Rethinking Insecurity War And Violence

Rethinking Insecurity, War and Violence: Beyond Savage Globalization? is a collection of essays by scholars intent on rethinking the mainstream security paradigms. Overall, this collection is intended to provide a broad and systematic analysis of the long-term sources of political, military and cultural insecurity from the local to the global. The book provides a stronger basis for understanding the causes of conflict and violence in the world today, one that adds a different dimension to the dominant focus on finding proximate causes and making quick responses Too often the arenas of violence have been represented as if they have been triggered by reassertions of traditional and tribal forms of identity, primordial and irrational assertions of politics. Such ideas about the sources of insecurity have become entrenched in a wide variety of media sources, and have framed both government policies and academic arguments. Rather than treating the sources of insecurity as a retreat from modernity, this book complicates the patterns of global insecurity to a degree that takes the debates simply beyond assumptions that we are witnessing a savage return to a bloody and tribalized world. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars of international relations, security studies, gender studies and globalization studies.

This book investigates the relationships between political violence, social violence and economic violence using examples from South Africa, Northern Ireland, Lebanon and Syria. It examines the cultural impact of war and argues that a culture of violence can explain the high levels of violence which are frequently found in post-war societies.

An original argument about the causes and consequences of political violence and the range of strategies employed. States, nationalist movements, and ethnic groups in conflict with one another often face a choice between violent and nonviolent strategies. Although major wars between sovereign states have become rare, contemporary world politics has been rife with internal conflict, ethnic cleansing, and violence against civilians. This book asks how, why, and when states and non-state actors use violence against one another, and examines the effectiveness of various forms of political violence. In the process of addressing these issues, the essays make two conceptual moves that illustrate the need to reconsider the way violence by states and non-state actors has typically been studied and understood. The first is to think of violence not as dichotomous, as either present or absent, but to consider the wide range of nonviolent and violent options available and ask why actors come to embrace particular strategies. The second is to explore the dynamic nature of violent conflicts, developing explanations that can account for the eruption of violence at particular moments in time. The arguments focus on how changes in the balance of power between and among states and non-state actors generate uncertainty and threat, thereby creating an environment conducive to violence. This innovative way of understanding violence deemphasizes the role of ethnic cleavages and nationalism in modern conflict. Contributors Kristin M. Bakke, Emily Beaulieu, H. Zeynep Bulutgil, Erica Chenoweth, Kathryn McNabb Cochran, Kathleen Gallagher Cunningham, Alexander B. Downes, Erin K. Jenne, Adria Lawrence, Harris Mylonas, Wendy Pearlman, Maria J. Stephan

Mary Kaldor and Saskia Sassen assemble an international team of scholars to examine cities as sites of contemporary warfare and insecurity. They develop new insight into how cities and their residents encounter instability and conflict, as well as the ways in which urban forms provide possibilities for countering violence.

Since the end of the Cold War, humanitarian interventions have continued to evolve and respond to a wide range of political crises. These insightful essays focus on the challenges associated with interventions when facing conflict and human rights violations, unmitigated systematic violence, state re-building, human mobility and dislocation. Each chapter is linked to the rest through three defining themes that permeate the book: the evolution of humanitarian interventions in a global era; the limits of sovereignty and the ethics of interventions; and the politics of post-intervention: (re)-building and humanitarian engagement. The authors incorporate a variety of case studies including Kosovo, Timor-Leste, Syria, Libya and Iraq, and examine the complexity of interventions across their different dimensions, including relevant doctrines such as R2P, 'Use of Force' and Human Security.

An entirely modern argument for the irrelevance of war as a goal in international affairs.

The history of development is one marked by insecurities, violence, and persistent conflict. It is not surprising, therefore, that development is now thought of as one of the central challenges of world politics. However, its complexities are often overlooked in scholarly analysis and among policy practitioners, who tend to adopt a technocratic approach to the crisis of development and violence. This book brings together a wide range of contributions aimed at investigating different aspects of the history of development and violence, and its implications for contemporary efforts to consolidate the development-security nexus. From environmental concerns, through vigilante citizenship, to the legacies of armed conflicts during and after decolonization, the different chapters reconstruct the contradictory history of development and critically engage contemporary responses and their implications for social and political analyses. In examining violence and insecurity in relation to core organising principles of world politics the contributors engage the problems associated with the nation state and the inter-state system and underlying assumptions of the promises of progress. The book offers a range of perspectives on the contradictions of development, and on how domination, violence and resistance have been conceived. At the same time it exemplifies the relevance of alternative methodological and conceptual approaches to contemporary challenges of development. This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Examines the complex ethics and politics of humanitarian interventionSince the Cold War, humanitarian interventions have transitioned through a range of stages. These 12 essays focus on the challenges associated with interventions, conflict and attendant human rights violations, unmitigatedand systematic violence, state re-building, and issues associated with human mobility and dislocation. Each chapter is linked to the rest through three defining themes that permeate the book: the evolution of humanitarian interventions in a global era; the limits of sovereignty and the ethics ofinterventions; and the politics of post-intervention: (re)-building and humanitarian engagement.

This book looks at the evolving relationship between war and international law, examining the complex practical and legal dilemmas posed by the changing nature of war in the contemporary world, whether the traditional rules governing the onset and conduct of hostilities apply anymore, and how they might be adapted to new realities. War, always messy, has become even messier today, with the blurring of interstate, intrastate, and extrastate violence. How can the United States and other countries be expected to fight honourably and observe the existing norms when they often are up against an adversary who recognizes no such obligations? Indeed, how do we even know whether an "armed conflict" is underway when modern wars tend to lack neat beginnings and endings and seem geographically indeterminate, as well? What is the legality of anticipatory self-defense, humanitarian intervention, targeted killings, drones, detention of captured prisoners without POW status, and other controversial practices? These questions are explored through a review of the United Nations Charter, Geneva Conventions, and other regimes and how they have operated in recent conflicts. Through a series of case studies, including the U.S. war on terror and the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Gaza, Kosovo, and Congo, the author illustrates the challenges we face today in the ongoing effort to reduce war and, when it occurs, to make it more humane.

This edited volume helps bridge the elusive gap between theory and practice in dealing with the issue of "security" broadly conceived. A quarter of a century has passed since the crumbling of the Berlin Wall. Yet our notions of security remain mired in Cold War thinking whose realist ethos is predicated on holding the nation state's power, interests, and survival as the guiding unit of analysis in international relations. Security is ever changing. Confronting new dangers to the individual, the state, and the international order calls for new categories that speak to the new influence of globalization, international institutions, and transnational threats. Composed of original essays by a cosmopolitan mix of leading figures inside and outside the academy, this book proves relevant to any number of classes and courses, and its controversial character makes it all the more necessary and appealing.