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In this book, Alaolmolki, an expert on the transnational politics of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf, provides a global view of militant Islamist ideologies, activities, and connections. Unlike many extant books on this topic, Militant Islamists does not examine only one particular factor or driving force in political violence such as suicide bombings; rather, this work studies transnational militant Islam on several levels: domestic (e.g., the role of poverty and lack of democracy in Arab and Muslim nations); regional (e.g., the Palestinian-Israeli conflict; Hizbullah in Lebanon; Jemmah Islamiyan in Southeast Asia; Hizb al-Tahrir in Central Asia); global (e.g., the role of the United States and Western Europe in inadvertently helping transnational Islamists). Ultimately, the author traces the effects of the U.S.-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq on militant Islamist terrorism, concluding that militant Islam is spreading, not receding, and that the United States would better rely on soft, rather than hard (military), power to overcome it.
In a call to planetary thinking, planetary building, and planetary dwelling, Norman K. Swazo discusses Heidegger's thought as it relates to issues of global politics, specifically, the domain of world order studies. In the first division of the book, Swazo provides a theoretical critique of world order studies understood in the two modes of normative and technocratic futurism. The book's second division includes a preliminary attempt to clarify what Heidegger's call for "essential thinking" entails for political thinking. This signifies a new beginning for political discourse, heralded in the possibility of "essential political thinking" that Swazo calls "autarchology."
Sovereignty, Democracy, and Global Civil Society explores the growing power of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) by analyzing a microcosm of contemporary global state-society relations at UN World Conferences. The intense interactions between states and NGOs at conferences on the environment, human rights, women's issues, and other topics confirm the emergence of a new transnational democratic sphere of activity. Employing both regional and global case studies, the book charts noticeable growth in the ability of NGOs to build networks among themselves and effect change within UN processes. Using a multidimensional understanding of state sovereignty, the authors find that states use sovereignty to shelter not only material interests but also cultural identity in the face of external pressure. This book is unique in its analysis of NGO activities at the international level as well as the complexity of nation-states' responses to their new companions in global governance.
Expanded new edition of an important study of the protracted violence in Colombia. This book examines the political, economic, and military factors that have contributed to decades of violent conflict in Colombia during one of the longest protracted civil wars in the world. Using four years of field research, and more than two hundred interviews, Nazih Richani examines Colombias war systemthe systemic interlacing relationship among actors in conflict, their respective political economy, and also the overall political economy of the system they help in creating. Several key questions are raised, including when and why do some conflicts protract, and what types of socioeconomic and political configurations make peaceful resolutions difficult to obtain? Also addressed are the lessons of other protracted conflicts, such as those found in Lebanon, Angola, and Italy. In this expanded second edition Richani contributes new chapters looking at developments in Colombia since the books initial publication a decade ago and a look at the challenges for peace that lie ahead.
When Leaders Learn and When They Don't investigates two extraordinary leaders—Mikhail Gorbachev and Kim Il Sung—by employing sophisticated methodologies and advancing a new theory of foreign policy decision making. Both leaders redefined the theory and practice of international relations and left a heritage that we face today—a unipolar world in which security threats no longer emanate from the rivalry of two superpowers but rather from the existence of rogue states such as North Korea. Akan Malici demonstrates how Gorbachev moved the antagonistic superpower relationship toward a Kantian world of friends while Kim reified a Hobbesian world of enemies at the end of the Cold War. The book carries implications about declining and newly emerging threats as the configuration of the international system changes.
Debating the Global Financial Architecture opens up the contemporary debate surrounding the reform of the "global financial architecture." Economists and political scientists explore the economic and technical content of alternative global financial regimes as well as the political processes through which such changes are negotiated. The contributors, though diverse, jointly fear that rapid removal of the remaining controls on private international financial transactions risks systematic crisis. By initiating a cross-disciplinary discussion, they hope to see the politics of global financial design examined more honestly, yet without discarding or devaluing a solid economic analysis of global money and investment flows.
Examines the domestic constraints negotiators operate under when nations seek to cooperate.
It has long been assumed that leaders engage in international conflict to unify their followers—what is often called the "rally 'round the flag" hypothesis. Despite its intuitive appeal, however, this hypothesis does not always provide a compelling explanation of the relationship between domestic politics and international conflict. In United We Stand? Aaron Belkin shows that in one important realm, civil-military relations, leaders often prefer divisiveness over cohesion. When they feel domestically vulnerable, leaders use international conflict in order to create and exacerbate rivalries among their own military forces to lower the risk of a coup and to contribute to the consolidation and stability of the political order. Case studies include post-Soviet Georgia and Syria.
Examines the interrelation between technology and international politics since the nineteenth century.
Examines the politics of transnational water resource management through case studies of the Aral Sea basin and the Danube, Euphrates, and Mekong river basins.