The European Union means many different things to its many peoples. In Germany, for example, the European project was conceived mainly as post-national, or even post-sovereign. In France, by contrast, President Emmanuel Macron has pursued the vision of a sovereign Europe; that is, an EU that would become a formidable geopolitical actor. Yet, instead, Europe has struggled to ascertain its values abroad and even domestically, facing a sovereignist rebellion from its newer member states, such as Hungary and Poland, and the departure of Britain. The eurozone crisis has undermined the EU''s economic credentials, the refugee crisis its societal cohesion, the failure to stand up to Russia its sense of purpose, and the Covid-19 pandemic its credibility as a protector of European citizens. The key argument of this book is that the multiple crises of the European project are caused by one underlying factor: its bold attempt to overcome the age of nation-states. Left unchecked, supranational institutions tend to become ever more bureaucratic, eluding control of the people they are meant to serve. The logic of technocracy is thus pitted against the democratic impulse, which the European Union is supposed to embody. Democracy in Europe has suffered as a result.
Examines the interaction between Islam and politics in the post colonial world. This book focuses on how demands for Muslim autonomy are debated in terms such as democracy, cultural relativism, secularism and liberalism.
Critical Muslim showcases ground breaking thinking on Islam and what it means to be a Muslim in a rapidly changing, interconnected world.
Critical Muslim showcases ground breaking thinking on Islam and what it means to be a Muslim in a rapidly changing, interconnected world.
In the tumultuous aftermath of the Arab uprisings, Tunisia charted a unique path that has earned it praise as 'a beacon of hope' in a troubled region. Since the 2011 revolution, it has embraced a new culture of democracy, based on pluralism, civilian rule and the peaceful transfer of power. Equally noteworthy are the country's burgeoning civil society, its various institutional reforms and its progressive new constitution, which upholds individual freedoms and champions women's rights. But in spite of these achievements, daunting challenges remain. Although Tunisia has succeeded in defusing many crises, its transition has been uneasy; its democracy is fragile and its future continues to be uncertain. As the country emerges from decades of authoritarian rule, it faces enormous political, social, economic and security challenges, which are undermining its peaceful evolution. It is this state of fragility that 'A Fledgling Democracy' seeks to capture. Focusing on the socio-political dynamics that have unfolded in this North African nation since the revolution, the contributors to this volume shed light on how Tunisia has navigated its first decade of democratic transition, and reflect on what the ongoing changes and challenges mean for the country today.
Proxy warfare will shape the conflicts of the twenty-first century for the foreseeable future. Yet the popular understanding of proxy wars remains largely shaped by the experience of the Cold War. In reality, in the Greater Middle East and its periphery today, the growing power of regional states and non-state actors, combined with the proliferation of new technology, has reshaped proxy conflicts, in an increasingly multipolar and interconnected environment. In this collected volume, a range of researchers examine what constitutes proxy warfare and provide new insight into how these wars are waged, in contexts stretching from Ukraine to North Africa and Syria to Afghanistan. The volume draws upon research, surveys and interviews conducted in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, as well as examining the propaganda output of those involved in these countries' wars. In doing so, 'Understanding the New Proxy Wars' helps reveal both the continuities and the differences between recent conflicts and those of times past.
Covid-19 has given renewed, urgent attention to `the pandemic¿ as a devastating, recurrent global phenomenon. Today the term is freely and widely used¿but in reality, it has a long and contested history, centred on South Asia. Pandemic India is an innovative enquiry into the emergence of the idea and changing meaning of pandemics, exploring the pivotal role played by¿or assigned to¿India over the past 200 years. Using the perspectives of the social historian and the historian of medicine, and a wide range of sources, it explains how and why past pandemics were so closely identified with South Asia; the factors behind outbreaks¿ exceptional destructiveness in India; responses from society and the state, both during and since the colonial era; and how such collective catastrophes have changed lives and been remembered. Giving a `long history¿ to Indiäs current pandemic, the book offers comparisons with earlier epidemics of cholera, plague and influenza. David Arnold assesses the distinctive characteristics and legacies of each episode, tracking the evolution of public health strategies and containment measures. This is a historian¿s reflection on time as seen through the pandemic prism, and on the ways the past is used¿or misused¿to serve the present.
Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the normalisation of relations between Iran and America has appeared unrealistic if not inconceivable, given that the Iranian state has vigorously pursued an anti-American ideology. This account of US-Iranian relations examines the efficacy of external pressure such as sanctions, as well as domestic grassroots reform movements within the Islamic Republic. The Obama presidency marked a rare high point in the Washington-Tehran relationship, as negotiations between the two countries and other powers produced an unprecedented nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. However, the Trump administration's unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA, and re-imposition of new sanctions in pursuit of 'maximum pressure', had devastating economic consequences, undermining the Iranian middle class, which has consistently been the voice of political moderation and supported Iran's integration into the global economy. Crucially, sanctions have also driven Iran further into the arms of China, while rendering it an even more recalcitrant and aggressive adversary. Monshipouri's central conviction is that negotiations are pivotal to dismantling the mistrust that has long characterised US-Iranian relations, and to seeking détente between Iran and its Arab neighbours--a critical priority, since gradual US withdrawal from the region is all but certain.
In the twenty-first century, the relationship between violent conflict and natural resources has become a matter of intense public and academic debate. As a result of fervent activism and international campaigning, the flagship case of 'conflict minerals' has captured global attention. This term groups together the artisanal tin, tantalum (coltan), tungsten and gold originating from war zones in Central Africa. Known as 'digital minerals' for their use in high-end technology, their exploitation and trade has been singled out in numerous media and United Nations reports as a key driver of violence, provoking an unprecedented popular outcry and prompting transnational efforts to promote 'conflict-free', ethical mining. Focusing on the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Conflict Minerals, Inc. is the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon. Based on meticulous investigation and long-term fieldwork, this book analyses why the campaign against 'unethical' mining went awry, and radically disrupted eastern Congo's political economy. It dissects the evolution of the conflict minerals paradigm, the policy responses it triggered and their impact on artisanal miners. Vogel demonstrates how Western advocacy and policy have relied on colonial frames to drive change, and how White Saviourism perpetuates structural violence and inequality across global supply and value chains.
Trade Makes States highlights how trade and the circulation of goods are central to Somali societies, economies and politics. Drawing on multi-site research from across East Africa''s Somali-inhabited economic space--which includes areas of Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda and Ethiopia--this volume highlights the interconnection between trade and state-building after state collapse. It scrutinises the ''politics of circulation'' between competing public administrations, which seek to generate revenue and to control infrastructures along major trade corridors.Connecting classic debates on state formation with recent scholarship on logistics and cross-border trading, Trade Makes States argues that the facilitation and capture of commodity flows have been instrumental in making and unmaking states across the Somali territories. Aspiring state-builders are thus confronted with the challenge of governing the flow of goods in order to rule over lands and peoples.The contributors to this volume draw attention to the ingenuities of transnational Somali markets, which often appear to be self-governed. Their dynamism and everyday administration by a host of actors provide important insights into contemporary state formation on the margins of global supply-chain capitalism.
Paints a portrait of Romania under Communist dictatorship, from political twists and turns to daily life and daring dissent in an unfree state.
This book examines the digital explosion that has ripped across the battlefield, weaponising our attention and making everyone a participant in wars without end.''Smart'' devices, apps, archives and algorithms remove the bystander from war, collapsing the distinctions between audience and actor, soldier and civilian, media and weapon. This has ruptured our capacity to make sense of war. Now we are all either victims or perpetrators.In ''Radical War'', Ford and Hoskins reveal how contemporary war is legitimised, planned, fought, experienced, remembered and forgotten in a continuous and connected way, through digitally saturated fields of perception.Plotting the emerging relationship between data, attention and the power to control war, the authors chart the complex digital and human interdependencies that sustain political violence today. Through a unique, interdisciplinary lens, they map our disjointed experiences of conflict and illuminate this dystopian new ecology of war.
The 2020 toppling of slave-trader Edward Colston's statue by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol was a dramatic reminder of Britain's role in trans-Atlantic slavery, too often overlooked. Yet the legacy of that predatory economy reaches far beyond bronze memorials; it continues to shape the entire visual fabric of the country. Architect Victoria Perry explores the relationship between the wealth of slave-owning elites and the architecture and landscapes of Georgian Britain. She reveals how profits from Caribbean sugar plantations fed the opulence of stately homes and landscape gardens. Trade in slaves and slave-grown products also boosted the prosperity of ports like Bristol, Liverpool and Glasgow, shifting cultural influence towards the Atlantic west. New artistic centers like Bath emerged, while investment in poor, remote areas of Wales, Cumbria and Scotland led to their "reimagining" as tourist destinations: Snowdonia, the Lakes and the Highlands. The patronage of absentee planters popularized British ideas of "natural scenery"--viewing mountains, rivers and rocks as landscape art--and then exported the concept of "sublime and picturesque" landscapes across the Atlantic. A Bittersweet Heritage unearths the slavery-tainted history of Britain's manors, ports, roads and countryside, and powerfully explains what this legacy means today.
A haunting triple biography of women whose lives were indelibly shaped by slavery, race and the Inquisition.
Decolonisation has lost its way. Originally a struggle to escape the West's direct political and economic control, it has become a catch-all idea, often for performing "morality" or "authenticity;" it suffocates African thought and denies African agency. Olúfemi Táíwò fiercely rejects the indiscriminate application of 'decolonisation' to everything from literature, language and philosophy to sociology, psychology and medicine. He argues that the decolonisation industry, obsessed with cataloguing wrongs, is seriously harming scholarship on and in Africa. He finds 'decolonisation' of culture intellectually unsound and wholly unrealistic, conflating modernity with coloniality, and groundlessly advocating an open-ended undoing of global society's foundations. Worst of all, today's movement attacks its own cause: "decolorisers" themselves are disregarding, infantilizing and imposing values on contemporary African thinkers. This powerful, much-needed intervention questions whether today's 'decolonisation' truly serves African empowerment. Táíwò's is a bold challenge to respect African intellectuals as innovative adaptors, appropriators and synthesizers of ideas they have always seen as universally relevant.
This dissertation concerns the nature and rationality of self-fulfilling beliefs: beliefs whose contents will be true just in case you believe them, because you believe them. Examples of this phenomenon span the quotidian - a child's belief that she will be fed may prompt a parent to begin her feeding - to the complex - as in cases, from the psychology of education, in which student performances match the expectations of their instructors. These examples can be difficult to fit into traditional theories of theoretical reasoning, where the role of theoretical reasoning is to get us on to some independent fact of the matter, by following our evidence. Since there is no independent fact of the matter to track when a belief is self-fulfilling, there will be no evidence of that fact for us to follow. But we are not Cartesian egos, apart from the world and observing it. We ourselves are part of the world we are trying to represent, and so, sometimes, what we believe can affect what the objective world is like. We need an account of theoretical reasoning which can accommodate this fact, and explain how we ought to deliberate about those states of affairs effected by our deliberating
The international intervention after the 2011 Libyan uprising against Muammar Gaddafi was initially considered a remarkable success: the UN Security Council's first application of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine; an impending civilian massacre prevented; and an opportunity for democratic forces to lead Libya out of a forty-year dictatorship. But such optimism was soon dashed. Successive governments failed to establish authority over the ever-proliferating armed groups; divisions among regions and cities, Islamists and others, split the country into rival administrations and exploded into civil war; external intervention escalated. Ian Martin gives his first-hand view of the questions raised by the international mission. Was it a justified response to the threat against civilians? What brought about the Security Council resolutions, including authorising military action? How did NATO act upon that authorisation? What role did Special Forces operations play in the rebels' victory? Was a peaceful political settlement ever possible? What post-conflict planning was undertaken, and should or could there have been a major peacekeeping or stabilisation mission during the transition? As Western interventions are reassessed and Libya continues to struggle for stability, this is a unique account of a critical period, by a senior international official who was close to the events.
A journalist recounts the tragic facts of Nigeria's Biafra war, reflecting on his coverage at the time and how the war has been remembered since.
Gegout's book offers a sharp rebuke to those who believe that altruism is the guiding principle of Western intervention in Africa.
This book explores the impact of Covid-19, and the associated state lockdown, on rural lives in a former homeland in South Africa. The 2020 Disaster Management Act saw the state sweep through rural areas, targeting funerals and other customary practices as potential ''super-spreader'' events. This unprecedented clampdown produced widespread disruption, fear and anxiety. The authors build on path-breaking work concerning local responses to West Africa''s Ebola epidemic, and examine the HIV/AIDS pandemic, to understand the impact of the Covid crisis on these communities, and on rural Africa more broadly.To shed light on the role of custom and ritual in rural social change during the pandemic, Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa applies long-term historical and ethnographic research; theories of people''s science, local knowledge and the human economy; and fieldwork conducted in ten rural South African communities during lockdown. The volume highlights differences between developments in Southern Africa and elsewhere on the continent, while exploring how the former apartheid homelands-commonly, yet problematically, represented as former ''labour reserves''-have since been reconstituted as new home-spaces. In short, it explains why rural people have been so angered by the state''s assault on their cultural practices and institutions in the time of Covid.
In the twenty-first century, there has been a seismic shift in Indian political, religious and social life. The country''s guiding spirit was formerly a fusion of the anti-caste worldview of B.R. Ambedkar; the inclusive Hinduism of Mahatma Gandhi; and the agnostic secularism of Jawaharlal Nehru. Today, that fusion has given way to Hindutva.This now-dominant version of Hinduism blends the militant nationalism of V.D. Savarkar; the Brahmanical anti-minorityism of M.S. Golwalkar; and the global Islamophobia of India''s ruling regime. It requires deep cultural analysis and historical understanding, as only the sharpest and most profoundly informed historian can provide.For two decades, Tanika Sarkar has forged a path through the alleys and byways of Hindutva. She has trawled through the writing and iconography of its organisations and institutions, including RSS schools and VHP temples. She has visited the offices and homes of Hindutva''s votaries, interviewing men and women who believe fervently in their mission of Hinduising India. And she has contextualised this new ferment on the ground with her formidable archival knowledge of Hindutva''s origins and development over 150 years, from Bankimchandra to the Babri mosque and beyond. This riveting book connects Hindu religious nationalism with the cultural politics of everyday India.
Considers the impact of technologies and scientific ideas on the practice of warfare and the handling of the perennial tension between order and chaos on the battlefield. This work explores modern warfare as the constitution of complex social assemblages of machines whose integration has been made through the deployment of scientific methodology.
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