Military Integration after Civil Wars: Multiethnic Armies, Identity and Post-Conflict Reconstruction
Florence Gaub
Routledge (2010)
Rs14,904
This book examines the role of multiethnic armies in post-conflict reconstruction, and demonstrates how they can promote peacebuilding efforts.
The author challenges the assumption that multiethnic composition leads to weakness of the military, and shows how a multiethnic army is frequently the impetus for peacemaking in multiethnic societies. Three case studies (Nigeria, Lebanon and Bosnia-Herzegovina) determine that rather than external factors, it is the internal structures that make or break the military institution in a socially challenging environment. The book finds that where the political will is present, the multiethnic military can become a symbol of reconciliation and coexistence. Furthermore, it shows that the military as a professional identity can supersede ethnic considerations and thus facilitates cooperation within the armed forces despite a hostile post-conflict setting. In this, the book challenges widespread theories about ethnic identities and puts professional identities on an equal footing with them.
The book will be of great interest to students of military studies, ethnic conflict, conflict studies and peacebuilding, and IR in general
Florence Gaub is a Researcher and Lecturer at the NATO Defence College in Rome. She holds a PhD in International Politics from Humboldt University, Berlin.
Political Discourse and Conflict Resolution - Debating Peace in Northern Ireland
Edited by Katy Hayward, Catherine O’Donnell
Routledge (2010)
Rs14,904
This book offers new insights into the close relationship between political discourses and conflict resolution through critical analysis of the role of discursive change in a peace process.
Just as a peace process has many dimensions and stakeholders, so the discourses considered here come from a wide range of sources and actors. The book contains in-depth analyses of official discourses used to present the peace process, the discourses of political party leaders engaging (or otherwise) with it, the discourses of community-level activists responding to it, and the discourses of the media and the academy commenting on it. These discourses reflect varying levels of support for the peace process – from obstruction to promotion – and the role of language in moving across this spectrum according to issue and occasion. Common to all these analyses is the conviction that the language used by political protagonists and cultural stakeholders has a profound effect on progression towards peace.
Bringing together leading experts on Northern Ireland’s peace process from a range of academic disciplines, including political science, sociology, linguistics, history, geography, law, and peace studies, this book offers new insights into the discursive dynamics of violent political conflict and its resolution.
Katy Hayward is Lecturer in Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast.
Catherine O’Donnell is an independent scholar. She was an IRCHSS post-doctoral fellow at the Humanities Institute of Ireland, University College Dublin, 2005-2007.
Reform and Development in China: What Can China Offer the Developing World
Edited by Yang Yao, Ho-Mou Wu
Routledge (2010)
Rs17,699
Between 1978 and 2006, GDP growth in China maintained an annual average rate of 9.7%, meaning the Chinese economy increased by more than twelve times. This was achieved with quite unorthodox approaches to reform and development as China has adopted a gradualist approach to adopting key institutions, as well as modifying and experimenting with traditional recipes for economic growth.
This collection brings together key researchers in the field from Asia, US, Europe and Australia to discuss how China has managed to push forward reforms in the face of political resistance, how the Chinese economy has maintained growth within an imperfect institutionalist environment and how the Chinese government remains effective when it relinquishes its power to the market. Specific emphasis is paid to the relevance of China’s experiences to other developing countries. This valuable contribution to the study of China’s economy covers a wide range of topics, including the historical foundations of the 30 years of reform, law and development in China, foreign direct investment, poverty reduction, market integration, income distribution, social protection, as well as demographics and population.
Reform and Development in China finds both unique elements to the Chinese experience and elements which can be applied to other developing countries. In particular, China’s gradualism in economic reform, strong leadership, and emphasis on inclusive development are singled out to be potentially transferable to other developing countries. This collection will be of interest to postgraduate students and researchers as well as practitioners in development economics.
Yang Yao and Hu-Mou Wu are Professors of Economics at the China Centre for Economic Research at the University of Peking in Beijing, China.
China’s Rise - Threat or Opportunity?
Herbert S. Yee
Routledge (2010)
Rs15,836
The phenomenal growth of Chinese economic and military power in the first decade of the 21st century has drawn world-wide attention. Perceptions of China’s rise have shifted from seeing China as a threat to a more mixed view, where China is seen as playing a key role in economic recovery, taking an increasingly responsible role in world affairs, and contributing significantly to scientific and technological advances.
This book argues that China will only become a truly global power when its rising power status is accepted, or at least tolerated, by other major powers and China’s neighbours. Filling a major gap in the existing literature, it presents a comprehensive overview of how China’s rise is perceived in a wide range of countries and regions – these include China’s neighbours, other world powers, the parts of China not part of mainland China - Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau - and regions of the world where China is having an unexpected impact, such as the Middle East. It also examines changing perceptions of China in the western media. Overall, the book demonstrates that whilst many countries and regions are much more positive about China’s rise than they were before, considerable nervousness and concern persists.
Herbert S. Yee is currently Visiting Professor of Politics and International Relations at the Macau Polytechnic Institute, China, and former Professor in the Department of Government and International Studies at Hong Kong Baptist University. His recent publications include (as co-editor) The China Threat: Perceptions, Myths and Reality (also published by Routledge) and Return of the Dragon: US-China Relations in the 21st Century.
Political Emotions (New Agendas in Communication Series)
Edited by Janet Staiger, Ann Cvetkovich, Ann Reynolds
Routledge (2010)
Rs13,041
Political Emotions explores the contributions that the study of discourses, rhetoric, and framing of emotion make to understanding the public sphere, civil society and the political realm. Tackling critiques on the opposition of the public and private spheres, chapters in this volume examine why some sentiments are valued in public communication while others are judged irrelevant, and consider how sentiments mobilize political trajectories.
Emerging from the work of the Public Feelings research group at the University of Texas-Austin, and cohering in a New Agendas in Communication symposium, this volume brings together the work of young scholars from various areas of study, including sociology, gender studies, anthropology, art, and new media. The essays in this collection formulate new ways of thinking about the relations among the emotional, the cultural, and the political. Contributors recraft familiar ways of doing critical work, and bring forward new analyses of emotions in politics. Their work expands understanding of the role of emotion in the political realm, and will be influential in political communication, political science, sociology, and visual and cultural studies.
Janet Staiger is the William P. Hobby Centennial Professor of Communication in the Radio/TV/Film department at the University of Texas. Her books include Media Reception Studies (New York University, 2005), Perverse Spectators: The Practices of Film Reception (New York University, 2000), and Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema, 1907–1915 (Minnesota, 1995).
Ann Cvetkovich is Ellen Clayton Garwood Centennial Professor of English at the University of Texas. She is the author of Mixed Feelings: Feminism, Mass Culture, and Victorian Sensationalism (Rutgers, 1992) and An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (Duke, 2003).
Ann Reynolds is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Robert Smithson: Learning From New Jersey and Elsewhere (MIT, 2003) and is currently working on a new book, Home Movies: Creativity, Community, and Publics in New York, 1940–1970.