Content Type: Book - CIAO Search Results

1. Net-Zero and Nonproliferation: Assessing Nuclear Power and Its Alternatives

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 01-2024
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Six years ago, NPEC ran a mock execution of a law Congress passed in 1978 but that the Executive refused to implement —Title V of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978. Title V called on the State and Energy Departments to conduct country-specific analyses of how developing states might best meet their energy needs without nuclear power. It also called for the creation of an energy Peace Corps and an assessment of what our government was spending on energy development aid-related projects. When NPEC started its efforts, the staff on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked to see what NPEC produced to use it to pressure the Executive finally to implement the law. NPEC commissioned a number of studies on how Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, and Taiwan might best meet their energy requirements without nuclear power. The center also contracted studies on the history and intent of Title V and on what government programs were already in play that aligned with Title V‘s stated objectives. As soon as NPEC’s project was completed, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff prepared a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking the Secretary finally to implement Title V and file the reports required by law. Then, something unexpected occurred. The committee’s legal counsel discovered that the Secretary was under no obligation to comply: Congress had eliminated Title V’s reporting requirements along with several hundred other Congressionally mandated reports back in 1995. Flummoxed, I quietly set the book manuscript aside. Why, then, release it today? Because it is again timely. In October, the Biden Administration announced it is still considering extending civilian nuclear cooperation with Riyadh that would allow the Kingdom to enrich uranium — a process that can bring states within weeks of acquiring the bomb. Administration officials no longer question if Saudi Arabia really needs nuclear energy to meet its energy requirements. Shouldn’t they? Meanwhile, Taiwan’s presidential election this coming Saturday will, among other things, decide if Taiwan will build more nuclear reactors or not. Again, is new nuclear Taiwan’s best energy bet? As for China, the Pentagon has become increasingly concerned that the two “peaceful” fast breeder reactors and plutonium reprocessing plants Beijing is building will be used to make hundreds of bombs worth of weapons plutonium. One of the two fast breeder reactors is already operating. The question these dangerous nuclear activities raise is just how necessary they are to meet China’s energy requirements. Then, there’s Iran, which is intent on building reactors of Iranian design. It plans on expanding its nuclear power program from roughly one gigawatt electrical capacity to 11. Given Iran’s renewables potential and oil and gas reserves, how much sense does this make? Finally, in its efforts to achieve net zero, the Biden Administration has joined 20 other nations in pledging to triple global nuclear generation by 2050. Again, how practical is this? This volume’s aim is to help provide answers. Of course, in light of how long our government has ignored Title V, demanding it be implemented now would be odd. Creating a clean energy Peace Corps, comparing the costs of different types of energy, and trying to determine what investments would reduce emissions quickest and cheapest, however, all should be discussed. It’s my hope that the release of Net-Zero and Nonproliferation: Assessing Nuclear Power and Its Alternatives today might prompt such discussion.
Topic:: International Cooperation, Nuclear Power, Nonproliferation, Legislation, Energy, and Net Zero
Political Geography:: China, Iran, Middle East, Taiwan, Asia, Saudi Arabia, North America, and United States of America

2. The Maritime Fulcrum of the Indo-Pacific: Indonesia and Malaysia Respond to China’s Creeping Expansion in the South China Sea

Author:: Scott Bentley
Publication Date:: 01-2023
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: China Maritime Studies Institute, U.S. Naval War College
Abstract:: China now is attempting to expand its control to the southernmost extent of its nine-dash-line claim in the South China Sea, in waters ever closer to Indonesian and Malaysian shores. This area of the South China Sea, spanning from Indonesia’s Natuna Islands to the South Luconia Shoals, has greater strategic importance than the Spratly or Paracel Island chains farther to the north. Whereas the Spratlys have for centuries been regarded as “dangerous ground” and commercial mariners have avoided them, the vital sea lines of communication (SLOCs) connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans flow through this part of the southern South China Sea. Therefore, these areas are far more vital to international commerce and navigation than the dangerous grounds closer to China’s Spratly Islands outposts.
Topic:: Territorial Disputes, Armed Forces, Maritime, Commerce, and Expansion
Political Geography:: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Asia, Indo-Pacific, and South China Sea

3. Space: America's New Strategic Front Line

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 10-2023
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Last week, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States released its final report. Although Congress tasked it to assess the role of space systems in America’s strategic posture, the commission dedicated less than a half-page of its 160-page review to this matter. Of its 20 pages of specific recommendations, the commission made none on space. This seems odd. As China and Russia build up their nuclear arsenals well beyond what America has deployed, the cost and impracticality of quantitatively countering these threats only grows. The commission report rightly recommends the United States make its strategic nuclear forces less vulnerable to a potential first strike. But what of the argument that to do this America and its allies must be able to stun or disable its adversaries’ military eyes, ears, voices, and nervous systems both on Earth and in space? Those who argue this maintain that if America commands space, it can be assured of victory in war and, better yet, be able to deter conflicts. Does it follow that if America and its allies lose assured command of space, acquiring more and better nuclear weapons may be for naught? What does securing command of space demand? What would it enable our military to do? What space capabilities are our key space adversary — China — and our key Asian allies—Japan and South Korea — planning to employ? What will implementing America’s current space strategy entail and cost? What might alternatives to this strategy entail? Which, if any, space capacities and military actions does the Outer Space Treaty (to which Russia, China, the United States, and most states in Asia and Europe are parties) allow or prohibit? Can these limits be enforced? What can space war simulations do to help get the answers? NPEC commissioned some of the nation’s top military and legal space experts to examine these issues. It then held a series of space simulations to test their answers out. The result, which my staff and I are releasing today, is a 354-page volume, Space: America’s New Strategic Front Line (introduction below). It features insights from space policy experts and practitioners and more than suggests that strategic deterrence will depend on securing space superiority.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, and Space
Political Geography:: Russia, Japan, China, South Korea, North America, and United States of America

4. Migration and Decent Work: Challenges for the Global South

Author:: Lucía Ramírez Bolívar and Jessica Corredor Villamil
Publication Date:: 03-2022
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Dejusticia
Abstract:: Migration and Decent Work: Challenges for the Global South features nine chapters written by sixteen activists, academics, and members of civil society who have worked on the issue of migration from different angles and who address the challenge of migrants’ labor inclusion from an interdisciplinary and rights-based perspective. Their contributions offer an overview of migrants’ and refugees’ right to work in a range of countries in the global South—from Mexico to India to Argentina to Turkey—based on an analysis of local contexts, public policies, and the everyday realities faced by these workers.
Topic:: Migration, Labor Issues, Refugees, Trafficking, Asylum, Inclusion, Domestic Work, and Sex Work
Political Geography:: South Asia, Middle East, South America, and Global South

5. Reimagining the Future of Human Rights: Social Justice, Environmental Justice and Democracy in the Global South

Author:: Jessica Corredor Villamil
Publication Date:: 06-2022
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Dejusticia
Abstract:: This book is the collective effort of participants from the 2018 Global Action-Research Workshop for Young Human Rights Advocates, which Dejusticia has been organizing annually since 2013. These workshops aim to strengthen the abilities of young activists from the global South to achieve a greater impact in their human rights work and to reach a wider audience through new forms of narration. This book is just one of the many outcomes of the 2018 workshop. The talented and committed authors of this volume—all contributors to previous editions as well—hail from countries as diverse as Brazil, Ghana, Russia, and Venezuela. They came together again in 2018 to think about the intersection between research and activism and what it holds for the future of human rights. That is why our selection process for the 2018 workshop participants sought to ensure that two people from each cohort were working from a transnational perspective. The specific goal of this particular workshop was to reflect on the future of human rights, for we sensed that we were at a crossroads. With the recent rise in populist authoritarian governments, the global increase in inequality, and the worsening climate crisis, a number of thought leaders have wondered whether we have reached “the endtimes of human rights” (Hopgood 2013). We thus wished to use this workshop as an opportunity to respond to some of the most frequent criticisms of the efficacy and legitimacy of the human rights movement by drawing on historical and empirical arguments and responding to the reflections of Kathryn Sikkink—one of the workshop’s instructors—in her book Evidence for Hope (2017). Human rights defenders and activists are working in a world that is constantly changing. It’s a more multipolar world; powerful voices have emerged from the global South, which has reshaped the way that human rights work is being done across the globe. Furthermore, the Arab Spring and other social mobilizations that have since taken place have put the spotlight on civil society’s ability to act and its convening 12 Jessica Corredor-Villamil authority. Nonetheless, despite the fairly positive outlook for civil society participation and the emergence of new voices, it is necessary to review the strategies that we have been using thus far and explore how to make them more effective. This book is extremely relevant today, three years after the workshop, as we are living in a transformative time. The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented socioeconomic and political impacts, including increases in inequality, unemployment, states’ abuses of their emergency powers, and the concentration of presidential power. Moreover, social networks have played a critical role in the sociopolitical arena, not only in light of their capacity to massively mobilize but also due to their propensity to foster political polarization and the use of misinformation for political ends. Thus, although we face a different context from the one in 2018, this volume serves as a guide of sorts to help us reconsider the effectiveness of our strategies as a human rights movement as we look toward the challenges being posed by the third century of this decade. The contributors to this book question traditional methods and explore new ways and visions of advancing human rights in the troubled context in which we live. Do the struggles of small-scale miners in Ghana, the use of strategic litigation in Lebanon, and the recognition of the rights of nature in India represent evidence for hope? Or is the opposite true, and, as shown in the chapters on martial law in the Philippines, the treatment of wastewater in Argentina, and in the internal conflict in Yemen, human rights have failed to deliver on their promises?
Topic:: Human Rights, Water, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Social Justice, Surveillance, Indigenous, COVID-19, Armed Conflict, and Environmental Justice
Political Geography:: Africa, South Asia, Middle East, India, Argentina, Philippines, Yemen, South America, Hungary, Lebanon, Venezuela, Ghana, and Global South

6. Fiscal Policy in the Regulation of Adult-Use Cannabis in Colombia

Author:: Anníbal Ramírez Rodrígues, Luis Felipe Cruz-Oliveira, and Isabel Pereira-Arana
Publication Date:: 08-2022
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Dejusticia
Abstract:: The document is divided into five sections. The first is an introduction, where we describe the background of the regulatory debate and the goals we propose for marijuana regulation in Colombia. In the second section, we present the theoretical framework for explaining why it is necessary to create a legal space for marijuana and what fiscal policy and human rights principles would be applicable to that process. In the third section, we explore comparative experiences, focusing on measures to raise revenue and resource allocation, and analyze lessons learned for the Colombian case. After that, in the fourth section, we home in on the Colombian context, considering how marijuana production and use has evolved in the country, and describing the places where production takes place and their needs. Finally, in the fifth section, we unveil our proposal: the cannabis fiscal principles.
Topic:: Markets, Regulation, Fiscal Policy, Drugs, and Cannabis
Political Geography:: Colombia and South America

7. How Social Trust Shapes Civil Resistance: Lessons from Africa

Author:: Jacob S. Lewis
Publication Date:: 08-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:: What role does trust play in shaping the outcomes of civil resistance campaigns? Trust has been found to be a critical factor in building political and social capital, encouraging group cohesion, and overcoming collective action problems. Despite this, trust has not been directly addressed by the civil resistance scholarship. This monograph addresses this lacuna by examining how trust shapes – and is shaped by – three levels of mobilization: trust at the individual level, trust within activist groups, and trust across resistance campaigns.
Topic:: Mobilization, Local Cooperation, Trust, and Civil Resistance
Political Geography:: Africa

8. The Impact of Nonviolent Resistance on the Peaceful Transformation of Civil War

Author:: Luke Abbs
Publication Date:: 08-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:: In recent years, a burgeoning literature has explored the strategic advantages of using nonviolent resistance to achieve positive political outcomes, such as regime change and democratization. Yet, despite one-fifth of largescale nonviolent campaigns occurring during the course of a civil war, we know little about the affect nonviolent resistance might have on the transformation of armed conflict. Bringing together the previously isolated literatures on nonviolent resistance and peacebuilding, this manuscript explores how nonviolent resistance can aid peacebuilding efforts that transform ongoing armed conflict, using data on all civil wars episodes since 1945. The finding show nonviolent resistance does have a positive impact on the resolution of armed conflict, with evidence deriving from a Large-N statistical analysis, out-of-sample prediction and structured-focused case studies.
Topic:: Conflict, Resistance, Nonviolence, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:: Global Focus

9. Civil Resistance Against Climate Change

Author:: Robyn Gulliver, Kelly Fielding, and Winnifred Louis
Publication Date:: 09-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:: Transnational movements using nonviolent resistance tactics to demand action on climate change have emerged from a foundation of decades of persistent and diverse environmental activism. What are the features of this nonviolent resistance that differentiate it from previous activism? What response is this resistance prompting from political and financial entities? To investigate these questions this monograph combines a large-scale longitudinal data set on climate activism in Australia with two case studies of nonviolent resistance against corporations. The study offers key lessons for a range of individuals and groups, from climate activists and civil society organizations to academics and others interested in supporting nonviolent action against climate change. In doing so, it addresses major gaps in our understanding of the effectiveness of civil resistance against climate change and the potential this resistance holds to prompt urgent action.
Topic:: Climate Change, transnationalism, Resistance, Nonviolence, and Activim
Political Geography:: Australia

10. Israel's Relations with Arab Countries: The Unfulfilled Potential

Author:: Roee Kibrik, Nimrod Goren, and Merav Kahana-Dagan
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Mitvim: The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies
Abstract:: Israel’s Relations with Arab Countries: The Unfulfilled Potential examines relations between Israel and seven key Arab states – Egypt. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Morocco and Iraq – against the backdrop of the changes sweeping the Middle East over the past decade. The researchers mapped out the potential for cooperation with each state based on shared interests, challenges and opportunities, and on the abilities, strengths and needs of Israel and those states. The researchers described existing diplomatic, security, economic and civilian cooperation – relying on open source material, their expertise in the arena and interviews they conducted. The studies found that despite progress in cooperation between Israel and Arab countries, and notwithstanding certain growing normalization with specific Middle Eastern countries, the strategic-diplomatic, economic, social, civilian and cultural opportunities are significant and far greater than their current level. There is wide-ranging, unfulfilled potential in Israel’s relations with Arab countries, and it is more evident now than it was in the past. The ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and absence of significant progress in resolving it constitute the main obstacle to tapping the potential for cooperation between Israel and the Arab world, capping relations with a glass ceiling. In formulating its policy and actions in the region, Israel should learn the lessons of the past. It must take into consideration current realities and limitations, existing interests and processes. Just as important, it must also shape its actions, assessing and choosing from among various alternatives with a view to the future potential and tremendous promise they hold out. We hope this publication helps those interested in sketching the current complex picture and the potential that lies in relations between Israel and major Arab countries, and paves the way to expanded cooperation and normalization between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East. As the studies in this publication indicate, the potential for regional cooperation is great and its realization also depends on progress towards Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Topic:: International Relations, Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Economy
Political Geography:: Iraq, Middle East, Israel, Palestine, Arab Countries, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, and UAE

11. Space and Missile Wars: What Awaits

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 04-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: Sometimes, slow, steady changes produce revolutionary results. A case in point is missile and space technologies, which Space and Missile Wars: What Awaits will examine. Long-range missiles, satellites, and space launch vehicles used to be high technology exclusive to the superpowers. Now, scores of states have both. As for ballistic missiles and drones, even non-state actors have them, and these systems are far more accurate than anything the superpowers had even at the height of the Cold War. Then, long-range missiles could only be certain of destroying their targets if they were nuclear-armed and wiped out areas as large as cities. Now, drones are so accurate they can pinpoint and kill single individuals. As for space satellite launchers, they originally were derived from nuclear delivery missiles. None were privately owned. Similarly, almost all space satellites were government property and, until 1965, the owners were only American and Soviet. Now, the French, Chinese, Japanese, British, Indians, Israelis, Ukrainians, Iranians, and North Koreans have all launched satellites of their own. In addition, more than 60 nations own and operate their own satellites and increasingly, satellites are launched, owned, and operated entirely by private entities. These developments are nontrivial. They will define the military competitions with China, Russia, and other hostile states for the next two to three decades. Will the spread of accurate missiles embolden weak actors – small states and terrorist organizations – to threaten stronger states with missile attacks against key civilian targets (dams, reactors, petrochemical plants)? Will weak actors be tempted to use accurate drones to assassinate their adversaries’ key leaders? Will such attacks catalyze war, producing modern Sarajevos that draw in nuclear-armed states (e.g. Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, or the superpowers)? With so many new space actors, will anyone be able to attribute hostile actions in space? Will states attack satellites mostly in low Earth orbit or geosynchronous orbit? Will the most important attacks come from antisatellite systems based on Earth, in low Earth orbit, or on or near the moon? This volume is designed to answer these questions.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Non State Actors, Military Affairs, Drones, Nonproliferation, Space, Missile Defense, Satellite, and Nuclear Energy
Political Geography:: Global Focus

12. The Role of External Support in Nonviolent Campaigns: Poisoned Chalice or Holy Grail?

Author:: Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan
Publication Date:: 02-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:: This monograph is based on an ICNC-sponsored multi-year research project that examines the effects of different forms of external aid on the outcomes and longer-term impacts of civil resistance campaigns. Very little research has systematically investigated the impacts of external support on the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance. Existing research reaches somewhat contradictory conclusions, with some finding that external support for nonviolent campaigns is harmful, that external support is sometimes helpful, or that external support has little observable effect. This study assesses different types of external assistance—material and non-material—to civil resistance movements offered by state and non-state actors at different stages: pre-, during and post-conflict periods. It further evaluates the impact of the specific type of aid, its timing and provisions by different actors on the overall trajectories of civil resistance campaigns and their outcomes.
Topic:: Civil Society, Foreign Aid, Non State Actors, Resistance, and Nonviolence
Political Geography:: Global Focus

13. Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century

Author:: Michael Beer
Publication Date:: 03-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:: Civil Resistance Tactics in the 21st Century belongs on the bookshelf of anyone who is studying or practicing nonviolent action. For scholars of civil resistance: This monograph updates Gene Sharp’s 1973 seminal work The Methods of Nonviolent Action, reworking Sharp’s classifications to include 148 additional tactics (methods). For trainers and teachers: Brief yet comprehensive, this overview explains the mechanisms by which nonviolent tactics succeed and allows students to differentiate the immense field of nonviolent action from institutionalized lobbying, electioneering, legal fights, and armed conflict. For activists: This resource, in conjunction with Nonviolence International’s voluminous Nonviolent Tactics Database and Organizing & Training Archive, enlarges the activist toolbox and focuses on the central role of tactics in organizing strategic campaigns for success and power. This monograph will serve as a foundational text not only “in the field” of action, but also in classrooms studying nonviolent action, civil resistance, peacebuilding, and creative conflict resolution around the world.
Topic:: Civil Society, Social Movement, Resistance, and Nonviolence
Political Geography:: Global Focus

14. Nonviolent Movements and Material Resources in Northwest Mexico

Author:: Chris Allan and A. Scott DuPree
Publication Date:: 06-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC)
Abstract:: Nonviolent resistance movements operate with few resources and nearly no money. Yet these movements thrive and often succeed. The little external funding for civil society that is available rarely reaches the grassroots groups that are the backbone of these movements. How do they get the material resources they need? This study highlights strategies that are being used effectively by nonviolent movements to mobilize the resources they need to galvanize participation in movement actions and influence both the public and policymakers. Based on the experience of three campaigns in Northwest Mexico over two decades, the research finds that material resources are often mobilized internally in a decentralized way, driven by effective strategic planning and actions. We discuss the strategic choices nonviolent movements make to mobilize resources and how they direct them as situations change, and how outside supporters can provide resources in a constructive way.
Topic:: Civil Society, Social Movement, Resistance, and Nonviolence
Political Geography:: North America and Mexico

15. Pandemic Inequality: Civil Society Narratives from the Global South

Author:: Jessica Corredor Villamil and Meghan Morris
Publication Date:: 01-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Dejusticia
Abstract:: This book explores these questions through the narratives of young human rights advocates from the global South—from Nigeria to the Philippines to India to Chile. The authors discuss the latent structural inequalities that the pandemic has deepened, exposed, or suppressed, as well as those that broke people’s already fragile trust in governments, the private sector, and civil society organizations. They also explore the strategies of resilience and creative social organizing that have helped confront the pandemic around the globe. The contributors to this book, writing from different perspectives, invite us to consider what we can learn from the interplay between the pandemic and inequality in order to spur a creative reorientation of collective mobilization and advocacy toward the future.
Topic:: Civil Society, Human Rights, Social Movement, Political Activism, Advocacy, and Pandemic
Political Geography:: Global South

16. Voices from the Coca Fields: Women Building Rural Communities

Author:: Ana Jimena Bautista-Revelo, Blanca Capacho-Niño, Luis Felipe Cruz-Olivera, Margarita Martínez-Osorio, Isabel Pereira-Arana, and Lucía Ramírez-Bolívar
Publication Date:: 02-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Dejusticia
Abstract:: In Colombia, the prohibition on drugs—better known as the “war on drugs”—has been a breeding ground for armed conflict, poverty, marginalization, and stigmatization. Coca, a sacred plant for some people and a loathsome one for others, a source of life or of death, is at the center of the debate over state building and peacebuilding in the country. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Colombia currently has 146,000 hectares of coca;1 following the peace accord signed in 2016 between the national government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country is facing enormous pressure to reduce this number to secure peace in rural areas and to increase the state’s presence in historically neglected regions. But behind every number—behind each hectare of coca cultivation and every conflict—there are people trying to survive in the face of hostile conditions and a weak state presence; what the numbers of hectares of coca crops do not show us is the extent of poverty, exclusion, and resistance experienced by those who are involved in various aspects of the coca economy in order to scrape by and overcome everyday conditions of violence and oppression. This book explores the experience of the human faces behind these numbers—the lives of the people from a specific region in Colombia who grow coca as a means of survival within the context of precarious living conditions and constant disputes between armed actors. We selected the Andes-Amazon region of Colombia—particularly the department of Putumayo—as the focus of our study, for it is a region where violence, colonization, poverty, and state building converge around coca cultivation and pose particular challenges to the implementation of crop substitution programs as proposed in point four of the final peace accord signed between the Colombian government and the FARC. In addition to this particular region of study, we focus specifically on the experience of women coca growers. Those who grow coca in the southern part of the country share experiences of poverty, stigmatization, criminalization, and a historical state focus on militarization and resource extraction as opposed to human rights and well-being. And within this fragile panorama, the lives and bodies of women coca growers are marked by unique experiences of violence, oppression, and resistance, stemming from their being rural women in a stigmatized, militarized, and profoundly patriarchal region. The perspective of women coca growers from the Andes-Amazon region thus allows us to understand how the war on drugs has shaped particular life experiences and has resulted in specific gender-based impacts. Identifying these differentiated impacts not only helps fill existing gaps in the literature but also sheds light on the challenges facing the implementation of a gender approach as outlined in point four of the peace accord and, on this basis, propose concrete recommendations for ensuring the application of such an approach in crop substitution efforts. With this in mind, this book’s focus on the socioeconomic situation of women coca growers in the Andes-Amazon region rests on the idea that the country’s drug policy should replace its almost exclusive emphasis on the elimination of illicit crops with one that considers the differentiated impacts of the drug economy and the ways in which these impacts deepen inequality in different settings. Indeed, within the framework of the global prohibition on drugs, which stems from United Nations conventions, Colombia’s strategies to reduce the size of the drug trade have focused almost entirely on repressing coca cultivation—that is, reducing the amount of coca leaf that is harvested. Nonetheless, no solutions have been offered to address the persistent conditions of poverty in rural Colombia that have a differentiated impact on rural women.2 The policies of the war on drugs have placed an excessive emphasis on the plant’s elimination, which has meant that campesinos who derive their livelihood from coca cultivation have had to deal with a military state focused on eradicating, fumigating, and criminalizing, as opposed to a state based on the social rule of law that offers alternatives for overcoming the high rates of rural poverty. Voices from the Coca Fields sheds light on the living conditions of women coca growers with the aim of providing recommendations, mainly in the context of the implementation of the peace accord, that offer ways to effectively incorporate a rights-based perspective into the crop substitution programs and alternative development plans that are currently being carried out throughout the country. In particular, we believe that such a perspective should incorporate a gender focus as one of its key pillars, for the construction of stable and lasting peace is achieved only by addressing the state’s historical debt with women. Peace requires women—it requires their voices and experiences—and thus it is critical to listen to and take seriously their claims and demands.
Topic:: Agriculture, War on Drugs, Women, Rural, Land, Armed Conflict, Gender, and Coca
Political Geography:: Colombia and South America

17. Civil Resistance Against 21st Century Authoritarianism: Defending Human Rights in the Global South

Author:: César Rodríguez-Garavito, Ezequiel A. Monsalve F., Ektaa Deochand, Slavenska Zec, and Kerem Çiftçioğlu
Publication Date:: 04-2021
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Dejusticia
Abstract:: This book — and Dejusticia’s initiative that originated it — seeks to promote answers to populist challenges to human rights. To do so, they propose a new thrust characterized by three features: reflective writing, narrative writing, and voices from the Global South. First, this book contains reflective writing. Its authors are activists who work directly within organizations in the field, who stop to think about the potential, the achievements, and the challenges of their knowledge and practice. In this sense, the book seeks to amplify the voices of human rights defenders in discussions about the future of the field, which tend to be dominated by research from academia. The texts combine the methodological and analytical strengths of academic research with the practical experience of the authors, organizations, and communities with which they work. The objective is to promote a hybrid genre that contributes to maintaining and widening the window of reflection and discussion in the field of human rights. Second, the genre proposed in this book, and in the series of which it is part, is narrative writing. In part because of the prevalence of legal language and knowledge of the world of human rights, the predominant writing in their field is that of technical reports and legal pleadings. While these genres have made notable achievements over the decades, this focus has prevented organizations and activists from effectively sharing their stories and experiences firsthand: those of the victims, the campaigns, the moral dilemmas, the injustices, the victories, and more. Opening the field of human rights to other actors, other knowledge, and other audiences means telling these stories and telling them well. To this end, the authors of these chapters are involved in the stories, relating them using techniques taken from fields such as narrative journalism. Third, the stories come from the Global South, from countries and regions that have more often been the object of study rather than the subject of knowledge, making their own decisions in the field of human rights. In this sense, these chapters attempt to respond to the challenges of a more multipolar world, to counter the organizational, economic, and epistemological asymmetries between South and North that have undermined the effectiveness and legitimacy of the global human rights movement. The authors of these studies are activists, researchers, and members of human rights organizations writing from this geographical and professional perspective to enrich the global debate on the future of the field.
Topic:: Civil Society, Human Rights, Food, Authoritarianism, Populism, Political Prisoners, and Healthcare System
Political Geography:: Turkey, India, Brazil, South America, Venezuela, Mexico, Chile, and Global South

18. Eurasia goes to Africa

Author:: Amanda Paul, Ivano di Carlo, and Elem Eyrice Tepeciklioğlu
Publication Date:: 11-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: Any new Africa policy from the EU and US should take into account the growing influence of China, Russia and Turkey in the continent and aim to even the scales. To succeed, they must develop a new narrative on Africa and finally recognise it as a genuinely equal partner on the global stage. Africa is a dynamic and diverse continent going through fundamental economic, political and security changes. While the EU and the US remain important partners for Africa, they are no longer the only players in town. New – and not so new – actors have recognised Africa's potential and are trying to use it to their advantage. China, Russia and Turkey in particular, whose presence has broadly been welcomed by African nations, have all been steadily expanding their political and economic clout in the continent over the past few years. The EU and US must, therefore, adapt their policies and approaches to the new reality that is unfolding in Africa. To better understand China’s, Russia’s and Turkey’s objectives, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung's (FES) EU Office in Brussels and the European Policy Centre (EPC) set out to conduct an in-depth analysis of the three countries' ties with Africa. The results of this research project, entitled “Eurasia goes to Africa”, are collected in this book. The authors take a closer look at China's, Russia's and Turkey's economic and political interests in the continent; their involvement in the security landscape; the effectiveness of their soft power tools, including in education, media, religion, and humanitarian and development aid; and how Africans judge their growing presence.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, European Union, Economy, and Soft Power
Political Geography:: Africa, Russia, China, Eurasia, Turkey, and United States of America

19. The circular economy: Going digital

Author:: Annika Hedberg and Stefan Sipka
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: The EU is currently engaged in two transformations that could change our economy and society for the better. If managed well, and in unison, the circular economy and the digital revolution could help the EU address its greatest challenge: to build a sustainable, green economy that is competitive on the global stage. Digitalisation will not automatically lead to greater sustainability. Nor is the inclusion of cutting-edge technologies in the circular economy a given. But with the right encouragement and incentives from the EU, data and digitally-enabled solutions can accelerate and boost the transition to a sustainable circular economy. They can enhance connectivity and information sharing; make business models, products and processes more circular; and empower citizens and consumers to contribute to the transition. They can be used to improve different segments of the circular economy, including design, production, consumption, reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and overall waste management and recycling. Combining the circular and digital agendas carries enormous potential. It would be a shame to waste it.
Topic:: Science and Technology, European Union, Digital Economy, and Economy
Political Geography:: Europe

20. The Clash of Values: Islamic Fundamentalism Versus Liberal Nationalism

Author:: Mansoor Moaddel
Publication Date:: 03-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Much of the Middle East and North Africa still appears to be in a transitional period set in motion by the 2011 Arab uprisings, and the political trajectory of the region remains difficult to grasp. In The Clash of Values, Mansoor Moaddel provides groundbreaking empirical data to demonstrate how the collision between Islamic fundamentalism and liberal nationalism explains the region’s present and will determine its future. Analyzing data from over 60,000 face-to-face interviews of nationally representative samples of people in seven countries—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and Turkey—Moaddel reveals the depth and breadth of the conflict of values. He develops measures of expressive individualism, gender equality, secularism, and religious fundamentalism and shows that the factors that strengthen liberal values also weaken fundamentalism. Moaddel highlights longitudinal data showing changes in orientations toward secular politics, Western-type government, religious tolerance, national identity, and to a limited extent gender equality, as well as a significant decline in support for political Islam, over the past decade. Focusing on these trends, he contends that the Arab Spring represents a new phase of collective action rooted in the spread of the belief in individual liberty. Offering a rigorous and deeply researched perspective on social change, The Clash of Values disentangles the Middle East and North Africa’s political complexity and pinpoints a crucial trend toward liberal nationalism.
Topic:: Nationalism, Arab Spring, and Political Islam
Political Geography:: Middle East and North Africa
Publication Identifier:: 9780231550529
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

21. Oil Powers: A History of the U.S.-Saudi Alliance

Author:: Victor Mcfarland
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Since the mid-twentieth century, the United States and Saudi Arabia have built a close but often troubled alliance. In this critical history, Victor McFarland reveals the deep ties binding the leaders of the two nations. Connecting foreign relations and domestic politics, McFarland challenges the view that the U.S.-Saudi alliance is the inevitable consequence of American energy demand and Saudi Arabia’s huge oil reserves. Oil Powers traces the growth of the alliance through a dense web of political, economic, and social connections that bolstered royal and executive power and the national-security state. McFarland shows how U.S. and Saudi elites collaborated to advance their shared interests against rivals at home and abroad. During the 1970s, as higher oil prices enriched the Saudi government, destabilized the American economy, and changed the balance of power in the Middle East, leaders of both countries responded by consolidating their alliance. Facing objections from their own people, Washington and Riyadh chose to shield their partnership from public oversight and accountability. While American support empowered the Saudi royal family and helped the kingdom expand its influence across the Middle East, Saudi elites also encouraged a rightward shift in U.S. foreign and economic policy—with profound long-term effects. Oil Powers reveals the role of the U.S.-Saudi alliance in laying the groundwork for American military involvement in the Middle East and the entrenchment of a global order fueled by oil.
Topic:: Oil
Political Geography:: United States, Middle East, and Saudi Arabia
Publication Identifier:: 9780231552073
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

22. GERMANY ON THEIR MINDS German Jewish Refugees in the United States and Their Relationships with Germany, 1938–1988

Author:: Anne C. Schenderlein
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Throughout the 1930s and early 1940s, approximately ninety thousand German Jews fled their homeland and settled in the United States, prior to that nation closing its borders to Jewish refugees. And even though many of them wanted little to do with Germany, the circumstances of the Second World War and the postwar era meant that engagement of some kind was unavoidable—whether direct or indirect, initiated within the community itself or by political actors and the broader German public. This book carefully traces these entangled histories on both sides of the Atlantic, demonstrating the remarkable extent to which German Jews and their former fellow citizens helped to shape developments from the Allied war effort to the course of West German democratization.
Topic:: Migration, Religion, Refugees, Holocaust, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, Germany, and North America

23. A Guide to Canadian Diplomatic Relations 1925-2019

Author:: Linwood DeLong
Publication Date:: 01-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:: Much has changed since A Guide to Canadian Diplomatic Relations 1925-1983 was first published in 1985. The Soviet Union and Yugoslavia no longer exist. New states have emerged not only in Europe, but also in Africa. Canada quickly established diplomatic relations with the member states of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia after their respective dissolutions. In 2003, Canada recognized Eritrea as a separate state and in July 2011, Canada recognized the new state of South Sudan. Finding the date of Canadian diplomatic recognition of a given country or state, the date when diplomatic relations were established with Canada and the date when the first Canadian ambassador or high commissioner took office continues to be a challenge. The print publication, Canadian Heads of Post Abroad 1880-1989, issued by External Affairs and International Trade Canada in 1991, is an excellent source of information, but it is limited by its publication date. A similar online source, Canadian Heads of Posts Abroad Since 1880 (http://w03.international.gc.ca/headsofpost/searchhp-recherchecm.aspx) provides some information specifically pertaining to heads of posts for Canadian diplomatic missions abroad, but it does not always provide information about the date of diplomatic recognition of any given state. In many cases, only the recent information, rather than the historical information concerning the first diplomatic recognition or the date of establishment of diplomatic relations, is provided. Other important sources of information include Canadian Representatives Abroad, the annual reports or annual reviews of the Department of External Affairs (now known as Global Affairs Canada), the External Affairs communiqués and press releases, the publication called External Affairs (which was issued from 1949-1971) and its successor, International Perspectives (published from 1980 to 1991). In this most recent edition of A Guide to Canadian Diplomatic Relations, the following information (if it could be determined) is included for each country: the date of diplomatic recognition, the date that diplomatic relations were first established and the date when the first diplomatic mission was opened (frequently, a legation staffed by a diplomatic representative of lower rank than an ambassador or high commissioner). It also includes the date when the Canadian ambassador or high commissioner first presented his/her credentials and the diplomatic mission officially became an embassy or a high commission. In those few instances where diplomatic relations between Canada and another state were severed, this date, as well as the date when diplomatic relations were re-established, is also provided.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Government, and History
Political Geography:: Canada, North America, and Global Focus

24. Comrades in Arms: Military Masculinities in East German Culture

Author:: Tom Smith
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Without question, the East German National People’s Army was a profoundly masculine institution that emphasized traditional ideals of stoicism, sacrifice, and physical courage. Nonetheless, as this innovative study demonstrates, depictions of the military in the film and literature of the GDR were far more nuanced and ambivalent. Departing from past studies that have found in such portrayals an unchanging, idealized masculinity, Comrades in Arms shows how cultural works both before and after reunification place violence, physical vulnerability, and military theatricality, as well as conscripts’ powerful emotions and desires, at the center of soldiers’ lives and the military institution itself.
Topic:: Gender Issues, Culture, Military Affairs, Institutions, and Masculinity
Political Geography:: Europe, Germany, and East Germany

25. Violence, Inequality and Transformation: Apartheid Survivors on South Africa's Ongoing Transition

Author:: Jasmina Brankovic, Brian Mphahlele, Sindiswa Nunu, Agnes Ngxukuma, Nompumelelo Njana, and Yanelisa Sishuba
Publication Date:: 02-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
Abstract:: Despite its lauded political transition in 1994, South Africa continues to have among the highest levels of violence and inequality in the world. Organised survivors of apartheid violations have long maintained that we cannot adequately address violence in the country, let alone achieve full democracy, without addressing inequality. This book is built around extensive quotes from members of Khulumani Support Group, the apartheid survivors' social movement, and young people growing up in Khulumani families. It shows how these survivors, who bridge the past and the present through their activism, understand and respond to socioeconomic drivers of violence. Pointing to the continuities between apartheid oppression and post-apartheid marginalisation in everyday life, the narratives detail ways in which the democratic dispensation has strengthened barriers to social transformation and helped enable violence. They also present strategies for effecting change through collaboration, dialogue and mutual training and through partnerships with diverse stakeholders that build on local-level knowledge and community-based initiatives. The lens of violence offers new and manageable ways to think about reducing inequality, while the lens of inequality shows that violence is a complex web of causes, pathways and effects that requires a big-picture approach to unravel. The survivors' narratives suggest innovative strategies for promoting a just transition through people-driven transformation that go well beyond the constraints of South Africa's transitional justice practice to date. A result of participatory research conducted in collaboration with and by Khulumani members, this open-access book will be of interest to activists, students, researchers and and policy makers working on issues of transitional justice, inequality and violence.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, Apartheid, Peacekeeping, Transitional Justice, Peace, Justice, Community, and Marginalization
Political Geography:: Africa and South Africa

26. Energizing America

Author:: Varun Sivaram, Colin Cunliff, David Hart, Julio Friendmann, and David B. Sandalow
Publication Date:: 09-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Center on Global Energy Policy (CGEP), Columbia University
Abstract:: Clean energy innovation is central to the fight against climate change. The dramatic success in lowering the costs of solar panels and wind turbines in the past decade must be replicated across a wide range of other energy technologies. Doing so will open extraordinary economic opportunities. To rise to this challenge, the United States should launch a National Energy Innovation Mission. Led by the president and authorized by Congress, this mission should harness the nation’s unmatched innovative capabilities—at research universities, federal laboratories, and private firms (both large and small), in all regions of the country—to speed the progress of clean energy technologies. To jumpstart this mission and unlock a virtuous cycle of public and private investment, the US federal government should triple its funding for energy research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) over the next five years.
Topic:: Energy Policy, Green Technology, Renewable Energy, Wind Power, Solar Power, and Safe Energy
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

27. An Army Transformed: USINDOPACOM Hypercompetition and US Army Theater Design

Author:: Mr. Nathan P. Freier, John Schaus, and Prof. William G. Braun III
Publication Date:: 07-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: The United States faces a hypercompetitive geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, arguably the most consequential theater for US national interests over the coming decades. Although the United States has created exquisite military capabilities to counter insurgencies and fight terrorists, rivals like China have developed a whole-of-government toolkit focused on expanding their span of control and freedom of action, separating the United States from its allies, and deterring US leaders from greater engagement in East Asia. China is actively transforming its military forces, with an eye toward defeating the United States in the event of armed hostilities. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is also creatively employing its military and paramilitary assets strategically to outmaneuver the United States and partners in meaningful gray zone approaches. The PRC enjoys strategic depth and increasingly operates on internal or heavily protected lines of communication while demonstrating the ability to threaten American interests with a variety of multi-domain capabilities and forces. Meeting this challenge will require joint transformation to a more hypercompetitive theater design. Army adoption of the four transformational roles of grid, enabler, multi-domain warfighter, and capability and capacity generator will be essential to realizing this more hypercompetitive Joint theater approach.
Topic:: Army, Gray Zone, Strategic Competition, and Joint Operations
Political Geography:: China, Asia, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

28. A Hard Look at Hard Power: Assessing the Defense Capabilities of Key US Allies and Security Partners—Second Edition

Author:: Gary J. Schmitt
Publication Date:: 10-2020
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: With the United States facing two major revisionist powers, Russia and China, as well as additional security threats from North Korea, Iran, and jihadist terrorism, a critical advantage for the United States is its global network of alliances and strategic partners. As the 2018 National Defense Strategy states, “Alliances and partnerships are crucial to our strategy, providing a durable asymmetric strategic advantage that no competitor or rival can match.” The advantage of having military allies and partners is enhanced by the core capacity of the American military having remained largely the same over the past decade, though the global security environment grew more complex and difficult during that time. In short, the United States needs allies and security partners. But the United States needs allies and partners that can pull their weight militarily if the country is going to be able to maintain a favorable balance of power in critical regions of the world. The second edition of A Hard Look at Hard Power provides an in-depth examination of the overall strategic perspective, defense plans, budgets, and capabilities of seven key European and Asian allies, three frontline strategic partners, and NATO.
Topic:: Defense Policy, NATO, Terrorism, Budget, Global Security, and Alliance
Political Geography:: Russia, Japan, China, United Kingdom, Iran, India, Taiwan, South Korea, North Korea, France, Poland, Germany, Australia, Sweden, and United States of America

29. Intensive English USA

Author:: Arlen Gargagliano
Publication Date:: 07-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Institute of International Education (IIE)
Abstract:: The 2019 edition of Intensive English USA is now available for purchase. This is the most complete guide to English Language Instruction in the United States. The directory features programs and courses offered by accredited U.S. higher educational institutions and U.S. English language schools. Each listing includes the IEP proficiency levels taught, dates, costs, instructional facilities and faculty, student services, eligibility and admissions, contact addresses, phone, fax, email, and more. Throughout its more than 50 years of publication, this directory has been the standard IEP resource for U.S. educational advising centers worldwide including education ministries, embassies, exchange agencies, universities, and other organizations that sponsor international students in the United States.
Topic:: Education, Language, and Higher Education
Political Geography:: North America and United States of America

30. Shaping Arctic Policy: The Minutes of the Eskimo Affairs Committee, 1952-1962

Author:: Peter Clancy and P. Whitney Lackenbauer
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies
Abstract:: During the 1950s, the Eskimo Affairs Committee played a significant role in shaping a new set of policy initiatives that Ottawa was framing toward Inuit. The record of the committee’s activities offers important insight into development-administration in-the-making, covering a wide swatch of issues from education to health care, the case for a new field administration, proposals for expanded credit channels, and measures to extend the scope of wage employment and small manufacturing.
Topic:: Education, Health Care Policy, Employment, and Eskimo Affairs
Political Geography:: Canada, North America, and Arctic

31. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Strategic Stability and Nuclear Risk, Volume I, Euro-Atlantic perspectives

Author:: Dr Vincent Boulanin, S. M. Amadae, Jean-Marc Rickli, Shahar Avin, Frank Sauer, John Borrie, Dimitri Scheftelowitsch, Justin Bronk, Page O. Stoutland, Magnus Hagström, Petr Topychkanov, Michael Horowitz, Anja Kaspersen, and Chris King
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
Abstract:: This edited volume focuses on the impact on artificial intelligence (AI) on nuclear strategy. It is the first instalment of a trilogy that explores regional perspectives and trends related to the impact that recent advances in AI could have nuclear weapons and doctrines, strategic stability and nuclear risk. It assembles the views of 14 experts from the Euro-Atlantic community on why and how machine learning and autonomy might become the focus of an armed race among nuclear-armed states; and how the adoption of these technologies might impact their calculation of strategic stability and nuclear risk at the regional level and trans-regional level.
Topic:: Nuclear Weapons, Cybersecurity, Risk, Artificial Intelligence, and Strategic Stability
Political Geography:: Europe and United States of America

32. From Tampere 20 to Tampere 2.0: Towards a new European consensus on migration

Author:: Marie De Somer, Philippe De Bruycker, and Jean-Louis De Brouwer
Publication Date:: 12-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: To mark the 20th anniversary of the 1999 Tampere European Council conclusions, the European Policy Centre, together with Odysseus Academic Network, European Migration Network Finland and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, embarked on a year-long project to assess the legacy of the Tampere conclusions and how they continue to shape and inspire EU policymaking today. Centred on four pillars – partnerships with countries of origin, a common European asylum system, fair treatment of third-country nationals and the management of migration flows -, these conclusions provided guidelines and sketched out principles that remain relevant two decades later. The project included a series of expert roundtables, culminating in the Tampere 2.0 conference held in Helsinki in October 2019, in the margins of the Finnish Council Presidency. The ideas and suggestions discussed at these events were brought together in this publication.Based on the current state of the EU’s migration and asylum policies and the lessons learned from the 2015-2016 crisis, the book argues that solidarity and the implementation of common policies are the two building blocks for a new European consensus on migration. It puts forward a set of concrete ideas on a new institutional and financial framework for migration policies, on legal migration, the common European asylum system, Schengen, integration, border control, return and readmission, the Global Approach and Partnership Framework, and development. Commission President von der Leyen’s proposal for a new pact on migration is a promising start, but what is perhaps more needed is a compromise uniting the Commission, Parliament and Council, and representing the member states under the auspices of the European Council. Patience and determination will be crucial in securing the successful completion of such a deal. However, that would be a small price to pay for an agreement that will still be as solid and relevant twenty years from now.
Topic:: Migration, European Union, Refugees, and Asylum
Political Geography:: Europe

33. Guns and glory: Criminality, imprisonment and jihadist extremism in Europe

Author:: Amanda Paul and Ian Acheson
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: European Policy Centre (EPC)
Abstract:: Throughout Europe and beyond, terrorist groups, in particular the so-called Islamic State (ISIS), are increasingly recruiting individuals with backgrounds in crime and using their skills, connections in the criminal world, and experience with law enforcement bodies to finance, plan, prepare and execute their attacks. This recruitment takes place both outside and inside prisons. At the same time, jihadism has provided a specious morality for certain delinquents to rationalise and even justify their criminal activities. In this context, from October 2018 until the summer of 2019, the European Policy Centre (EPC) and the Counter Extremism Project (CEP) have partnered up for a research project on the link between criminality (including organised crime groups, local petty crime gangs or individuals) and jihadist terrorism. This project has culminated in the following publication, in which experts from both organisations carry out an independent assessment of these urgent challenges as they occur in ten European countries (Albania, Belgium, France, Germany, Republic of Ireland, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom). Drawing on this, they have proposed a number of bold recommendations to European governments and EU institutions to counter the ongoing threat of the crime-terror nexus.
Topic:: Crime, Prisons/Penal Systems, Violent Extremism, and Jihad
Political Geography:: Europe

34. America’s Response to China: A History of Sino-American Relations, 6th Edition

Author:: Warren Cohen
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: America’s Response to China has long been the standard resource for a succinct, historically grounded assessment of an increasingly complicated relationship. Written by one of America’s leading diplomatic historians, this book analyzes the concerns and conceptions that have shaped U.S.–China policy and examines their far-reaching outcomes. Warren I. Cohen begins with the mercantile interests of the newly independent American colonies and discusses subsequent events up to 2018. For this sixth edition, Cohen adds an analysis of the policies of Barack Obama and extends his discussion of the Chinese–American relationship in the age of potential Chinese ascendance and the shrinking global influence of the United States, including the complications of the presidency of Donald Trump. Trenchant and insightful, America’s Response to China is critically important for understanding U.S.–China relations in the twenty-first century.
Topic:: History and Asia
Political Geography:: China and Asia
Publication Identifier:: 9780231549615
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

35. Allies of Convenience: A Theory of Bargaining in U.S. Foreign Policy

Author:: Evan Resnick
Publication Date:: 08-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Since its founding, the United States has allied with unsavory dictatorships to thwart even more urgent security threats. How well has the United States managed such alliances, and what have been their consequences for its national security? In this book, Evan N. Resnick examines the negotiating tables between the United States and its allies of convenience since World War II and sets forth a novel theory of alliance bargaining. Resnick’s neoclassical realist theory explains why U.S. leaders negotiate less effectively with unfriendly autocratic states than with friendly liberal ones. Since policy makers struggle to mobilize domestic support for controversial alliances, they seek to cast those allies in the most benign possible light. Yet this strategy has the perverse result of weakening leverage in intra-alliance disputes. Resnick tests his theory on America’s Cold War era alliances with China, Pakistan, and Iraq. In all three cases, otherwise hardline presidents bargained anemically on such pivotal issues as China’s sales of ballistic missiles, Pakistan’s development of nuclear weapons, and Iraq’s sponsorship of international terrorism. In contrast, U.S. leaders are more inclined to bargain aggressively with democratic allies who do not provoke domestic opposition, as occurred with the United Kingdom during the Korean War. An innovative work on a crucial and timely international relations topic, Allies of Convenience explains why the United States has mismanaged these “deals with the devil”—with deadly consequences.
Topic:: Diplomacy, Negotiation, Diplomatic History, and Allies
Political Geography:: Pakistan, United States, China, and Iraq
Publication Identifier:: 9780231549028
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

36. Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates

Author:: Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab
Publication Date:: 05-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: During the two decades that preceded the 2011 revolutions in Egypt and Syria, animated debates took place in Cairo and Damascus on political and social goals for the future. Egyptian and Syrian intellectuals argued over the meaning of tanwir, Arabic for “enlightenment,” and its significance for contemporary politics. They took up questions of human dignity, liberty, reason, tolerance, civil society, democracy, and violence. In Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution, Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab offers a groundbreaking analysis of the tanwir debates and their import for the 2011 uprisings. Kassab locates these debates in their local context as well as in broader contemporary political and intellectual Arab history. She argues that the enlightenment they advocated was a form of political humanism that demanded the right of free and public use of reason. By calling for the restoration of human dignity and seeking a moral compass in the wake of the destruction wrought by brutal regimes, they understood "tanwir" as a humanist ideal. Kassab connects their debates to the Arab uprisings, arguing that their demands bear a striking resemblance to what was voiced on the streets of Egypt and Syria in 2011. Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution is the first book to document these debates for the Anglophone audience and to analyze their importance for contemporary Egyptian and Syrian intellectual life and politics
Topic:: Arab Spring
Political Geography:: Middle East, Syria, and Egypt
Publication Identifier:: 9780231549677
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

37. Weary Warriors: Power Knowledge and the Invisible Wounds of Soldiers

Author:: Pamela Moss and Michael J. Prince
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: As seen in military documents, medical journals, novels, films, television shows, and memoirs, soldiers’ invisible wounds are not innate cracks in individual psyches that break under the stress of war. Instead, the generation of weary warriors is caught up in wider social and political networks and institutions—families, activist groups, government bureaucracies, welfare state programs—mediated through a military hierarchy, psychiatry rooted in mind-body sciences, and various cultural constructs of masculinity. This book offers a history of military psychiatry from the American Civil War to the latest Afghanistan conflict. The authors trace the effects of power and knowledge in relation to the emotional and psychological trauma that shapes soldiers’ bodies, minds, and souls, developing an extensive account of the emergence, diagnosis, and treatment of soldiers’ invisible wounds.
Topic:: Military Affairs, Psychology, Trauma, Masculinity, and PTSD
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Europe, Middle East, and Vietnam

38. Submerged on the Surface: The Not-So-Hidden Jews of Nazi Berlin, 1941-1945

Author:: Richard N. Lutjens Jr.
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Between 1941 and 1945, thousands of German Jews, in fear for their lives, made the choice to flee their impending deportations and live submerged in the shadows of the Nazi capital. Drawing on a wealth of archival evidence and interviews with survivors, this book reconstructs the daily lives of Jews who stayed in Berlin during the war years. Contrary to the received wisdom that “hidden” Jews stayed in attics and cellars and had minimal contact with the outside world, the author reveals a cohort of remarkable individuals who were constantly on the move and actively fought to ensure their own survival.
Topic:: Genocide, World War II, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: Europe, Germany, Berlin, and Central Europe

39. A State of Peace in Europe

Author:: Petri Hakkarainen
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s West German foreign policy underwent substantial transformations: from bilateral to multilateral, from reactive to proactive. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was an ideal setting for this evolution, enabling the Federal Republic to take the lead early on in Western preparations for the conference and to play a decisive role in the actual East–West negotiations leading to the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. Based on extensive original research of recently released documents, spanning more than fifteen archives in eight countries, this study is a substantial contribution to scholarly discussions on the history of détente, the CSCE and West German foreign policy. The author stresses the importance of looking beyond the bipolarity of the Cold War decades and emphasizes the interconnectedness of European integration and European détente. He highlights the need to place the genesis of the CSCE conference in its historical context rather than looking at it through the prism of the events of 1989, and shows that the bilateral and multilateral elements (Ostpolitik and the CSCE) were parallel rather than successive phenomena, parts of the same complex process and in constant interaction with each other.
Topic:: Cold War, Military Strategy, European Union, and Regional Integration
Political Geography:: Europe, Germany, West Germany, Central Europe, and East Germany

40. Settling for Less: The Planned Resettlement of Israel's Negev Bedouin

Author:: Steven C. Dinero
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: The resettlement of the Negev Bedouin (Israel) has been wrought with controversy since its inception in the 1960s. Presenting evidence from a two-decade period, the author addresses how the changes that took place over the past sixty to seventy years have served the needs and interests of the State rather than those of Bedouin community at large. While town living fostered improvements in social and economic development, numerous unintended consequences jeopardized the success of this planning initiative. As a result, the Bedouin community endured excessive hardship and rapid change, abandoning its nomadic lifestyle and traditions in response to the economic, political, and social pressure from the State—and received very little in return.
Topic:: Development, United Nations, Anthropology, and Repression
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine

41. Making Bodies Kosher: The Politics of Reproduction among Haredi Jews in England

Author:: Ben Kasstan
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: For Haredi Jews, reproduction is entangled with issues of health, bodily governance and identity. This is an analysis of the ways in which Haredi Jews negotiate healthcare services using theoretical perspectives in political philosophy. It is the first archival and ethnographic study of Haredi Jews in the UK and sits at the intersection of medical anthropology, social history and Jewish studies. It will allow readers to understand how reproductive care issues affect this growing minority population.
Topic:: Health, Religion, Anthropology, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Europe, England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales

42. GOING TO PENTECOST An Experimental Approach to Studies in Pentecostalism

Author:: Annelin Eriksen, Roy Llera Blanes, and Michelle MacCarthy
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Co-authored by three anthropologists with long–term expertise studying Pentecostalism in Vanuatu, Angola, and Papua New Guinea/the Trobriand Islands respectively, Going to Pentecost offers a comparative study of Pentecostalism in Africa and Melanesia, focusing on key issues as economy, urban sociality, and healing. More than an ordinary comparative book, it recognizes the changing nature of religion in the contemporary world – in particular the emergence of “non-territorial” religion (which is no longer specific to places or cultures) – and represents an experimental approach to the study of global religious movements in general and Pentecostalism in particular.
Topic:: Post Colonialism, Religion, Economy, and Colonialism
Political Geography:: Africa, Asia, Australia, Angola, Vanuatu, and Papua New Guinea

43. FROM SELF-FULFILMENT TO SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST Work in European Cinema from the 1960s to the Present

Author:: Ewa Mazierska
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Contrary to the assumption that Western and Eastern European economies and cinemas were very different from each other, they actually had much in common. After the Second World War both the East and the West adopted a mixed system, containing elements of both socialism and capitalism, and from the 1980s on the whole of Europe, albeit at an uneven speed, followed the neoliberal agenda. This book examines how the economic systems of the East and West impacted labor by focusing on the representation of work in European cinema. Using a Marxist perspective, it compares the situation of workers in Western and Eastern Europe as represented in both auteurist and popular films, including those of Tony Richardson, Lindsay Anderson, Jean-Luc Godard, Andrzej Wajda, DušanMakavejev, Jerzy Skolimowski, the Dardenne Brothers, Ulrich Seidl and many others.
Topic:: Cold War, Mass Media, Socialism/Marxism, Film, and Neoliberalism
Political Geography:: Europe, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe

44. Entangled Entertainers

Author:: Klaus Hödl
Publication Date:: 09-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Viennese popular culture at the turn of the twentieth century was the product of the city’s Jewish and non-Jewish residents alike. While these two communities interacted in a variety of ways to their mutual benefit, Jewish culture was also inevitably shaped by the city’s persistent bouts of antisemitism. This fascinating study explores how Jewish artists, performers, and impresarios reacted to prejudice, showing how they articulated identity through performative engagement rather than anchoring it in origin and descent. In this way, they attempted to transcend a racialized identity even as they indelibly inscribed their Jewish existence into the cultural history of the era.
Topic:: Religion, Culture, Film, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: Europe, Austria, Vienna, and Central Europe

45. Breaking the Ice Curtain? Russia, Canada, and Arctic Security in a Changing Circumpolar World

Author:: P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Suzanne Lalonde, Viatcheslav Gavrilov, P. Whitney Lackenbauer, Alexander Sergunin, Troy Bouffard, Andrea Charron, Jim Fergusson, Robert Huebert, and Suzanne Lalonde
Publication Date:: 01-2019
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:: Canada and Russia are the geographical giants, spanning most of the circumpolar world. Accordingly, the Arctic is a natural area of focus for the two countries. The region plays strongly into their identity politics, with leaders often invoking sovereignty and security frames to drum up support for investments in this “frontier of destiny.”1 The purported need to protect sovereign territory and resources from foreign encroachment or outright theft, backed by explicit appeals to nationalism, can produce a siege mentality that encourages a narrow, inward-looking view. Although the end of the Cold War seemed to portend a new era of deep cooperation between these two Arctic countries, lingering wariness about geopolitical motives and a mutual lack of knowledge about the other’s slice of the circumpolar world are conspiring to pit Canada and the Russian Federation as Arctic adversaries. Are Russian and Canadian Arctic policies moving in confrontational direction? Can efforts at circumpolar cooperation survive the current crisis in Russian-Western relations, or does an era of growing global competition point inherently to heightened Arctic conflict?
Topic:: Defense Policy, Sovereignty, International Security, Territorial Disputes, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:: Russia, Canada, North America, and Arctic

46. The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History

Author:: Bashir Bashir and Amos Goldberg
Publication Date:: 11-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: In this groundbreaking book, leading Arab and Jewish intellectuals examine how and why the Holocaust and the Nakba are interlinked without blurring fundamental differences between them. While these two foundational tragedies are often discussed separately and in abstraction from the constitutive historical global contexts of nationalism and colonialism, The Holocaust and the Nakba explores the historical, political, and cultural intersections between them. The majority of the contributors argue that these intersections are embedded in cultural imaginations, colonial and asymmetrical power relations, realities, and structures. Focusing on them paves the way for a new political, historical, and moral grammar that enables a joint Arab-Jewish dwelling and supports historical reconciliation in Israel/Palestine. This book does not seek to draw a parallel or comparison between the Holocaust and Nakba or to merely inaugurate a “dialogue” between them. Instead, it searches for a new historical and political grammar for relating and narrating their complicated intersections. The book features prominent international contributors, including a foreword by Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury on the centrality of the Holocaust and Nakba in the essential struggle of humanity against racism, and an afterword by literary scholar Jacqueline Rose on the challenges and contributions of the linkage between the Holocaust and Nakba for power to shift and a world of justice and equality to be created between the two peoples. The Holocaust and the Nakba is the first extended and collective scholarly treatment in English of these two constitutive traumas together.
Topic:: Holocaust and Nabka
Political Geography:: Middle East, Israel, and Palestine
Publication Identifier:: 9780231544481
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

47. Alternative East Asian Nuclear Futures, Volume I: Military Scenarios

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: The 13 chapters contained in this book’s two volumes were prompt-ed by a single inquiry in 2012 from the MacArthur Foundation. Was there any way, I was asked, to further clarify the economic and nonproliferation downsides if further production of civilian pluto-nium proceeded in East Asia? My initial reply was no. So much already had been done.But the more I thought about it, two things that had yet to be at-tempted emerged. The first was any serious analysis of just how bad things could get militarily if Japan and South Korea acquired nuclear weapons and North Korea and Mainland China ramped up their own production of such arms. Such nuclear proliferation had long been assumed to be undesirable but nobody had specified how such proliferation might play out militarily. Second, no serious consideration had yet been given to how East Asia might be able to prosper economically without a massive buildup of civilian nucle-ar power. Since each of the key nations in East Asia—China, the Koreas, and Japan—all would likely exploit their civilian nuclear energy infrastructure to acquire their first bombs or to make more, such inattention seemed odd.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, North Korea, and Global Focus

48. Alternative East Asian Nuclear Futures, Volume II: Energy Scenarios

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 06-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: The 13 chapters contained in this book’s two volumes were prompt- ed by a single inquiry in 2012 from the MacArthur Foundation. Was there any way, I was asked, to further clarify the economic and nonproliferation downsides if further production of civilian pluto- nium proceeded in East Asia? My initial reply was no. So much already had been done.But the more I thought about it, two things that had yet to be at- tempted emerged. The first was any serious analysis of just how bad things could get militarily if Japan and South Korea acquired nuclear weapons and North Korea and Mainland China ramped up their own production of such arms. Such nuclear proliferation had long been assumed to be undesirable but nobody had specified how such proliferation might play out militarily. Second, no serious consideration had yet been given to how East Asia might be able to prosper economically without a massive buildup of civilian nucle- ar power. Since each of the key nations in East Asia—China, the Koreas, and Japan—all would likely exploit their civilian nuclear energy infrastructure to acquire their first bombs or to make more, such inattention seemed odd.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Science and Technology, Military Affairs, Nuclear Power, and Nonproliferation
Political Geography:: United States, Japan, China, North Korea, and Global Focus

49. The Witness as Object: Video Testimony in Memorial Museums

Author:: Steffi De Jong
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: In recent years, historical witnessing has emerged as a category of "museum object." Audiovisual recordings of interviews with individuals remembering events of historical importance are now integral to the collections and research activities of museums. They have also become important components in narrative and exhibition design strategies. With a focus on Holocaust museums, this study scrutinizes for the first time the new global phenomenon of the "musealization" of the witness to history, exploring the processes, prerequisites, and consequences of the transformation of video testimonies into exhibits.
Topic:: Mass Media, Media, Holocaust, and Museums
Political Geography:: United States, United Kingdom, Israel, and Global Focus

50. What We Know About Race and Ethnicity

Author:: Michael Banton
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Attempts of nineteenth-century writers to establish “race” as a biological concept failed after Charles Darwin opened the door to a new world of knowledge. Yet this word already had a place in the organization of everyday life and in ordinary English language usage. This book explains how the idea of race became so important in the USA, generating conceptual confusion that can now be clarified. Developing an international approach, it reviews references to “race,” “racism,” and “ethnicity” in sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and comparative politics and identifies promising lines of research that may make it possible to supersede misleading notions of race in the social sciences.
Topic:: Race, Sociology, and Ethnicity
Political Geography:: United States and North America

51. Selling the Economic Miracle: Economic Reconstruction and Politics in West Germany, 1949-1957

Author:: Mark E. Spicka
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Through an examination of election campaign propaganda and various public relations campaigns, reflecting new electioneering techniques borrowed from the United States, this work explores how conservative political and economic groups sought to construct and sell a political meaning of the Social Market Economy and the Economic Miracle in West Germany during the 1950s.The political meaning of economics contributed to conservative electoral success, constructed a new belief in the free market economy within West German society, and provided legitimacy and political stability for the new Federal Republic of Germany.
Topic:: Cold War, Economics, Elections, European Union, Political stability, and Propaganda
Political Geography:: Europe, Germany, West Germany, and Central Europe

52. Patrons of Women: Literacy Projects and Gender Development in Rural Nepal

Author:: Esther Hertzog
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Assuming that women’s empowerment would accelerate the pace of social change in rural Nepal, the World Bank urged the Nepali government to undertake a “Gender Activities Project” within an ongoing long-term water-engineering scheme. The author, an anthropologist specializing in bureaucratic organizations and gender studies, was hired to monitor the project. Analyzing her own experience as a practicing “development expert,” she demonstrates that the professed goal of “women’s empowerment” is a pretext for promoting economic organizational goals and the interests of local elites. She shows how a project intended to benefit women, through teaching them literary and agricultural skills, fails to provide them with any of the promised resources. Going beyond the conventional analysis that positions aid givers vis-à-vis powerless victimized recipients, she draws attention to the complexity of the process and the active role played by the Nepalese rural women who pursue their own interests and aspirations within this unequal world. The book makes an important contribution to the growing critique of “development” projects and of women’s development projects in particular.
Topic:: Development, Gender Issues, Women, and Anthropology
Political Geography:: Asia and Nepal

53. Optimizing the German Workforce: Labor Administration from Bismark to the Economic Miracle

Author:: David Meskill
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: During the twentieth century, German government and industry created a highly skilled workforce as part of an ambitious program to control and develop the country’s human resources. Yet, these long-standing efforts to match as many workers as possible to skilled vocations and to establish a system of job training have received little scholarly attention, until now. The author’s account of the broad support for this program challenges the standard historical accounts that focus on disagreements over the German political-economic order and points instead to an important area of consensus. These advances are explained in terms of political policies of corporatist compromise and national security as well as industry’s evolving production strategies. By tracing the development of these policies over the course of a century, the author also suggests important continuities in Germany’s domestic politics, even across such different regimes as Imperial, Weimar, Nazi, and post-1945 West Germany.
Topic:: National Security, Science and Technology, Labor Issues, Domestic Politics, and Labor Policies
Political Geography:: Europe, Germany, Berlin, and Central Europe

54. JUDGING 'PRIVILEGED' JEWS Holocaust Ethics, Representation, and the 'Grey Zone'

Author:: Adam Brown
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: The Nazis’ persecution of the Jews during the Holocaust included the creation of prisoner hierarchies that forced victims to cooperate with their persecutors. Many in the camps and ghettos came to hold so-called “privileged” positions, and their behavior has often been judged as self-serving and harmful to fellow inmates. Such controversial figures constitute an intrinsically important, frequently misunderstood, and often taboo aspect of the Holocaust. Drawing on Primo Levi’s concept of the “grey zone,” this study analyzes the passing of moral judgment on “privileged” Jews as represented by writers, such as Raul Hilberg, and in films, including Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah and Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List. Negotiating the problems and potentialities of “representing the unrepresentable,” this book engages with issues that are fundamental to present-day attempts to understand the Holocaust and deeply relevant to reflections on human nature.
Topic:: Mass Media, Film, Holocaust, World War II, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, California, Germany, and Central Europe

55. IMPOTENT WARRIORS Perspectives on Gulf War Syndrome, Vulnerability and Masculinity

Author:: Susie Kilshaw
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Gulf began to surface. This mysterious illness was given the name “Gulf War Syndrome” (GWS). This book is an investigation into this recently emergent illness, particularly relevant given ongoing UK deployments to Iraq, describing how the illness became a potent symbol for a plethora of issues, anxieties, and concerns. At present, the debate about GWS is polarized along two lines: there are those who think it is a unique, organic condition caused by Gulf War toxins and those who argue that it is probably a psychological condition that can be seen as part of a larger group of illnesses. Using the methods and perspective of anthropology, with its focus on nuances and subtleties, the author provides a new approach to understanding GWS, one that makes sense of the cultural circumstances, specific and general, which gave rise to the illness.
Topic:: Health, Gulf War, Masculinity, and PTSD
Political Geography:: United States, Iraq, United Kingdom, Europe, and Middle East

56. From Clans to Co-Ops: Confiscated Mafia Land in Sicily

Author:: Theodoros Rakopoulos
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: From Clans to Co-ops explores the social, political, and economic relations that enable the constitution of cooperatives operating on land confiscated from mafiosi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafia in Italian history. Rakopoulos’s ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labor, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that cooperatives bring to people’s lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperativism, how labor might be salvaged from market fundamentalism, and to emergent discourses about the ‘human’ economy.
Topic:: Environment, Political Economy, Labor Issues, Economy, and Collaborative Efficiency
Political Geography:: Europe, Italy, Sicily, and Southern Europe

57. A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder's American Films

Author:: Gerd Gemünden
Publication Date:: 01-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish émigré from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low.
Topic:: Immigration, Media, Film, and Material Culture
Political Geography:: United States, Europe, California, Germany, and Central Europe

58. Urban Transport in the Sharing Economy Era: Collaborative Cities

Author:: CIPPEC
Publication Date:: 09-2018
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Center for the Implementation of Public Policies for Equity and Growth (CIPPEC)
Abstract:: More than half of the global population lives in cities, an increase of 15 percent over the last 35 years. Driven largely by population growth and a search for better living conditions and work opportunities, this trend is expected to continue. With 80% of its population living in cities, Latin America is the second most urbanized region on the planet and is estimated that by 2050 approximately 90% of its population will be urban (UN-Habitat, 2012).
Topic:: Economics, Urbanization, Digital Economy, Urban, Transportation, and Cities
Political Geography:: Argentina, Latin America, and Global Focus

59. Crude Volatility: The History and the Future of Boom-Bust Oil Prices

Author:: Robert McNally
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: As OPEC has loosened its grip over the past ten years, the oil market has been rocked by wild price swings, the likes of which haven't been seen for eight decades. Crafting an engrossing journey from the gushing Pennsylvania oil fields of the 1860s to today's fraught and fractious Middle East, Crude Volatility explains how past periods of stability and volatility in oil prices help us understand the new boom-bust era. Oil's notorious volatility has always been considered a scourge afflicting not only the oil industry but also the broader economy and geopolitical landscape; Robert McNally makes sense of how oil became so central to our world and why it is subject to such extreme price fluctuations. Tracing a history marked by conflict, intrigue, and extreme uncertainty, McNally shows how—even from the oil industry's first years—wild and harmful price volatility prompted industry leaders and officials to undertake extraordinary efforts to stabilize oil prices by controlling production. Herculean market interventions—first, by Rockefeller's Standard Oil, then, by U.S. state regulators in partnership with major international oil companies, and, finally, by OPEC—succeeded to varying degrees in taming the beast. McNally, a veteran oil market and policy expert, explains the consequences of the ebbing of OPEC's power, debunking myths and offering recommendations—including mistakes to avoid—as we confront the unwelcome return of boom and bust oil prices.
Topic:: Economics, Oil, and OPEC
Political Geography:: United States and Middle East
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543682
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

60. Holy Wars and Holy Alliance: The Return of Religion to the Global Political Stage

Author:: Manlio Graziano
Publication Date:: 04-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Religions are reemerging in the social, political, and economic spheres previously occupied and dominated by secular institutions and ideologies. In the wake of crises exposing the limits of secular modernity, religions have again become significant players in domestic and international politics. At the same time, the Catholic Church has sought a "holy alliance" among the world's faiths to recentralize devout influence, an important, albeit little-noticed, evolution in international relations. Holy Wars and Holy Alliance explores the nation-state's current crisis in order to better understand the religious resurgence's implications for geopolitics. Manlio Graziano looks at how the Catholic Church promotes dialogue and action linking world religions, and examines how it has used its material, financial, and institutional strength to gain power and increase its profile in present-day international politics. Challenging the idea that modernity is tied to progress and secularization, Graziano documents the "return" or the "revenge" of God in all facets of life. He shows that tolerance, pluralism, democracy, and science have not triumphed as once predicted. To fully grasp the destabilizing dynamics at work today, he argues, we must appreciate the nature of religious struggles and political holy wars now unfolding across the international stage.
Topic:: International Relations and Religion
Political Geography:: Global Focus
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543910
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

61. Nuclear Rules, Not Just Rights: The NPT Reexamined

Author:: Henry D. Sokolski
Publication Date:: 03-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: With 190 state members, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is almost universal. However, it has fallen on hard times. North Korea violated it and withdrew in 2002. Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea—the nuclear-armed states most likely to use them—refuse to sign. Others—e.g., Syria, South Korea, and Egypt—have violated its safeguards and yet suffered no serious consequences. Also, with the Iran deal, enriching uranium or re- processing spent reactor fuel, which can bring states to the very brink of bomb making, is now less taboo. Finally, with President Trump’s suggestion that South Korea’s and Japan’s acquisition of nuclear weapons is inevitable, the prospect of the treaty lasting in perpetuity is easily open to question.1
Topic:: International Organization and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:: Global Focus

62. Japan’s Security Renaissance: New Policies and Politics for the Twenty-First Century

Author:: Andrew L. Oros
Publication Date:: 03-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: For decades after World War II, Japan chose to focus on soft power and economic diplomacy alongside a close alliance with the United States, eschewing a potential leadership role in regional and global security. Since the end of the Cold War, and especially since the rise of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan's military capabilities have resurged. In this analysis of Japan's changing military policy, Andrew L. Oros shows how a gradual awakening to new security challenges has culminated in the multifaceted "security renaissance" of the past decade. Despite openness to new approaches, however, three historical legacies—contested memories of the Pacific War and Imperial Japan, postwar anti-militarist convictions, and an unequal relationship with the United States—play an outsized role. In Japan's Security Renaissance Oros argues that Japan's future security policies will continue to be shaped by these legacies, which Japanese leaders have struggled to address. He argues that claims of rising nationalism in Japan are overstated, but there has been a discernible shift favoring the conservative Abe and his Liberal Democratic Party. Bringing together Japanese domestic politics with the broader geopolitical landscape of East Asia and the world, Japan's Security Renaissance provides guidance on this century's emerging international dynamics.
Topic:: Security, International Security, and Military Affairs
Political Geography:: Japan, East Asia, and Asia
Publication Identifier:: 9780231542593
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

63. Islam: An American Religion

Author:: Nadia Marzouki
Publication Date:: 04-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Islam: An American Religion demonstrates how Islam as formed in the United States has become an American religion in a double sense—first through the strategies of recognition adopted by Muslims and second through the performance of Islam as a faith. Nadia Marzouki investigates how Islam has become so contentious in American politics. Focusing on the period from 2008 to 2013, she revisits the uproar over the construction of mosques, legal disputes around the prohibition of Islamic law, and the overseas promotion of religious freedom. She argues that public controversies over Islam in the United States primarily reflect the American public's profound divisions and ambivalence toward freedom of speech and the legitimacy of liberal secular democracy.
Topic:: Islam and Religion
Political Geography:: United States
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543927
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

64. Faithful to Secularism: The Religious Politics of Democracy in Ireland, Senegal, and the Philippines

Author:: David T. Buckley
Publication Date:: 03-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Religion and democracy can make tense bedfellows. Secular elites may view religious movements as conflict-prone and incapable of compromise, while religious actors may fear that anticlericalism will drive religion from public life. Yet such tensions are not inevitable: from Asia to Latin America, religious actors coexist with, and even help to preserve, democracy. In Faithful to Secularism, David T. Buckley argues that political institutions that encourage an active role for public religion are a key part in explaining this variation. He develops the concept of "benevolent secularism" to describe institutions that combine a basic division of religion and state with extensive room for participation of religious actors in public life. He traces the impact of benevolent secularism on religious and secular elites, both at critical junctures in state formation and as politics evolves over time. Buckley shows how religious and secular actors build credibility and shared norms over time, and explains how such coalitions can endure challenges from both religious revivals and periods of anticlericalism. Faithful to Secularism tests this institutional theory in Ireland, Senegal, and the Philippines, using a blend of archival, interview, and public opinion data. These case studies illustrate how even countries with an active religious majority can become and remain faithful to secularism.
Topic:: Politics, Religion, and Political Theory
Political Geography:: Philippines, Senegal, and Ireland
Publication Identifier:: 9780231542449
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

65. Militarizing the Nation: The Army, Business, and Revolution in Egypt

Author:: Zeinab Abdul-Magd
Publication Date:: 03-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Egypt's army portrays itself as a faithful guardian "saving the nation." Yet saving the nation has meant militarizing it. Zeinab Abul-Magd examines both the visible and often invisible efforts by Egypt's semi-autonomous military to hegemonize the country's politics, economy, and society over the past six decades. The Egyptian army has adapted to and benefited from crucial moments of change. It weathered the transition to socialism in the 1960s, market consumerism in the 1980s, and neoliberalism from the 1990s onward, all while enhancing its political supremacy and expanding a mammoth business empire. Most recently, the military has fought back two popular uprisings, retained full power in the wake of the Arab Spring, and increased its wealth. While adjusting to these shifts, military officers have successfully transformed urban milieus into ever-expanding military camps. These spaces now host a permanent armed presence that exercises continuous surveillance over everyday life. Egypt's military business enterprises have tapped into the consumer habits of the rich and poor alike, reaping unaccountable profits and optimizing social command. Using both a political economy approach and a Foucauldian perspective, Militarizing the Nation traces the genealogy of the Egyptian military for those eager to know how such a controversial power gains and maintains control.
Topic:: Government, Military Affairs, and Arab Spring
Political Geography:: Middle East and Egypt
Publication Identifier:: 9780231542807
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

66. By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783

Author:: Michael J. Green
Publication Date:: 03-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Soon after the American Revolution, certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation’s political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history’s major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America’s stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.
Topic:: International Relations
Political Geography:: Asia-Pacific
Publication Identifier:: 9780231542722
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

67. Ministers For Foreign Affairs 1960-1972

Author:: Melissa Conley Tyler, John Robbins, and Adrian March
Publication Date:: 07-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Australian Institute of International Affairs
Abstract:: he Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA) is pleased to present the second book in the Australian Ministers for Foreign Affairs series. In February 2013 the AIIA held a one-day forum to examine the achievements of Australia’s foreign ministers between 1960 and 1972. This forum and publication followed on from R.G Casey: Minister for External Affairs 1951-1960, and examined the next decade in Australian foreign policy. This newest volume brings together Australia’s most eminent academics and experts in international relations, former senior diplomats and government officials to explore the major issues that confronted the seven foreign ministers during the period of 1960-1972. The book has been edited by Melissa Conley Tyler, John Robbins and Adrian March.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Cold War, Regional Cooperation, United Nations, International Affairs, and Vietnam
Political Geography:: United States, China, Indonesia, Asia, and Australia

68. Foreign Investment in Cuba: From Conflict to Resolution

Author:: Rafael-Andrés Velázquez-Pérez, Miguel-Ángel Michinel-Álvarez, Margaret Crahan, and Gabriel Vignoli
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University
Abstract:: This manuscript originates from research initiated in 2010 at the University of Vigo in International Private Law with a specific focus on International Investment Law. The objective was to analyze the impact of the new paradigm of sustainability on this sphere of the law, with an emphasis on developing countries, and more specifically Cuba. This line of research has resulted in several publications intended for a Spanish-speaking scientific-juridical audience. Yet there is no scholarly work directly aimed at US investors as a prioritized target group. Being the first single Foreign Direct Investor in the world, and given its geopolitical and economic proximity, the US is bound to play a prime role in the field of investments in Cuba—despite political complications. As a consequence, we opted for a bilingual monograph on this topic with a dual purpose. The first part of the book, which is aimed at reaching a wide audience, examines the role played by foreign investment in Cuba and the country’s interest in attracting it by providing investors with a modern, stable, and coherent legal framework that is in line with current international standards. The second part of the book delves into specific technicalities of international investment law— with an emphasis on the conflict resolution system, which finds in arbitrage its main mechanism. This part, technical in nature, is not directly aimed at potential investors as much as their legal advisers, legal firms, arbitrators, and specialized scholarly communities—without whose input the success of foreign direct investment would be impossible. The text also engages critically with the specificities of US-Cuba relations in the context of Foreign Direct Investment. As shown in the first part of this monograph, it seems clear that the strategies pursued by different US administrations have thus far failed. It would be to the US’ benefit to forego the current policy of confrontation in favor of one of cooperation, as exemplified by the approaches taken by Latin America, xiv Europe, and Canada. The US should not lag, if it wants to attain a strategic position in the global repositioning toward the developing Cuban market. There is a need for targeted diplomatic and legislative efforts aimed at strengthening cooperation between the two countries in terms of investment. Among the challenges is the absence of a Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT) between Havana and Washington. The obstacles faced by the Trump administration in the political, diplomatic, and financial sphere indicate that excessive isolationism and protectionism are not only counterproductive from a financial viewpoint, but they also imply for the US a loss of sovereignty and a diminished capacity to influence the international context. Should the US not change its current policy, it will be outperformed by other international actors such as the European Union and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as investors in Latin America and in Cuba.
Topic:: Treaties and Agreements, Bilateral Relations, Foreign Direct Investment, Law, Economy, and Legislation
Political Geography:: Cuba, Latin America, Caribbean, and United States of America

69. Exception Taken: How France Has Defied Hollywood's New World Order

Author:: Jonathan Buchsbaum
Publication Date:: 01-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: In Exception Taken, Jonathan Buchsbaum examines the movements that have emerged in opposition to the homogenizing force of Hollywood in global filmmaking. While European cinema was entering a steady decline in the 1980s, France sought to strengthen support for its film industry under the new Mitterrand government. Over the following decades, the country lobbied partners in the European Economic Community to design strategies to protect the audiovisual industries and to resist cultural free-trade pressures in international trade agreements. These struggles to preserve the autonomy of national artistic prerogatives emboldened many countries to question the benefits of accelerated globalization. Led by the energetic minister of culture Jack Lang, France initiated a series of measures to support all sectors of the film industry. Lang introduced laws mandating that state and private television invest in the film industry, effectively replacing the revenue lost from a shrinking theatrical audience for French films. With the formation of the European Union in 1992, Europe passed a new treaty (Maastricht) that extended its legal purview to culture for the first time, setting up the dramatic confrontation over the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) in 1993. Pushed by France, the EU fought the United States over the idea that countries should preserve their right to regulate cultural activity as they saw fit. France and Canada then initiated a campaign to protect cultural diversity within UNESCO that led to the passage of the Convention on Cultural Diversity in 2005. As France pursued these efforts to protect cultural diversity beyond its borders, it also articulated "a certain idea of cinema" that did not simply defend a narrow vision of national cinema. France promoted both commercial cinema and art cinema, disproving announcements of the death of cinema.
Topic:: Film
Political Geography:: France
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543071
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

70. What Slaveholders Think: How Contemporary Perpetrators Rationalize What They Do

Author:: Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick
Publication Date:: 03-2017
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Drawing on fifteen years of work in the antislavery movement, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines the systematic oppression of men, women, and children in rural India and asks: How do contemporary slaveholders rationalize the subjugation of other human beings, and how do they respond when their power is threatened? More than a billion dollars have been spent on antislavery efforts, yet the practice persists. Why? Unpacking what slaveholders think about emancipation is critical for scholars and policy makers who want to understand the broader context, especially as seen by the powerful. Insight into those moments when the powerful either double down or back off provides a sobering counterbalance to scholarship on popular struggle. Through frank and unprecedented conversations with slaveholders, Choi-Fitzpatrick reveals the condescending and paternalistic thought processes that blind them. While they understand they are exploiting workers' vulnerabilities, slaveholders also feel they are doing workers a favor, often taking pride in this relationship. And when the victims share this perspective, their emancipation is harder to secure, driving some in the antislavery movement to ask why slaves fear freedom. The answer, Choi-Fitzpatrick convincingly argues, lies in the power relationship. Whether slaveholders recoil at their past behavior or plot a return to power, Choi-Fitzpatrick zeroes in on the relational dynamics of their self-assessment, unpacking what happens next. Incorporating the experiences of such pivotal actors into antislavery research is an immensely important step toward crafting effective antislavery policies and intervention. It also contributes to scholarship on social change, social movements, and the realization of human rights.
Topic:: Human Rights, Sex Trafficking, and Slavery
Political Geography:: India and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543828
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

71. Why America Misunderstands the World: National Experience and Roots of Misperception

Author:: Paul R. Pillar
Publication Date:: 02-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Drawing a line from colonial events to America's handling of modern international terrorism, Pillar shows how presumption and misperception bolstered the "with us or against us" attitude of the George W. Bush administration. Fundamental misunderstandings have created a cycle in which threats are underestimated before an attack occurs and then are overestimated after they happen. By exposing this longstanding tradition of misperception, Pillar hopes the United States can develop policies that better address international realities rather than biased beliefs.
Topic:: International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Government, and United States
Political Geography:: United States and Global Focus
Publication Identifier:: 9780231540353
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

72. Reform Cinema in Iran: Film and Political Change in the Islamic Republic

Author:: Blake Atwood
Publication Date:: 11-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: It is nearly impossible to separate contemporary Iranian cinema from the Islamic revolution that transformed film production in the country in the late 1970s. As the aims of the revolution shifted and hardened once Khomeini took power and as an eight-year war with Iraq dragged on, Iranian filmmakers confronted new restrictions. In the 1990s, however, the Reformist Movement, led by Mohammad Khatami, and the film industry, developed an unlikely partnership that moved audiences away from revolutionary ideas and toward a discourse of reform. In Reform Cinema in Iran, Blake Atwood examines how new industrial and aesthetic practices created a distinct cultural and political style in Iranian film between 1989 and 2007. Atwood analyzes a range of popular, art, and documentary films. He provides new readings of internationally recognized films such as Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry (1997) and Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Time for Love (1990), as well as those by Rakhshan Bani, Masud Kiami, and other key Iranian directors. At the same time, he also considers how filmmakers and the film industry were affected by larger political and religious trends that took shape during Mohammad Khatami's presidency (1997-2005). Atwood analyzes political speeches, religious sermons, and newspaper editorials and pays close attention to technological developments, particularly the rise of video, to determine their role in democratizing filmmaking and realizing the goals of political reform. He concludes with a look at the legacy of reform cinema, including films produced under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose neoconservative discourse rejected the policies of reform that preceded him.
Topic:: Film
Political Geography:: Iran
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543149
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

73. Protection Amid Chaos: The Creation of Property Rights in Palestinian Refugee Camps

Author:: Nadya Hajj
Publication Date:: 12-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: The right to own property is something we generally take for granted. For refugees living in camps, in some cases for as long as generations, the link between citizenship and property ownership becomes strained. How do refugees protect these assets and preserve communal ties? How do they maintain a sense of identity and belonging within chaotic settings? Protection Amid Chaos follows people as they develop binding claims on assets and resources in challenging political and economic spaces. Focusing on Palestinians living in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan, it shows how the first to arrive developed flexible though legitimate property rights claims based on legal knowledge retained from their homeland, subsequently adapted to the restrictions of refugee life. As camps increased in complexity, refugees merged their informal institutions with the formal rules of political outsiders, devising a broader, stronger system for protecting their assets and culture from predation and state incorporation. For this book, Nadya Hajj conducted interviews with two hundred refugees. She consults memoirs, legal documents, and findings in the United Nations Relief Works Agency archives. Her work reveals the strategies Palestinian refugees have used to navigate their precarious conditions while under continuous assault and situates their struggle within the larger context of communities living in transitional spaces.
Topic:: International Law, United Nations, Refugee Issues, and Refugees
Political Geography:: Palestine, Lebanon, and Jordan
Publication Identifier:: 9780231542920
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

74. Efficiency, Finance, and Varieties of Industrial Policy: Guiding Resources, Learning, and Technology for Sustained Growth

Author:: Akbar Norman and Joseph E. Stiglitz
Publication Date:: 11-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Industrial policy, once relegated to resource allocation, technological improvements, and the modernization of industries, should be treated as a serious component of sustainability and developmental economics. A rich set of complimentary institutions, shared behavioral norms, and public policies have sustained economic growth from Britain's industrial revolution onwards. This volume revisits the role of industrial policy in the success of these strategies and what it can offer developed and developing economies today. Featuring essays from experts invested in the expansion of industrial policies, topics discussed include the most effective use of industrial policies in learning economies, development finance, and promoting investment in regional and global contexts. Also included are in-depth case studies of Japan and India's experience with industrial policy in the banking and private sector. One essay revisits the theoretical and conceptual foundations of industrial policy from a structural economics perspective and another describes the models, packages, and transformation cycles that constitute a variety of approaches to implementation. The collection concludes with industrial strategies for facilitating quality growth, realizing more sustainable manufacturing development, and encouraging countries to industrialize around their natural resources.
Topic:: Economics, Industrial Policy, Natural Resources, and Finance
Political Geography:: Global Focus
Publication Identifier:: 9780231542777
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

75. Violent Becomings: State Formation, Sociality, and Power in Mozambique

Author:: Bjorn Enge Bertelsen
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Violent Becomings conceptualizes the Mozambican state not as the bureaucratically ordered polity of the nation-state, but as a continuously emergent and violently challenged mode of ordering. In doing so, this book addresses the question of why colonial and postcolonial state formation has involved violent articulations with so-called ‘traditional’ forms of sociality. The scope and dynamic nature of such violent becomings is explored through an array of contexts that include colonial regimes of forced labor and pacification, liberation war struggles and civil war, the social engineering of the post-independence state, and the popular appropriation of sovereign violence in riots and lynchings.
Topic:: Civil War, State Formation, Colonialism, and State Building
Political Geography:: Africa, Mozambique, Southern Africa, and Maputo

76. The Upper Guinea Coast in Global Perspectives

Author:: Jacqueline Knörr and Christopher Kohl
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: For centuries, Africa’s Upper Guinea Coast region has been the site of regional and global interactions, with societies from different parts of the African continent and beyond engaging in economic trade, cultural exchange, and various forms of conflict. This book provides a wide-ranging look at how such encounters have continued into the present day, identifying the disruptions and continuities in religion, language, economics, and various other social phenomena that have resulted. These accounts show a region that, while still grappling with the legacies of colonialism and the slave trade, is both shaped by and an important actor within ever-denser global networks, exhibiting consistent transformation and creative adaptation.
Topic:: Globalization, Regional Cooperation, Colonialism, and Conflict
Political Geography:: Africa, Liberia, West Africa, Sierra Leone, Senegal, Guinea, and Gambia

77. Transaction with the World: Ecocriticism and the Environmental Sensibility of New Hollywood

Author:: Adam O'Brien
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: In their bold experimentation and bracing engagement with culture and politics, the “New Hollywood” films of the late 1960s and early 1970s are justly celebrated contributions to American cinematic history. Relatively unexplored, however, has been the profound environmental sensibility that characterized movies such as The Wild Bunch, Chinatown, and Nashville. This brisk and engaging study explores how many hallmarks of New Hollywood filmmaking, such as the increased reliance on location shooting and the rejection of American self-mythologizing, made the era such a vividly “grounded” cinematic moment. Synthesizing a range of narrative, aesthetic, and ecocritical theories, it offers a genuinely fresh perspective on one of the most studied periods in film history.
Topic:: Environment, Mass Media, Culture, and Media
Political Geography:: United States, California, and North America

78. The Train Journey: Transit, Captivity, and Witnessing in the Holocaust

Author:: Simone Gigliotti
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Deportations by train were critical in the Nazis’ genocidal vision of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question.” Historians have estimated that between 1941 and 1944 up to three million Jews were transported to their deaths in concentration and extermination camps. In his writings on the “Final Solution,” Raul Hilberg pondered the role of trains: “How can railways be regarded as anything more than physical equipment that was used, when the time came, to transport the Jews from various cities to shooting grounds and gas chambers in Eastern Europe?” This book explores the question by analyzing the victims’ experiences at each stage of forced relocation: the round-ups and departures from the ghettos, the captivity in trains, and finally, the arrival at the camps. Utilizing a variety of published memoirs and unpublished testimonies, the book argues that victims experienced the train journeys as mobile chambers, comparable in importance to the more studied, fixed locations of persecution, such as ghettos and camps.
Topic:: Genocide, Infrastructure, Holocaust, World War II, and Anti-Semitism
Political Geography:: Europe, Eastern Europe, Poland, and Germany

79. Post-Ottoman Coexistence

Author:: Rebecca Bryant
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: In Southeast Europe, the Balkans, and Middle East, scholars often refer to the “peaceful coexistence” of various religious and ethnic groups under the Ottoman Empire before ethnonationalist conflicts dissolved that shared space and created legacies of division. Post-Ottoman Coexistence interrogates ways of living together and asks what practices enabled centuries of cooperation and sharing, as well as how and when such sharing was disrupted. Contributors discuss both historical and contemporary practices of coexistence within the context of ethno-national conflict and its aftermath.
Topic:: Imperialism, Nationalism, Regional Cooperation, and Sociology
Political Geography:: Europe, Middle East, Balkans, Ottoman Empire, and Southeast Europe

80. Cuba-US Relations: Normalization and its Challenges

Author:: Margaret Crahan, Soraya M. Castro-Mariño, William M. LeoGrande, Soraya M. Castro-Mariño, Jorge I. Domínguez, Claudia Marín Suárez, Susan Eckstein, Jesús Arboleya Cervera, Margaret Crahan, Alberto R. Coll, Geoff Thale, Bárbara Garea Moreda, Ramón Pichs Madruga, Julia Sagebien, Eric Leenson, Robert L. Bach, Ashley Miller, Ted Piccone, Carlos Ciaño Zanetti, Mike Kopetski, John H. Coatsworth, Philip Brenner, and Colleen Scribner
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Institute for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Columbia University
Abstract:: This volume is a result of the dialogue between experts on Cuba-U.S. relations initiated by the Centro de Investigaciones de Política Internacional of the Instituto Superior de Relaciones Internacionales (CIPI/ISRI). Aimed at bringing together scholars and policymakers, among others, with expertise on the topic, the annual meetings in Havana have for years stimulated in-depth discussions by participants primarily from Cuba, the United States, and Latin America. The exchanges represent a wide range of perspectives and even of vocabularies. For example, the Cubans use the word blockade when referring to the U.S. embargo of the island and tend to hear “regime change” when U.S. officials refer to “democracy promotion”. In one respect there has been considerable consensus—that U.S. policy toward Cuba since the 1960s was a failed policy as the Obama administration eventually concluded and many experts have argued. The 2014 annual CIPI/ISRI meeting was in full swing on December 17, 2014 when rumors began to circulate that President Raúl Castro and President Barack Obama were going to make statements at mid-day concerning Cuba-U.S. relations. Tension mounted and at noon there was standing room only in the conference auditorium as the two Presidents announced on TV their commitment to the normalization of relations that had been ruptured in 1961. The room erupted in cheers, sobs, and the singing of the Cuban and U.S. national anthems. The experts were shocked. In panel after panel during the previous two days, they had speculated that there might be some relaxation of tensions, but no one predicted the initiation of a move toward normalization and the resumption of formal diplomatic relations. In the midst of the celebration Wayne Smith, who as a young Foreign Service officer had been tasked with closing the U.S. embassy in Havana in 1961, entered the auditorium and soon chants of “WAYNE—WAYNE” echoed throughout and he was pushed forward and asked to speak. Wayne had been honored the night before for his work to resolve U.S.-Cuban conflicts beginning when he resigned as the Chief of the US Interest Section in 1982 over differences with the Reagan administration’s policies toward Cuba. From that time forward he fought for a reconceptualization of U.S. policy toward Cuba as a scholar-advocate. Wayne simply said that the night before December 17, 2014 he had prayed that normalization would occur before he died and that his prayers had been answered. The moment catalyzed what many conference participants were feeling—a sense that after more than fifty years of hostilities the long road toward normalization could begin. It is the objective of this book to analyze the first two years of the process toward normalization of Cuba-U.S. relations from December 17, 2014 to January 2017. The majority of the chapters are revised and updated versions of papers presented at the 2015 CIPI/ISRI conference. A few of the chapters were commissioned afterwards to cover such topics as sanctions and claims. This volume does not attempt to modify the opinions or conclusions of the authors. Rather it lets the differences stand in an effort to better comprehend what has kept the two neighboring countries apart for so long and the nature of the challenges facing the process toward normalization. The authors analyze the causes of over fifty years of hostile relations interspersed with fitful negotiations that were marked by lack of trust, misperceptions, and miscues, as well as the challenges the process toward normalization currently faces. Since D17 (December 17, 2014) a bilateral Cuba-U.S. commission has been established, as well as technical working groups, in order to devise new agreements and stimulate the unravelling of the substantial accumulation of laws, regulations, and directives in both countries that have slowed the process toward normalization. Progress in introducing new regulations and directives has been slow and arduous. While some advances have been made particularly in terms of easing restrictions on travel to Cuba, as well as encouraging commerce and communications, much remains to be done. In addition, major impediments exist—the principal one being the U.S. embargo/blockade of Cuba which requires action by the U.S. Congress to remove. There are also major issues relating to U.S. preferential treatment of Cuban immigrants, continuing U.S. sanctions, as well as legal claims by both parties for expropriated properties and damages. The identification of mutual interests and agreements to cooperate has been apparent in Cuba-U.S. exchanges on security and environmental issues, among others. Both the Cuban and U.S. negotiators have admitted over the last two years that the process is difficult. Among the challenges are developing a common vocabulary regarding issues of sovereignty. Other questions are related to the direction of each country’s foreign policy particularly given domestic developments in both countries, for example, the level of political and ideological polarization in the United States and the actions that President Donald Trump and a Republican Congress might take beginning in January 2017. Add to this the stated intention President Raúl Castro to end his term as head of state in early 2018 and unknowns abound.
Topic:: Climate Change, Diaspora, Bilateral Relations, Immigration, Sanctions, Regional Integration, and Normalization
Political Geography:: Cuba, Latin America, Caribbean, North America, and United States of America

81. Enduring Uncertainty

Author:: Ines Hasselberg
Publication Date:: 03-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: Focusing on the lived experience of immigration policy and processes, this volume provides fascinating insights into the deportation process as it is felt and understood by those subjected to it. The author presents a rich and innovative ethnography of deportation and deportability experienced by migrants convicted of criminal offenses in England and Wales. The unique perspectives developed here – on due process in immigration appeals, migrant surveillance and control, social relations and sense of self, and compliance and resistance – are important for broader understandings of border control policy and human rights.
Topic:: Human Rights, Migration, Immigration, Border Control, Surveillance, Police, and Resistance
Political Geography:: United Kingdom, Europe, England, and Wales

82. Should We Let The Bomb Spread

Author:: Henry Sokolski (ed)
Publication Date:: 01-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Abstract:: In 1966, Leonard Beaton, a journalist and strategic scholar, published a short book that asked must the bomb spread.1 Mr. Beaton’s query reflected the profound alarm with which proliferation was viewed shortly after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today that alarm is all but absent: Now, not only is proliferation increasingly viewed as a given (more of a fact than a problem), but some security experts actually see advantages in nuclear weapons spreading or, at least, little harm. Cultivation of this latter view took time—nearly a half century— and considerable scholarship. In 1981, Kenneth Waltz popularized French and American finite deterrence thinking of the late 1950s by asking whether or not nuclear weapons in more hands might be better. His answer was yes. As nuclear weapons spread, he argued, adversaries would view war as being self-defeating and peace would become more certain.
Topic:: International Affairs and Nuclear Power
Political Geography:: Global Focus

83. The People’s Money: How China Is Building a Global Currency

Author:: Paola Subacchi
Publication Date:: 11-2016
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Many of the world's major economies boast dominant international currencies. Not so for China. Its renminbi has lagged far behind the pound, the euro, and the dollar in global circulation—and for good reason. China has long privileged economic policies that have fueled development at the expense of the renminbi's growth, and it has become clear that the underpowered currency is threatening China's future. The nation's leaders now face the daunting task of strengthening the currency without losing control of the nation's economy or risking total collapse. How are they approaching this challenge? In The People's Money, Paola Subacchi introduces readers to China's monetary system, mapping its evolution over the past century and, particularly, its transformation since Deng Xiaoping took power in 1978. Subacchi revisits the policies that fostered the country's economic rise while at the same time purposefully creating a currency of little use beyond China's borders. She shows the key to understanding China's economic predicament lies in past and future strategies for the renminbi. The financial turbulence following the global crisis of 2008, coupled with China's ambitions as a global creditor and chief economic power, has forced the nation to reckon with the limited international circulation of the renminbi. Increasing the currency's reach will play a major role in securing China's future.
Topic:: International Trade and Finance and Monetary Policy
Political Geography:: China, Global Focus, and Global Markets
Publication Identifier:: 9780231543262
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

84. Ballots, Bullets, and Bargains: American Foreign Policy and Presidential Elections

Author:: Michael H. Armacost
Publication Date:: 08-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Drawing on twenty-four years of experience in government, Michael H. Armacost explores how the contours of the U.S. presidential election system influence the content and conduct of American foreign policy. He examines how the nomination battle impels candidates to express deference to the foreign policy DNA of their party and may force an incumbent to make wholesale policy adjustments to fend off an intra-party challenge for the nomination. He describes the way reelection campaigns can prod a chief executive to fix long-neglected problems, kick intractable policy dilemmas down the road, settle for modest course corrections, or scapegoat others for policies gone awry. Armacost begins his book with the quest for the presidential nomination and then moves through the general election campaign, the ten-week transition period between Election Day and Inauguration Day, and the early months of a new administration. He notes that campaigns rarely illuminate the tough foreign policy choices that the leader of the nation must make, and he offers rare insight into the challenge of aligning the roles of an outgoing incumbent (who performs official duties despite ebbing power) and the incoming successor (who has no official role but possesses a fresh political mandate). He pays particular attention to the pressure for new presidents to act boldly abroad in the early months of his tenure, even before a national security team is in place, decision-making procedures are set, or policy priorities are firmly established. He concludes with an appraisal of the virtues and liabilities of the system, including suggestions for modestly adjusting some of its features while preserving its distinct character.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Elections, and American Presidency
Political Geography:: United States
Publication Identifier:: 9780231539135
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

85. The North Korea Crisis and Regional Responses

Author:: Ching-Chang Chen, Denny Roy, and Utpal Vyas
Publication Date:: 04-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: East-West Center
Abstract:: The Kim Jong Un (KJU) regime, since its inception, has ratcheted up tension on the Korean Peninsula. His decision to dishonor what he had agreed to—a moratorium on nuclear tests and long-range missile launches as well as the return of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors to Yongbyon—at several rounds of bilateral talks with the United States in February 2012 confirmed the belief that North Korea is a historically unpredictable and unreliable actor. Because the new North Korean leadership needed to fulfill its promise that North Korea would enter an “era of being a strong and prosperous nation ( gangseongdaeguk ),” pursuing economic recovery by easing tension through reconciliation with the international community, including the United States, was of significance. North Korea could have obtained nutritional assistance including corn, soy beans, vegetable oils, and ready-to-eat therapeutic food, but instead it initiated a string of provocations and hostile threats, which brought China's patience to the limits, strengthened UN sanctions, and consolidated the US position not to engage with North Korea before Pyongyang shows concrete steps for denuclearization. Hence, for the international observers, North Korea's gamble seemed to be a grave mistake.
Topic:: Economics
Political Geography:: China and North Korea

86. The Japan-South Korea Identity Clash: East Asian Security and the United States

Author:: Brad Glosserman and Scott A. Snyder
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Japan and South Korea are Western-style democracies with open-market economies committed to the rule of law. They are also U.S. allies. Yet despite their shared interests, shared values, and geographic proximity, divergent national identities have driven a wedge between them. Drawing on decades of expertise, Brad Glosserman and Scott Snyder investigate the roots of this split and its ongoing threat to the region and the world. Glosserman and Snyder isolate competing notions of national identity as the main obstacle to a productive partnership between Japan and South Korea. Through public opinion data, interviews, and years of observation, they show how fundamentally incompatible, rapidly changing conceptions of national identity in Japan and South Korea--and not struggles over power or structural issues--have complicated territorial claims and international policy. Despite changes in the governments of both countries and concerted efforts by leading political figures to encourage US-ROK-Japan security cooperation, the Japan-Korea relationship continues to be hobbled by history and its deep imprint on ideas of national identity. This book recommends bold, policy-oriented prescriptions for overcoming problems in Japan-Korea relations and facilitating trilateral cooperation among these three Northeast Asian allies, recognizing the power of the public on issues of foreign policy, international relations, and the prospects for peace in Asia.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Democratization, International Trade and Finance, International Affairs, and Power Politics
Political Geography:: Japan, East Asia, and South Korea
Publication Identifier:: 9780231539289
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

87. Govern LIke Us: U.S. Expectations of Poor Countries

Author:: M. A. Thomas
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: In the poorest countries, such as Afghanistan, Haiti, and Mali, the United States has struggled to work with governments whose corruption and lack of capacity are increasingly seen to be the cause of instability and poverty. The development and security communities call for "good governance" to improve the rule of law, democratic accountability, and the delivery of public goods and services. The United States and other rich liberal democracies insist that this is the only legitimate model of governance. Yet poor governments cannot afford to govern according to these ideals and instead are compelled to rely more heavily on older, cheaper strategies of holding power, such as patronage and repression. The unwillingness to admit that poor governments do and must govern differently has cost the United States and others inestimable blood and coin. Informed by years of fieldwork and drawing on practitioner work and academic scholarship in politics, economics, law, and history, this book explains the origins of poor governments in the formation of the modern state system and describes the way they govern. It argues that, surprisingly, the effort to stigmatize and criminalize the governance of the poor is both fruitless and destabilizing. The United States must pursue a more effective foreign policy to engage poor governments and acknowledge how they govern.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Corruption, Development, Poverty, Fragile/Failed State, and Governance
Political Geography:: Afghanistan, United States, Haiti, and Mali
Publication Identifier:: 9780231171205
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

88. Dangerous Trade: Arms Exports, Human Rights, and International Reputation

Author:: Jennifer L. Erickson
Publication Date:: 05-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: The United Nations's groundbreaking Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which went into effect in 2014, sets legally binding standards to regulate global arms exports and reflects the growing concerns toward the significant role that small and major conventional arms play in perpetuating human rights violations, conflict, and societal instability worldwide. Many countries that once staunchly opposed shared export controls and their perceived threat to political and economic autonomy are now beginning to embrace numerous agreements, such as the ATT and the EU Code of Conduct. Jennifer L. Erickson explores the reasons top arms-exporting democracies have put aside past sovereignty, security, and economic worries in favor of humanitarian arms transfer controls, and she follows the early effects of this about-face on export practice. She begins with a brief history of failed arms export control initiatives and then tracks arms transfer trends over time. Pinpointing the normative shifts in the 1990s that put humanitarian arms control on the table, she reveals that these states committed to these policies out of concern for their international reputations. She also highlights how arms trade scandals threaten domestic reputations and thus help improve compliance. Using statistical data and interviews conducted in France, Germany, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and the United States, Erickson challenges existing IR theories of state behavior while providing insight into the role of reputation as a social mechanism and the importance of government transparency and accountability in generating compliance with new norms and rules.
Topic:: Arms Control and Proliferation, Human Rights, International Trade and Finance, Treaties and Agreements, and Weapons of Mass Destruction
Political Geography:: Global Focus
Publication Identifier:: 9780231170963
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

89. Voices of the Arab Spring: Personal Stories from the Arab Revolutions

Author:: Asaad Al-Saleh
Publication Date:: 03-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Narrated by dozens of activists and everyday individuals, this book documents the unprecedented events that led to the collapse of dictatorial regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen. Beginning in 2011, these stories offer unique access to the message that inspired citizens to act, their experiences during revolt, and the lessons they learned from some of the most dramatic changes and appalling events to occur in the history of the Arab world. The riveting, revealing, and sometimes heartbreaking stories in this volume also include voices from Syria. Featuring participants from a variety of social and educational backgrounds and political commitments, these personal stories of action represent the Arab Spring's united and broad social movements, collective identities, and youthful character. For years, the volume's participants lived under regimes that brutally suppressed free expression and protest. Their testimony speaks to the multifaceted emotional, psychological, and cultural factors that motivated citizens to join together to struggle against their oppressors.
Topic:: Democratization, Development, Insurgency, Authoritarianism, and Popular Revolt
Political Geography:: Middle East and North Africa
Publication Identifier:: 9780231163194
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

90. Faces of Power: Constancy and Change in United States Foreign Policy from Truman to Obama

Author:: Seyom Brown
Publication Date:: 02-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Seyom Brown's authoritative account of U.S. foreign policy from the end of the Second World War to the present challenges common assumptions about American presidents and their struggle with power and purpose. Brown shows Truman to be more anguished than he publicly revealed about the use of the atomic bomb; Eisenhower and George W. Bush to be more immersed in the details of policy formulation and implementation than generally believed; Reagan to be more invested in changing his worldview while in office than any previous president; and Obama to have modeled his military exit from Iraq and Afghanistan more closely to Nixon and Kissinger's exit strategy from Vietnam than he would like to admit. Brown's analyses of Obama's policies for countering terrorist threats at home and abroad, dealing with unprecedented upheavals in the Middle East, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and containing new territorial expansion by China and Russia reinforce the book's "constancy and change" theme, which shows that serving the interests of the most powerful country in the world transforms the Oval Office's occupant more than its occupant can transform the world.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, Cold War, Terrorism, and International Affairs
Political Geography:: United States
Publication Identifier:: 9780231133296
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

91. Counterinsurgency in Crisis: Britain and the Challenges of Modern Warfare

Author:: David H. Ucko and Robert Egnell
Publication Date:: 01-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Columbia University Press
Abstract:: Long considered the masters of counterinsurgency, the British military encountered significant problems in Iraq and Afghanistan when confronted with insurgent violence. In their effort to apply the principles and doctrines of past campaigns, they failed to prevent Basra and Helmand from descending into lawlessness, criminality, and violence. By juxtaposing the deterioration of these situations against Britain's celebrated legacy of counterinsurgency, this investigation identifies both the contributions and limitations of traditional tactics in such settings, exposing a disconcerting gap between ambitions and resources, intent and commitment. Building upon this detailed account of the Basra and Helmand campaigns, this volume conducts an unprecedented assessment of British military institutional adaptation in response to operations gone awry. In calling attention to the enduring effectiveness of insurgent methods and the threat posed by undergoverned spaces, David H. Ucko and Robert Egnell underscore the need for military organizations to meet the irregular challenges of future wars in new ways.
Topic:: Conflict Resolution, Political Violence, War, and Counterinsurgency
Political Geography:: Afghanistan and Central Asia
Publication Identifier:: 9780231164276
Publication Identifier Type:: ISBN

92. Where the Lions Are: Gazprom's "Energetic Pliers" and Aspirations of a Eurasian Archipelago: The Geopolitics of Russia's Networked Energy Infrastructure

Author:: John Haines
Publication Date:: 08-2015
Content Type:: Book
Abstract:: In a recent essay, George Friedman wrote with admirable clarity about an intelligence truism that is at one and the same time elemental and frequently overlooked: “The entire principle of strategic intelligence is to ruthlessly discard the subcritical noise that is being collected in order to identify the center of gravity of events. A tiny hint may sometimes draw attention to a major process, particularly in military affairs. Finding that tiny hint, however, requires huge amounts of time and effort, and little time is left to understand the meaning. Moreover, in many cases, the process is in plain sight. The trick is to see it, and the even harder trick is to believe it.” With that charge, the objective of this essay is to look at Russia’s network of natural gas pipelines and ethnic enclaves in its near abroad in the interest of exploring whether and how the two intersect. The initial hypothesis is that ethnic separatism is instrumental to the former in two fundamental ways. First, these enclaves are located geographically along major energy pipeline routes, often at key junctures in pipeline networks. Second, they sit atop substantial shale gas reserves, the determined exploitation of which would decisively undercut Russia's natural gas oligopoly. They constitute specific, identifiable “spheres of privileged interests” in Russian foreign policy. The idea for this essay began with a conversation with a Moldovan diplomat about Transnistria, a separatist region of his country that has amassed a staggering debt—in excess of $5 billion—for the purchase of Russian natural gas. Russia's use of this debt to exert political pressure on Moldova is a story broadly understood.[4]
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Debt, Economics, Energy Policy, and Natural Resources
Political Geography:: Russia

93. Bondage: Labor and Rights in Eurasia from the Sixteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries

Author:: Alessandro Stanziani
Publication Date:: 11-2015
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Berghahn Books
Abstract:: For the first time, this book provides the global history of labor in Central Eurasia, Russia, Europe, and the Indian Ocean between the sixteenth and the twentieth centuries. It contests common views on free and unfree labor, and compares the latter to many Western countries where wage conditions resembled those of domestic servants. This gave rise to extreme forms of dependency in the colonies, not only under slavery, but also afterwards in form of indentured labor in the Indian Ocean and obligatory labor in Africa. Stanziani shows that unfree labor and forms of economic coercion were perfectly compatible with market development and capitalism, proven by the consistent economic growth that took place all over Eurasia between the seventeenth and the nineteenth centuries. This growth was labor intensive: commercial expansion, transformations in agriculture, and the first industrial revolution required more labor, not less. Finally, Stanziani demonstrates that this world did not collapse after the French Revolution or the British industrial revolution, as is commonly assumed, but instead between 1870 and 1914, with the second industrial revolution and the rise of the welfare state.
Topic:: Human Rights, Labor Issues, Capitalism, and Industrialization
Political Geography:: Russia, Europe, Eurasia, and Indian Ocean

94. America the Vulnerable: Our Military Problems And How To Fix Them

Author:: John F. Lehman (ed) and Harvey Sicherman (ed)
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: Foreign Policy Research Institute
Abstract:: A decade has passed since the end of the Cold War. The demise of the Soviet Union concluded the most vulnerable period in American history, a time when the possibility of nuclear attack threatened the very existence of the United States. No wonder then that Americans heaved a mighty sigh of relief, having survived to watch the fall of their country's most powerful enemy.
Topic:: Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Terrorism
Political Geography:: United States and America

95. A History of the U.S. Army Officer Corps, 1900-1990

Author:: Arthur T. Coumbe
Publication Date:: 10-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: With the assistance of the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, the Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis published a series of monographs that were intended to provide a theoretical and conceptual framework for the development of an Army Officer Corps Strategy. These monographs consider the creation and maintenance of a highly skilled Officer Corps in the context of the nation's continuing commitment to an all-volunteer military, its far flung international interests, and ongoing changes in its domestic labor market. The authors of the various monographs believe that the confluence of these factors demands a comprehensive Officer Corps strategy that recognizes the interdependency of accessing, developing, retaining, and employing talent. In their view, building a talent-focused strategy around this four-activity human capital model would best enable the Army to match individual officer competencies to specific competency requirements.
Topic:: Security, Defense Policy, War, International Affairs, and History
Political Geography:: United States

96. Political and Socio-Economic Change: Revolutions and Their Implications for the U.S. Military

Author:: John R. Deni
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: The revolutions of the Arab Spring have had profound implications for global security generally and for U.S. security specifically. In most cases, these implications are only beginning to reveal themselves in the various countries affected across the region. Most obviously, the future of Syria—indeed, whether it remains a unified political entity—remains an open question. Whether and how the Syrian civil war is resolved is bound to impact significantly U.S. efforts to help Israel maintain its security. Meanwhile, in Libya, weak governmental institutions and rival power centers have made it difficult for the authorities in Tripoli to gain full control over the entire country. Particularly along Libya's borders, this has magnified the risk of transnational terrorists and traffickers exploiting the poorly governed spaces of the Pan Sahel. Elsewhere, the unfinished revolution in Egypt holds implications for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, for the balance of regional power vis-à-vis Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, and for the global trade—especially energy resources—that passes through the Suez Canal every day.
Topic:: Security, Foreign Policy, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and International Affairs
Political Geography:: United States, Iran, Arabia, Syria, and Egypt

97. The U.S.-India Relationship: Cross-Sector Collaboration To Promote Sustainable Development

Author:: Michael J. Fratantuono, Dr. David M. Sarcone, and John D. Colwell Jr.
Publication Date:: 09-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: In August 2012, my colleague, David Sarcone, and I learned that a proposal for a workshop entitled, “The U.S.-India Relationship: Cross-Sector Collaboration to Promote Sustainable Development,” that we had submitted to the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) of the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) had been selected for funding under the Academic Engagement Program of SSI. The workshop, which we coordinated and directed in conjunction with SSI, was held at our home institution, Dickinson College, from March 12- 14, 2013. The roster of participants was diverse and impressive: It included leading scholars, military officers, government officials, and representatives from the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors from India and the United States. The purpose of this volume is to share formal contributions made to the workshop by participants, and to convey some of the insights that surfaced during workshop sessions.
Topic:: Development, Treaties and Agreements, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:: United States, South Asia, and India

98. Strategic Retrenchment and Renewal in the American Experience

Author:: Peter Feaver (ed)
Publication Date:: 08-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: American strategic debates are rarely new. They generally replay inherited conflicts of vision and interpretation in new settings. The consistent, almost obsessive, focus on “enduring dilemmas” has led historians like Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., to emphasize the “cycles of American history,” especially as they relate to politics and defense policy.
Topic:: Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, International Affairs, and Governance
Political Geography:: United States and America

99. Visual Propaganda and Extremism in the Online Environment

Author:: Cori E. Dauber and Carol K. Winkler
Publication Date:: 07-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: The presence of terrorist and other extremist groups online has risen sharply over the last 2 decades. In 1998, less than half of the U.S. designated Foreign Terrorist Organizations had websites; by the end of 1999, the number had already jumped to include almost all of them. Between 2003 and 2005, the number of websites serving terrorists and their supporters rose to 4,300. The University of Arizona's Dark Web Project provided a recent snapshot of the substantial traffic operating through online sites associated with extremist groups. In 2011, the Dark Web team reported that they had downloaded the contents of 29 extremist online forums, which resulted in the retrieval of more than 1.5 million conversation threads from more than 350,000 authors who had left 14 million messages.
Topic:: Political Violence, Defense Policy, Globalization, Science and Technology, Terrorism, and Communications
Political Geography:: United States

100. Moving Beyond Pretense: Nuclear Power and Nonproliferation

Author:: Henry Sokolski (ed)
Publication Date:: 06-2014
Content Type:: Book
Institution:: The Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College
Abstract:: Governments have funded most of the nuclear industry's research and development, financed or guaranteed loans for its construction and export of nuclear plants, capped its liability for offsite damages in the case of nuclear accidents, and promoted its development internationally. Throughout, officials have insisted that the dangers of nuclear weapons proliferation attendant to the further spread of nuclear energy programs are manageable.
Topic:: Conflict Prevention, Security, Defense Policy, Arms Control and Proliferation, and Treaties and Agreements

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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS