconstruction, or a re-imagination, of world politics itself. Whether in terms of the democratisation of the institutions of global governance, the spread of human rights across the world, or the emergence of a global citizenry in a world-wide public sphere, global civil society is understood by many to provide the agency necessary to these hoped-for transformations. Global Civil Society asks whether this idea is such a qualitatively new phenomenon after all; whether the transformation of the states’ system is actually within its reach; and what some of its drawbacks might be. This collection brings together and clarifies emerging positions on global civil society and the key points of overlap and disagreement between them. The authors explore and critically evaluate a variety of perspectives: the cosmopolitan vision; the view of global civil society as transnational movements advocating a growing moralisation of world politics; the neo-Gramscian approach and the more sceptical views, advancing new possibilities for understanding the role of non-state actors in global politics. This book brings together for the first time the whole range of established and alternative voices on global civil society, both congratulatory and critical, to set a marker for the state of the debate about global civil society today. Many of the authors provide new perspectives on what global civil society means today. This book will prove invaluable for students and researchers in the fields of International Politics, Democratization and Civil Society.
2004
This collection aims to critically examine the new global policy of ‘Good Governance’. This catchphrase of aid policy and development thinking has been the subject of too little analysis to date. This book will redress the balance. It places the prefix ‘good’, and exactly what that means, under the microscope and examines the impact of neoliberal governance in a wide range of countries and territories, including Chile, Russia, Argentina and Indonesia.
This title brings together competing theories of civil society with critical studies of the role of civil society in diverse situations and the way in which it has been promoted as the key to democratization. The combination of contemporary theory and practical applications provides valuable reading for students of civil society and contemporary social and political change, and its policy implications for Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.
2003
With the European Union´s upcoming eastern enlargement, Europe is confronted with the necessity of creating security and stability beyond the EU borders in Eastern and Southeastern Europe. This task includes not only numerous risks but also opportunities to face the challenges of the 21st century. This volume provides policy-oriented recommendations and differentiated assessments for all nine states and entities of the region, as well as for the policy areas of governance, economy and security. The authors explore the unintended consequences and side-effects of massive support for reforms and external influence on weak states. A concept for a “Mulit-Layered Europe” is developed for the strategic dilemmas concerning the current debate on “Wilder Europe”. The unique alliance between analytical output and strategic thinking makes the book valuable for the academic community and for persons responsible for Europe´s future. The volume is one of two from a joint project on “Security in Europa and beyond its borders” of the Bertelsmann Foundation in Guetersloh and the Center for Applied Policy Research in Munich.
Cosmopolitics, the concept of a world politics based on shared democratic values, is in an increasingly fragile state. While Western democracies insist ever more vehemently upon a maintenance of their privileges – freedom of speech, security, wealth – an increasing number of the world’s inhabitants are under threat of poverty, famine and war. What is needed, the writers here-suggest is, a deliberate decision to extend the principles and values of democracy to the sphere of international relations. Recent experience does not bode well, but their arguments, which range from reform of the United Nations, reduction of military weapons, additional power for international judiciary institutions and an increase in aid to developing countries, urge new and inspired action.
2002
Rethinking Human Rights brings together a team of authors from fields as diverse as political theory, peace studies, international law and media studies concerned with a new international agenda of human rights promotion. The collection presents an original and tightly argued critique of current trends and deals with a range of questions concerning the implication of human rights approaches for humanitarian aid, state sovereignty, international law, democracy and political autonomy.
Since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, American policymakers have been forced to reassess their priorities and consider longer-term and more flexible strategies for meeting unexpected contingencies in the post-Cold War world. Currently, the United States is the only competent Western power at the most intense and technologically sophisticated end of military operations and the expected hand-holder of its European allies at the most basic peacekeeping end. Exiting the Balkan Thicket reviews the West’s experiences in Bosnia and Kosovo and provides recommendations on how the United States can move beyond the status quo and forge a better balanced and more forward-looking security relationship with its European allies. Featuring chapters by Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute; David Chandler, research fellow with the Policy Research Institute at Leeds Metropolitan University; Robert M. Hayden, director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh; John C. Hulsman, senior European analyst at the Heritage Foundation; E. Wayne Merry, senior fellow at the Lester B. Pearson Canadian International Peacekeeping Training Center; Stephen Schwartz, author of Kosovo: Background to a War; and Raju G. C. Thomas, Allis Chalmers Professor of International Affairs at Marquette University.
2001
2000
Harold Pinter, Edward Said, Oskar Lafontaine, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and other distinguished dissidents explain their opposition to NATO’s war in the Balkans.
The media served a highly partisan and propagandistic role in NATO’s Kosovo war, uncritically reproducing official spin in a way that was incompatible with their proclaimed democratic role as objective purveyors of information. This book integrates a critical interpretation of Western policy towards the former Yugoslavia with analysis of media coverage of the Kosovo crisis and war. The first part of the book deals with the war itself and the build-up to it, placing this in the context of earlier Western intervention in Yugoslavia. Part two discusses key issues raised by the media coverage, including the demonisation of the enemy, and the role of CNN. In the final section, contributors analyse how the war was reported in different countries around the world, including the United States, Britain, Germany, India, Greece, Russia, and France. The book offers a corrective to the hysteria and misinformation that permeated media coverage. Subjects covered include the role of the Internet, the changing media-military relationship, the depiction and definition of “war crimes”, and how Yugoslav television was presented as a legitimate military target. Contributors include John Pilger, Edward S. Herman, Phil Hammond, Diana Johnstone, Jim Naureckas and Jan Oberg.
1999
Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe explores the complex relationship between ethnicity and democratisation, focusing on the newly emerging Europe. Divided into two parts, the book begins by conceptualising the nature of ethnicity and relating these ideas to different theories of democracy and democratisation. It then presents a series of case studies which complement and build upon the theories presented in the first part. The case studies cover ethnic experiences in both democratised and democratising European countries including: Spain, Germany, Austria, Poland, Russia, Albania and Hungary. The contributors locate ethnic experiences within a series of common frameworks to shed light on key issues such as: the effect of democratisation and authoritarian rule on ethnic tensions; the extent to which ethnicity is constructed as an ideological tool; the ways in which democratisation offers socio-political accommodation; whether assimilation is a precondition for democratisation. This accessible study will familiarise students with a range of key conceptual and comparative issues in ethnicity, nation-building and the process of democratisation, and will challenge many traditionally held views about the nature of ethnicity in New Europe.
Es exisitieren leider nur wenige wirklich NATO / USA kritische Bücher zu dem Thema Kosovo-Krieg. Dies ist eines jener, die vor allem die Rolle der USA in diesem “humanitären Krieg” geostrategisch, wirtschatlich und militärisch untersucht haben. Es handelt sich um eine Reihe verschiedener Autoren, die wohl bekanntesten unter ihnen sind: Noam Chomsky, Ernst-Otto Czempiel, Erich Schmidt-Eenboom und Mira Beham. Die Beiträge sind allesamt kritisch und leicht verständlich geschrieben; sie sind deskriptiv und analysieren die wirklichen Ziele der von den USA angeführten NATO. Es ist gut zu wissen, daß es nicht nur Mediengelenkte Bücher zu diesem wichtigen Thema gibt.
1997
2. ‘A New Look at the Democratisation Process: The Case Study of Bosnia-Herzegovina Post-Dayton’ in J. Sevic and G. Wright (eds) Transition in Central and Eastern Europe, Vol.2 (Belgrade: YASF, 1997), pp.217-241.
1996
1. ‘The Internationalisation of Minority Rights Protection in Eastern Europe’ in I. Hampshire-Monk and J. Stanyer (eds) Contemporary Political Studies, Vol.1 (Belfast: The Political Studies Association of Great Britain, 1996).