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This book studies a significant event in US relations with Latin America, shedding light on the role of dependent states and their foreign policy agency in the process by which local concerns become intertwined with the dominant state’s foreign policy. Plan Colombia was a large-scale foreign aid programme through which the US intervened in the internal affairs of Colombia, by invitation. It proved to be one of the major successes of US foreign policy, and has been credited with stemming a potentially catastrophic security failure of the Colombian state. This book discusses the strategies and practices deployed by the Colombian government to influence US foreign policy decision making at th...
" Conventional political theory holds that the sovereign state is the legitimate source of order and provider of public services in any society, whether democratic or not. But Hezbollah and ISIS in the Middle East, pirate clans in Africa, criminal gangs in South America, and militias in Southeast Asia are examples of nonstate actors that control local territory and render public services that the nation-state cannot or will not provide. This fascinating book takes the reader around the world to areas where national governance has broken down—or never really existed. In these places, the vacuum has been filled by local gangs, militias, and warlords, some with ideological or political agenda...
Colombia is the least understood of Latin American countries. Its human tragedy, which features terrifying levels of kidnapping, homicide and extortion, is generally ignored or exploited. In this urgent new work Forrest Hylton, who has extensive first-hand experience of living and working in Colombia, explores its history of 150 years of political conflict, characterized by radical-popular mobilization and reactionary repression. Evil Hour in Colombia shows how patterns of political conflict, from the mid-nineteenth century to today's guerilla narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, explain the wear currently destroying Colombian lives, property, communities and territory. In doing so, it traces how Colombia's "coffee capitalism" gave way to the cattle and cocaine republic of the 1980s, and how land, wealth and power have been steadily accumulated by the light-skinned top of the social pyramid through a brutal combination of terror, expropriation and economic depression.
Most policymakers see counterinsurgency and counternarcotics policy as two sides of the same coin. Stop the flow of drug money, the logic goes, and the insurgency will wither away. But the conventional wisdom is dangerously wrongheaded, as Vanda Felbab-Brown argues in Shooting Up. Counternarcotics campaigns, particularly those focused on eradication, typically fail to bankrupt belligerent groups that rely on the drug trade for financing. Worse, they actually strengthen insurgents by increasing their legitimacy and popular support. Felbab-Brown, a leading expert on drug interdiction efforts and counterinsurgency, draws on interviews and fieldwork in some of the world's most dangerous regions ...
Recent political changes in Colombia have opened up possibilities to think beyond the long-standing conflict and violence to promote a development agenda, based upon economic growth, social welfare and environmental protection. This publication contains various policy papers which seek to contribute to the national debate on options to address these development challenges. The book is intended to provide the incoming Colombian presidential administration with a comprehensive policy discussion regarding the country's development agenda.
This book examines whether and how non-state armed groups might be required to provide reparations for the harm caused by their violations of international law committed during situations of non-international armed conflict. Most of today’s armed conflicts are waged between states and non-state armed groups or between such groups. Societies ravaged by these conflicts endure extensive harm resulting from violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. This reality prompts a series of pressing questions. Akin to states, should non-state armed groups be held responsible for making reparation when violating international law? And if so, what measures can these ...
Through interviews and on-the-ground research, this book provides a new explanation of the nature of insurgent group behavior. Through case studies of the SPLA, FARC, and PKK, it offers an intimate understanding of modern day insurgent/terrorist groups and their tactics as well as an explanation of the changing behavior of insurgent groups toward the civilians they claim to represent.
By 2017, it was estimated that over 40 million people were displaced within their own countries by conflict and violence across at least 56 countries worldwide. Solutions to the epidemic of forced internal displacement are frequently premised on the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Indeed, as a characteristic need of IDPs, such returns benefit from a special protection framework developed by IDP protection instruments such as the Guiding Principles. However, the legal status of those instruments remains ambiguous, generating attendant questions about the congruity of the IDP return framework with existing international law. Moreover, limited knowledge exists on its practical implementation. As a result, both inter-national agencies and individual scholars have repeatedly issued urgent calls for comprehensive and grounded theoretical investigation into this topic. This book answers those long-standing calls for research by presenting a detailed study of the return of conflict-afffected IDPs under international law.
This book, continuing the narrative begun by the author in two preceding volumes, provides a clear description of military combat occurring in Latin America for the years from 1982 into mid-2013. Although the text concentrates on combat operations, matters of politics, business and international relations appear as necessary to understand the wars. The author has uncovered many previously unknown sources to provide new information never published before. The book traces the many insurgencies in Latin America as well as conventional wars. Among the highlights are the chapters on the Falklands War and the U.S. invasions of Grenada and Panama. One useful aspect of the text is an explanation of why, of the many insurgencies appearing in Latin America, only those in Cuba and Nicaragua were successful in overthrowing governments. The book also helps explain why even unsuccessful insurgencies have survived for decades, as has happened in Colombia and Peru. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.