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In this hugely influential book, originally published in 2001 but just as - if not more - relevant today, Mark Duffield shows how war has become an integral component of development discourse. Aid agencies have become increasingly involved in humanitarian assistance, conflict resolution and the social reconstruction of war-torn societies. Duffield explores the consequences of this growing merger of development and security, unravelling the nature of the new wars and the response of the international community, in particular the new systems of global governance that are emerging as a result. An essential work for anyone studying, interested in, or working in development or international security.
According to politicians, we now live in a radically interconnected world. Unless there is international stability – even in the most distant places – the West's way of life is threatened. In meeting this global danger, reducing poverty and developing the unstable regions of the world are now imperative. In what has become a truism of the post-Cold War period, security without development is questionable, while development without security is impossible. In this accessible and path-breaking book, Mark Duffield questions this conventional wisdom and lays bare development not as a way of bettering other people but of governing them. He offers a profound critique of the new wave of Western ...
"This book examines the nature of today's internal and regionalized conflicts, together with the systems of global governance that have emerged in response to them. The widespread commitment among donor governments and aid agencies to conflict resolution and social reconstruction indicates that war is now part of development discourse. The very notion of development, the author argues, has been radicalized in the process, and now requires the direct transformation of Third World societies. This radicalization is closely associated with the redefinition of security. Because conflict is understood as stemming from a developmental malaise, underdevelopment itself is now seen as a source of inst...
An account of the humanitarian assistance in Eritrea and Ethiopia.
This collection explores the similarities, differences and overlaps between the contemporary debates on international development and humanitarian intervention and the historical artefacts and strategies of Empire. It includes views by historians and students of politics and development, drawing on a range of methodologies and approaches. The parallels between the language of nineteenth-century liberal imperialism and the humanitarian interventionism of the post-Cold War era are striking. The American military, both in Somalia in the early 1990s and in the aftermath the Iraq invasion, used ethnographic information compiled by British colonial administrators. Are these interconnections, which...
Conflict resolution theory has become relevant to the various challenges faced by the United Nations peacekeeping forces as efforts are made to learn from the traumatic and devastating impact of the many civil wars that have erupted in the 1990s. This work analyzes the theory.
We see famine and look for the likely causes: poor food distribution, unstable regimes, caprices of weather. A technical problem, we tell ourselves, one that modern social and natural science will someday resolve. To the contrary, Jenny Edkins responds in this book: Famine in the contemporary world is not the antithesis of modernity but its symptom. A critical investigation of hunger, famine, and aid practices in international politics, Whose Hunger? shows how the forms and ideas of modernity frame our understanding of famine and, consequently, shape our responses.
The report argues that the international provision of welfare and relief is no longer adequate to deal with the consequences of conflict: the whole system is in urgent need of reform to establish a contractual relation between recipient governments, official donors, and NGOs based upon a revision of the rules of war.
From international NGOs to UN agencies, from donors to observers of humanitarianism, opinion is unanimous: in a context of the alleged "clash of civilizations", our "humanitarian space" is shrinking. Put another way, the freedom of action and of speech of humanitarians is being eroded due to the radicalisation of conflicts and the reaffirmation of state sovereignty over aid actors and policies. The purpose of this book is to challenge this assumption through an analysis of the events that have marked MSF's history since 2003 (when MSF published its first general work on humanitarian action and its relationships with governments). It addresses the evolution of humanitarian goals, the resistan...
When a Boston gift shop is scheduled to be demolished on Christmas Eve, and its owner is found dead, a young and cynical reporter is sent to cover the story. What he uncovers on that mystical day turns out to be much bigger than he anticipated. This is a Christmas tale of faith and faith rewarded.