War And Democratization

"Through a study of the mobilization of the Italian and British labor movements during World War I, this book explores whether war advances democracy. It explains why Italy descended into fascism and Britain made minimal democratic advances" --

Introduction : war, politics, democracy -- Democratic security -- Citizens and soldiers : the difference uniforms make -- A modest case for symmetry : are soldiers morally equal? -- Leaders and the gambles of war : against political luck -- War, democracy, and Secrecy : secret law -- Must a democracy be ruthless? : torture and existential politics -- Humanitarian intervention and the new democratic holy wars -- Drones and democracy -- Democracy and the death of norms -- Democratic states in victory : vae victis? -- Looking backward : democratic transitions and the choice of justice.

This book investigates the origins of civil wars which emerge from failed attempts at democratization. The main aim of this volume is to develop a theoretical explanation of the conditions under which and the mechanisms through which social movements’ struggles for democracy end up in civil war. While the empirical evidence suggests that this is not a rare phenomenon, the literatures on social movements, democratization and civil wars have grown apart from each other. At the theoretical level, Social Movements and Civil War bridges insights in the three fields, looking in particular at explanations of the radicalization of social movements, the failure of democratization processes and the onset of civil war. In doing this, it builds upon the relational approach developed in contentious politics with the aim of singling out robust causal mechanisms. At the empirical level, the research provides in-depth descriptions of four cases of trajectory from social movements for democratization into civil wars: in Syria, Libya, Yemen and the former Yugoslavia. Conditions such as the double weakness of civil society and the state, the presence of entrepreneurs of violence as well as normative and material resources for violence, ethnic and tribal divisions, domestic and international military interventions are considered as influencing the chains of actors’ choices rather than as structural determinants. This book will be of great interest to students of civil wars, political violence, social movements, democratization, and IR in general.

Provides empirical evidence that power-sharing measures used to end civil wars can help facilitate a transition to minimalist democracy.

Post-conflict reconstruction is one of the most pressing political issues today. This book uses economics to analyze critically the incentives and constraints faced by various actors involved in reconstruction efforts. Through this analysis, the book will aid in understanding why some reconstructions are more successful than others.

War and Democracy presents a selection of essays and reviews by Paul Gottfried written from 1975 to the present. They cover a variety of topics, both historical and contemporary, ranging from Oswald Spengler and the Frankfurt School to the destruction of classical liberalism, the dumbing down of higher education and the increasing dominance of administration in democratic governments. Most crucially, Gottfried sees Western governments as engaged in a messianic fantasy of bringing democracy to the world, an imperialist endeavor that has only brought disaster to all nations concerned, while liberties at home are being gradually curtailed. A recurring theme is the transformation of the modern West, and how the meanings behind the ideas and concepts which helped to build our civilization have been altered to create a new type of society that bears a connection with that of our forefathers in name only. He points out that the history we are taught and the "Right" that we know today have become signifiers for a very different reality that is in many ways opposed to what they stood for previously. Gottfried remains tenacious in his defense of the original meaning and purpose behind the conservative movement, which favors organic social growth as opposed to imposition through force and an expanding bureaucracy. "The notion that all countries must be brought - willingly or kicking and screaming - into the democratic fold is an invitation to belligerence. The notion that only democracies such as ours can be peaceful is what Edmund Burke called an 'armed doctrine.' ... It is simply ridiculous to treat the pursuit of peace based on world democratic conversion as a peaceful enterprise. This is a barely disguised adaptation of the Communist goal of bringing about world harmony through worldwide socialist revolution." Paul Gottfried (b. 1941) has been one of America's leading intellectual historians and paleoconservative thinkers for over 40 years, and is the author of many books, including the landmark Conservatism in America (2007). A critic of the neoconservative movement, he has warned against the growing lack of distinctions between the Democratic and Republican parties and the rise of the managerial state. He has been acquainted with many of the leading American political figures of recent decades, including Richard Nixon and Patrick Buchanan. He is Professor Emeritus of Humanities at Elizabethtown College and a Guggenheim recipient.

Surveys the bureaucratic mistakes--including poor weapons and strategic blunders--that marked America's entry into World War II, showing how these errors were overcome by the citizens waging the war.