Transnational Actors In War And Peace

Transnational Actors in War and Peace explores the identities, organization, strategies, and influence of transnational actors involved in contentious politics, armed conflict, and peacemaking over the last one hundred years. While the study of transnational politics has been a rapidly growing field, to date, the disparate array of actors have not been analyzed alongside each other, making it difficult to develop a common theoretical framework or determine their relative influence on international stability, war, and peace. This work seeks to fill this gap by bringing together a diverse set of scholars focused on a range of transnational actors, such as: pirates, foreign fighters, terrorists, private military security companies, criminal networks, religious groups, diasporas, political exiles, NGOs, environmental activists, global news agencies, and feminist advocacy networks. Each chapter examines a different transnational actor and is structured around five components: how the actor is organized; how it interacts with other actors; how it communicates both internally and externally; how it influences conflict/peace; and how it reflects developments in transnationalism.

Throughout the Cold War, people worldwide feared that the U.S. and Soviet governments could not prevent a nuclear showdown. Citizens from both East-bloc and Western countries, among them prominent scientists and physicians, formed networks to promote ideas and policies that would lessen this danger. Two of their organizations—the Pugwash movement and the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War—won Nobel Peace Prizes. Still, many observers believe that their influence was negligible and that the Reagan administration deserves sole credit for ending the Cold War. The first book to explore the impact these activists had on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain, Unarmed Forces demonstrates the importance of their efforts on behalf of arms control and disarmament.Matthew Evangelista examines the work of transnational peace movements throughout the Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev eras and into the first years of Boris Yeltsin's leadership. Drawing on extensive research in Russian archives and on interviews with Russian and Western activists and policymakers, he investigates the sources of Soviet policy on nuclear testing, strategic defense, and conventional forces. Evangelista concludes that transnational actors at times played a crucial role in influencing Soviet policy—specifically in encouraging moderate as opposed to hard-line responses—for they supplied both information and ideas to that closed society. Evangelista's findings challenge widely accepted views about the peaceful resolution of the Cold War. By revealing the connection between a state's domestic structure and its susceptibility to the influence of transnational groups, Unarmed Forces will also stimulate thinking about the broader issue of how government policy is shaped.

This book offers new international perspectives on captivity in wartime during the twentieth century. It explores how global institutions and practices with regard to captives mattered, how they evolved and most importantly, how they influenced the treatment of captives. From the beginning of the twentieth century, international organisations, neutral nations and other actors with no direct involvement in the respective wars often had to fill in to support civilian as well as military captives and to supervise their treatment. This edited volume puts these actors, rather than the captives themselves, at the centre in order to assess comparatively their contributions to wartime captivity. Taking a global approach, it shows that transnational bodies - whether non-governmental organisations, neutral states or individuals - played an essential role in dealing with captives in wartime. Chapters cover both the largest wars, such as the two World Wars, but also lesser-known conflicts, to highlight how captives were placed at the centre of transnational negotiations.

This book sheds new light on the security challenges for failed states posed by violent non-state armed actors (VNSAs). By focusing on the Syrian Civil War, it explores the characteristics, ideologies and strategies of the Islamic State (ISIS) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), as well as the regional and geopolitical impacts of these VNSAs. The contributors also cover topics such as the re-imagination of borders, the YPG’s demands for national sovereignty, and the involvement of regional and global powers in the Syrian crisis. “This timely volume by regional scholars and experts examines various aspects of the emergence and expansion of violent non-state actors in the Syrian/Iraqi conflict. The wealth of detail and approaches enhance our understanding of the transformation and dynamics of contemporary conflicts within and beyond the region.” Keith Krause, The Graduate Institute, Geneva “This book opens fascinating glimpses into contrasting forms of “state-like” governance established by non-state actors, ISIS and the Kurdish PYD. [...] It is an important source for students of the Syrian conflict, civil wars, failed states and hybrid governance.”Raymond Hinnebusch, Director Centre for Syrian Studies, University of St. Andrews “This book is an excellent resource for those looking for an interdisciplinary account of VNSAs during the Syrian civil war. It makes a nice contribution to the study of violent non state actors and poses a set of new and pressing questions.” Max Abrahms, Northeastern University.

Government and Politics is the component of Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty one Encyclopedias. The Theme on Government and Politics in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities deals with the discipline of general and introductory descriptions on a wide range of political phenomena in rather conventional ways. It covers the following topics: The first two topics, “Forms and Modes of Government” and “Structures of Government”, deal with institutional and structural aspects of political phenomena. The third topic “Political Aspects of Government is about dynamic political processes. The fourth “Ideas and Ideologies in Politics” investigates political thoughts and ideologies in the modern world. The fifth topic “International Politics” intend to give readers an international perspective, since contexts and systems which have international or transnational characters are obviously important background against which a political aspect of building a sustainable society must be considered. These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College students Educators, Professional practitioners, Research personnel and Policy analysts, managers, and decision makers and NGOs.

Recognition is often considered a means to de-escalate conflicts and promote peaceful social interactions. This volume explores the forms that social recognition and its withholding may take in asymmetric armed conflicts, examining the risks and opportunities that arise when local, state, and transnational actors recognise, misrecognise, or deny recognition of armed non-state actors. By studying key asymmetric conflicts through the prism of recognition, it offers an innovative perspective on the interactions between armed non-state actors and state actors. In what contexts does granting recognition to armed non-state actors foster conflict transformation? What happens when governments withhold recognition or label armed non-state actors in ways they perceive as misrecognition? The authors examine the ambivalence of recognition processes in violent conflicts and their sometimes-unintended consequences. The volume shows that, while non-recognition prevents conflict transformation, the recognition of armed non-state actors may produce counterproductive precedents and new modes of exclusion in intra-state and transnational politics.

How can sustainable peace be achieved? The book identifies potential supranational, state and non-state actors involved in peacebuilding processes. Further - more, it develops strategies to address the problems and dilemmas of international peacebuilding. An important contribution to a highly topical debate. Hopes for a less conflict-prone world after the end of the Cold War were bitterly disappointed. Instead, the international community is faced with protracted wars and violent conflicts today. In addition, social, economic and cultural insecurities as well as fragile statehood challenge the post-Westphalian environment. As a result, scholars and policy-makers alike are trying to develop viable strategies for sustainable peace. The book contributes to this debate, as it illustrates current research results on the topic and addresses the complex problems and dilemmas that various international peace - building actors are confronted with.

Offering a consistent, future-oriented perspective, this important new study considers the positions of the United States and other world powers in a changing international system and outlines the priorities and constraints that may govern the conduct of American foreign policy in the decades to come. Focusing primarily on the breakdown of the bipolar system and its replacement by a multipolar system, the authors provide an analysis of great-power relations before and during the Cold War - one that challenges some of the prevailing notions about the lessons of the Cold War, examine the recent changes in international alliances and the future role that transnational actors may take in minimizing conflict, and consider the different arrangements under which this multipolar system can provide the most favorable environment for world peace.