Suchergebnisse

This article analyses Vietnamese strategies to constrain China in the South China Sea. It tests Brantly Womack's theory of asymmetry as a framework for analysing bilateral relations. Mature asymmetry exists when the weaker state gives deference to the more powerful state in return for the stronger state's recognition of the weaker state's autonomy. Vietnam attempts to achieve this balance through a process of "struggle and cooperation" with China on key issue areas. Vietnam pursues three strategies to manage its relations with China: codification of bilateral relations through high-level visits by party and state leaders; enmeshment of China in a web of cooperative relations including economic ties; and self-help, particularly military modernization. This article analyses the bilateral mechanisms that structure political, economic and defence relations. The party mechanisms include summit meetings, exchange visits by party commissions and ideological seminars. State-to-state relations are managed by a Joint Steering Committee at deputy prime minister level and comprise a dense network of ministerial exchanges. Defence relations are managed at ministerial level and include senior high-level visits and a range of defence cooperation activities including joint ship patrols and naval port visits. The article concludes with a discussion of tensions arising from territorial and sovereignty disputes in the South China Sea. In summary, the "tyranny of geography" dictates to Vietnam that it judiciously apply the levers of cooperation and struggle through various party, state, military and multilateral structures in order to better manage its relations with China. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)

This book focuses on the social process of conflict news production and the emergence of public discourse on war and armed conflict. Its contributions combine qualitative and quantitative approaches through interview studies and computer-assisted content analysis and apply a unique comparative and holistic approach over time, across different cycles of six conflicts in three regions of the world, and across different types of domestic, international and transnational media. In so doing, it explores the roles of public communication through traditional media, social media, strategic communication, and public relations in informing and involving national and international actors in conflict prevention, resolution and peace-keeping. It provides a key point of reference for creative, innovative, and state-of-the-art empirical research on media and armed conflict.

1. Introducing Nonviolence 1 . - 2. Non-Violence in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism 11 . - 3. Christianity and Nonviolence 27. - 4. Islam and Nonviolence 41. - 5. Philosophical Foundations of Nonviolence 56 . - 6. Gandhi and Nonviolence 77 . - 7. Pragmatic Nonviolence 88. - 8. Critiques of Nonviolence 112. - 9. Nonviolence in the Twentieth Century 134 . - 10. Nonviolence in the Twenty-First Century 155 . - Conclusion: Democracy and Nonviolence 177

Why have Israelis and Palestinians failed to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict that has cost so much and lasted so long? In Paradigm Lost, Ian S. Lustick brings fifty years as an analyst of the Arab-Israeli dispute to bear on this question and offers a provocative explanation of why continued attempts to divide the land will have no more success than would negotiations to establish a one-state solution. Basing his argument on the decisiveness of unanticipated consequences, Lustick shows how the combination of Zionism's partially successful Iron Wall strategy for dealing with Arabs, an Israeli political culture saturated with what the author calls "Holocaustia," and the Israel lobby's dominant influence on American policy toward the Arab-Israeli conflict scuttled efforts to establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Yet, he demonstrates, it has also unintentionally set the stage for new struggles and "better problems" for both Israel and the Palestinians. Drawing on the history of scientific ideas that once seemed certain but were ultimately discarded, Lustick encourages shifting attention from two-state blueprints that provide no map for realistic action to the democratizing competition that arises when different subgroups, forced to be part of the same polity, redefine their interests and form new alliances to pursue them. Paradigm Lost argues that negotiations for a two-state solution between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River are doomed and counterproductive. Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs can enjoy the democracy they deserve but only after decades of struggle amid the unintended but powerful consequences of today's one-state reality.

Why do women go to war? Despite the reality that female combatants exist the world over, we still know relatively little about who these women are, what motivates them to take up arms, how they are utilized by armed groups, and what happens to them when war ends. This book uses three case studies to explore variation in women's participation in nonstate armed groups in a range of contemporary political and social contexts: the civil war in Ukraine, the conflicts involving Kurdish groups in the Middle East, and the civil war in Colombia. In particular, the authors examine three important aspects of women's participation in armed groups: mobilization, participation in combat, and conflict cessation. In doing so, they shed light on women's pathways into and out of nonstate armed groups. They also address the implications of women's participation in these conflicts for policy, including postconflict programming. This is an accessible and timely work that will be a useful introduction to another side of contemporary conflict.