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"Gun Rights Activism and the US Culture War is a political anthropology which explores how firearms can become associated with processes of identity formation, as well as acting as symbols of national belonging and embodied safety. In the years following Donald Trump's election an increasingly polarised population is taking up arms against each other more often than ever before. Based on 12 months of participant observation at gun ranges, activist meetings, handgun courses, and political events, as well as interviews with gun rights activists in San Diego County, this book argues that US conservative identity is saturated with concerns about ethics, gender, and who can wield violence legitimately. The book focuses on two gun rights organisations; the first a conservative, predominantly white and male political action committee; the second a pro-LGBTQ+ firearms training group run by trans women. By paying attention to the nuances of gun rights and defensive shooter groups, this book demonstrates gun ownership gives Americans the perceived means to enact their political will through the threat of or real organized violence, and that this perceived capacity explains why guns remain objects that continue to inspire such devotion and debate. Gun Rights Activism and the US Culture War will be of interest to scholars and students in anthropology, gender studies, ethnic studies, sociology, and politics, as well as a general audience of narrative non-fiction readers"--

Resilience refers to the ability of individuals, groups and societies to withstand and recover from external shocks. This pioneering book-length comparative study examines resilience as it is experienced across different countries, such as the UK, US, France, Germany and EU. Furthermore it considers cases from policy sectors including national security, counterterrorism, civil protection, disaster risk reduction, critical infrastructure protection and overseas interventions. In doing so, Joseph provides an account of why it is that resilience has become such a popular policy topic, looking at its focus on complexity, the human and the role of resilient individuals and communities. Arguing that resilience has risen to prominence because it fits with a particularly Anglo-Saxon and neoliberal form of governance, Joseph discovers differing results across policy domains and national contexts, fomenting variations and tensions in the international discourse of resilience in policy-making.

Resilience refers to the ability of individuals, groups and societies to withstand and recover from external shocks. This pioneering book-length comparative study examines resilience as it is experienced across different countries, such as the UK, US, France, Germany and EU. Furthermore it considers cases from policy sectors including national security, counterterrorism, civil protection, disaster risk reduction, critical infrastructure protection and overseas interventions. In doing so, Joseph provides an account of why it is that resilience has become such a popular policy topic, looking at its focus on complexity, the human and the role of resilient individuals and communities. Arguing that resilience has risen to prominence because it fits with a particularly Anglo-Saxon and neoliberal form of governance, Joseph discovers differing results across policy domains and national contexts, fomenting variations and tensions in the international discourse of resilience in policy-making

How do influential social ideas contribute to global governance? This book takes an original approach to international relations by looking at the way social ideas help to portray the world in a particular way. Jonathan Joseph begins by analysing the role of important concepts such as globalisation, global civil society, social capital, networks and risk; then examines the role these concepts play in the discourse of international organisations. Using the concept of governmentality, he argues that contemporary social theories help justify contemporary forms of governance. By comparing organisations like the EU and the World Bank, Joseph investigates the extent to which these ideas are influential in theory and in practice

Resilience has emerged as a key theme in recent policy making. It spans a range of policy fields from infrastructure protection through to humanitarian intervention. This Research Paper looks at resilience as a theme of development strategy and humanitarian intervention and examines how it has emerged in German policy making. It argues that the dominant approach to resilience is a form of neoliberal governmentality that seeks to govern populations from a distance, devolve responsibility to people and communities, promote market mechanisms, encourage entrepreneurial behaviour and promote adaptation innovation and transformation among traditional communities. However, it is also recognised that this is a strongly Anglo-Saxon approach, targeted at specific individuals and communities. The purpose of the paper is to consider the extent to which German policy making is simply a reflection of this dominant Anglo-Saxon approach, or whether there is a more distinctive German view of resilience. It does this by exploring tensions in the German discourse, indicating that there might be other political dynamics in play alongside the neoliberal ones.

This article sets out a new way of understanding how resilience works as a form of governmentality with specific focus on international interventions. It argues that resilience governs though failure and denial, suggesting that it builds on both failures to govern complex systems and past failures of intervention, in order to promote a new governance through denial that further shifts responsibility onto the governed. It suggests that resilience, rather than being a radical new approach, fits with existing discourse and practices, but offers something new in terms of its approach to knowledge, the social, and the human. Running this through the themes of failure and denial, the article suggests that resilience offers certain possibilities for human action, but that its emancipatory potential is largely constrained by the way it limits how we understand the bigger picture. This is explored in relation to international interventions and the way that resilience contributes to global governmentality.

The EU has recently got involved in resilience building. This article concentrates on the SHARE project relating to resilience building in the Horn of Africa. It suggests that resilience is best understood as part of a particular approach to governance. By employing the concept of governmentality it is suggested that the resilience project is part of a broader strategy that seeks to govern from a distance. It is argued that this is consistent with two other developments. First it fits with new approaches to development and global governance, something that is shown through a comparison with the work of USAID. And it fits with the EU's own internal processes both in the field of risk and disaster preparedness, and in relation to things like the open method of co-ordination. Resilience has emerged as an important new approach and this will be at the heart of internal and external EU relations. Adapted from the source document.