Search

Begin New Search Content Type Book

51. 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

52. 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

53. 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

54. 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

55. 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

56. 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

57. 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

58. 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

59. 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

60. 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

61. 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

62. 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

63. 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

64. 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

65. 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

66. 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

67. 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

68. 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

69. 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

70. 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

71. 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

72. 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

73. 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

74. 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

75. 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

76. 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

77. 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

78. 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

79. 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

80. 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

81. 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

82. 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

83. 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

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. 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

86. 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

87. 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

88. 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

89. 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

90. 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

91. 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

92. 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

93. 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

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