Download or read book Political Theory of Armed Groups written by Andrei Miroiu and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-21 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Brief provides a comprehensive introduction to current research on armed groups and proposes a unitary political theory for their future analysis. Traditionally, theoretical and historical approaches to armed groups have focused on different categories of armed groups—insurgents, radical groups, militias, governmental forces—instead of treating them as unitary actors in international politics. This Brief departs from this traditional theoretical treatment, arguing that armed groups are fundamental units of politics, outside of class, gender, and the state, and should be analyzed as such. The book begins with a discussion of current classifications and definitions of armed groups as well as methodological approaches towards studying them. Chapter Two discusses armed groups from a historical and anthropological perspective. Chapter Three presents a critical analysis and interpretation of existing political perspectives on armed groups. The book concludes by introducing the new theory. Challenging traditional methods of political theory and analysis while providing a solid introduction to the field, this Brief will be of use to researchers and scholars in political theory, international relations, political science, and anthropology, as well as to professionals in fields such as policing, counter-terrorism, and internal affairs.
Download or read book How Insurgency Begins written by Janet I. Lewis and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do only some incipient rebel groups become viable challengers to governments? Only those that control local rumor networks survive.
Download or read book Ordering Violence written by Paul Staniland and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2021-12-15 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Ordering Violence, Paul Staniland advances a broad approach to armed politics—bringing together governments, insurgents, militias, and armed political parties in a shared framework—to argue that governments' perception of the ideological threats posed by armed groups drive their responses and interactions. Staniland combines a unique new dataset of state-group armed orders in India, Pakistan, Burma/Myanmar, and Sri Lanka with detailed case studies from the region to explore when and how this model of threat perception provides insight into patterns of repression, collusion, and mutual neglect across nearly seven decades. Instead of straightforwardly responding to the material or organizational power of armed groups, Staniland finds, regimes assess how a group's politics align with their own ideological projects. Explaining, for example, why governments often use extreme repression against weak groups even while working with or tolerating more powerful armed actors, Ordering Violence provides a comprehensive overview of South Asia's complex armed politics, embedded within an analytical framework that can also speak broadly beyond the subcontinent.
Download or read book In the Shadow of Violence written by Klaus Schlichte and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2009-04-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An exploration of the techniques and strategies of successful non-state armed forces.
Download or read book Compliant Rebels written by Hyeran Jo and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes civil wars over the past twenty years and examines what motivates some rebel groups to abide by international law.
Download or read book Networks of Rebellion written by Paul Staniland and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-18 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Insurgent cohesion is central to explaining patterns of violence, the effectiveness of counterinsurgency, and civil war outcomes. Cohesive insurgent groups produce more effective war-fighting forces and are more credible negotiators; organizational cohesion shapes both the duration of wars and their ultimate resolution. In Networks of Rebellion, Paul Staniland explains why insurgent leaders differ so radically in their ability to build strong organizations and why the cohesion of armed groups changes over time during conflicts. He outlines a new way of thinking about the sources and structure of insurgent groups, distinguishing among integrated, vanguard, parochial, and fragmented groups. Staniland compares insurgent groups, their differing social bases, and how the nature of the coalitions and networks within which these armed groups were built has determined their discipline and internal control. He examines insurgent groups in Afghanistan, 1975 to the present day, Kashmir (1988–2003), Sri Lanka from the 1970s to the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in 2009, and several communist uprisings in Southeast Asia during the Cold War. The initial organization of an insurgent group depends on the position of its leaders in prewar political networks. These social bases shape what leaders can and cannot do when they build a new insurgent group. Counterinsurgency, insurgent strategy, and international intervention can cause organizational change. During war, insurgent groups are embedded in social ties that determine they how they organize, fight, and negotiate; as these ties shift, organizational structure changes as well.
Download or read book The Accountability of Armed Groups under Human Rights Law written by Katharine Fortin and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-11 with total page 465 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today the majority of the armed conflicts around the world are fought between States and armed groups, rather than between States. This changed conflict landscape creates an imperative to clarify the obligations of armed groups under international law. While it is generally accepted that armed groups are bound by international humanitarian law, the question of whether they are also bound by human rights law is controversial. This book brings significant new understanding to the question of whether and when armed groups might be bound by human rights law. Its conclusions will benefit international law academics, legal practitioners, and political scientists and anthropologists working on issues related to rebel governance and civil wars. This book addresses the debate on this topic by employing a theoretical, historical, and comparative analysis that spans international humanitarian law, international criminal law, and international human rights law. Embedding these different perspectives in public international law, this book brings several key points of clarification to the legal framework. Firstly, the book draws upon social science literature on armed conflict to present a new viewpoint on the role that human rights law plays vis-à-vis international humanitarian law in non-international armed conflicts. Secondly, the book sheds light on the circumstances in which armed groups acquire obligations under human rights law. It brings illumination to these topics by combining historical and comparative research on belligerency, insurgency, and international humanitarian law with a theoretical analysis of legal personality under international law. In the final part of the book, the author tests the four most utilised theories of how armed groups are bound by human rights law, examining whether armed groups can be bound by virtue of (i) treaty law (ii) control of territory (iii) international criminal law and (iv) customary international law. In the book's conclusions, the author presents final remarks that are designed to provide concrete guidance on how the issue of armed groups and human rights law can be dealt with more thoroughly in practice.
Download or read book Rebel Governance in Civil War written by Ana Arjona and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-10-22 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to examine and compare how rebels govern civilians during civil wars in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including political science, sociology, and anthropology, the book provides in-depth case studies of specific conflicts as well as comparative studies of multiple conflicts. Among other themes, the book examines why and how some rebels establish both structures and practices of rule, the role of ideology, cultural, and material factors affecting rebel governance strategies, the impact of governance on the rebel/civilian relationship, civilian responses to rebel rule, the comparison between modes of state and non-state governance to rebel attempts to establish political order, the political economy of rebel governance, and the decline and demise of rebel governance attempts.
Download or read book In the Shadow of Violence written by Klaus Schlichte and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2009-04-14 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spätestens seit den Anschlägen vom 11. September sind nicht-staatliche Kriegsakteure in den Mittelpunkt des wissenschaftlichen und außenpolitischen Interesses gerückt. Doch wie lassen sich ihr Handeln, ihre Strategien und ihre Organisation begreifen? Klaus Schlichte betont den politischen Charakter bewaffneter Gruppen, für den der Zusammenhang von Gewalt und Legitimität zentral ist. Damit setzt er sich von jenen Arbeiten ab, die ökonomische Interessen oder »religiösen Fundamentalismus « zur Erklärung heranziehen. Sein Vergleich von 15 Ländern zeigt, dass nicht-staatliche Gruppen immer in engen Beziehungen zu Staaten stehen und das Ziel haben, ihre Macht der Gewalt in politische Herrschaft zu transformieren.
Download or read book Armed Groups written by Peter G. Thompson and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-08-02 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Armed Groups is the most comprehensive text to provide a framework for categorizing the key actors that pose a threat to today’s security arena—terrorists, mercenaries, insurgents, militias, and transnational criminal organizations—and analyzing their characteristics to provide a thorough overview. Drawing on case studies, histories, and a rich, yet underexplored theoretical literature, this study presents students with the tools to methodically examine these often overlooked, but key drivers of violence in the international system. Additionally, globalization, the privatization of force, and the return of great power competition have altered the security landscape and enhanced armed group threats. These forces have also led to an increasing overlap between conflict and crime, and a growth in the state use of armed group proxies. Coming to terms with armed groups—their objectives, strategies, internal composition, and the environment that fosters them—remains a critical task for practitioners, scholars, and policy makers alike in understanding the changing nature of war. This second edition, updated throughout, includes new material on the importance of private military companies, the shift to sub-Saharan Africa as an important center of conflict, the return of great power politics, the increased use of social media and advanced technology, and the increasingly criminalized nature of armed groups. ,
Download or read book Armed Political Organizations written by Benedetta Berti and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-08-01 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Berti’s innovative framework and careful choice of case studies, presented in a jargon-free, accessible style, will make this book attractive to not only scholars and students of democratization processes but policymakers interested in conflict resolution and peacekeeping efforts.
Download or read book Reintegrating Armed Groups After Conflict written by Mats Berdal and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-04-07 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks at the political reintegration of armed groups after civil wars and the challenges of transforming ‘rebel’, ‘insurgent’ or other non-state armed groups into viable political entities. Drawing on eight case studies, the definition of ‘armed groups’ here ranges from militias, paramilitary forces, police units of various kinds to intelligence outfits. Likewise, the definition of ‘political integration’ or ‘re-integration’ has not been restricted to the formation of political parties, but is understood broadly as active participation in politics, policy-making or public debate through parties, newspapers, social organisations, think-tanks, NGOs or public service. The book seeks to locate or contextualise individual cases within their distinctive social, cultural and historical settings. As such it differs from much of the donor-driven literature that has tended to abstract the challenge of disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration (DDR) from their political and historical context, focusing instead on technical or bureaucratic issues raised by the DDR process. Among the issues covered by the volume as a whole, three stand out: first, the role of political settlements in creating legitimate opportunities for erstwhile leaders of armed factions; second, the ability of reintegration programmes to create genuine socio-economic opportunities that can absorb former fighters as functional members of their communities; and third, the processes involved in transforming an entire rebel movement into a viable political party, movement or, more generally, allowing it to participate in political life. This book will be of great interest to students of security and development, peace and conflict studies, and IR in general, as well as practitioners and policymakers. Mats Berdal is Professor of Security and Development in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London. From 2000 to 2003 he was Director of Studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. Mats Berdal is a Visiting Professor at the National Defence and Command College, Oslo. David Ucko is the Programme Coordinator & Research Fellow for the Conflict, Security & Development Research Group, King's College London.
Download or read book Why Women Rebel written by Alexis Henshaw and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-08 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why Women Rebel presents a global analysis of the extent to which women are engaged in armed, organized rebellions, and why they choose to join such rebellions. Henshaw has collected and analyzed data on women’s participation in over 70 post-Cold War rebel groups. The book provides a theoretical analysis drawing upon both mainstream literature in the social sciences and critical, feminist inquiry on women and political violence to offer a new gendered theory on why women rebel. The book reveals that women are active in over half of all rebel groups sampled and that, while the majority of rebel groups have women serving in support roles away from direct combat, approximately a third of these groups employ women in the conduct of armed attacks, and just over a quarter have women in a leadership capacity. Henshaw reaffirms the idea that women are more likely to be engaged in left-wing political organizations, but does suggest that more conservative or traditional movements may also successfully incorporate women by appealing to concerns about community rights. Addressing several gaps in the current literature on this topic, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of political science, international relations, security studies, and gender and women’s studies.
Download or read book Rebel Politics written by David Brenner and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rebel Politics analyzes the changing dynamics of the civil war in Myanmar, one of the most entrenched armed conflicts in the world. Since 2011, a national peace process has gone hand-in-hand with escalating ethnic conflict. The Karen National Union (KNU), previously known for its uncompromising stance against the central government of Myanmar, became a leader in the peace process after it signed a ceasefire in 2012. Meanwhile, the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) returned to the trenches in 2011 after its own seventeen-year-long ceasefire broke down. To understand these puzzling changes, Brenner conducted ethnographic fieldwork among the KNU and KIO, analyzing the relations between rebel leaders, their rank-and-file, and local communities in the context of wider political and geopolitical transformations. Drawing on Political Sociology, Rebel Politics explains how revolutionary elites capture and lose legitimacy within their own movements and how these internal contestations drive the strategies of rebellion in unforeseen ways. Brenner presents a novel perspective that contributes to our understanding of contemporary politics in Southeast Asia, and to the study of conflict, peace and security, by highlighting the hidden social dynamics and everyday practices of political violence, ethnic conflict, rebel governance and borderland politics.
Download or read book Armed Non State Actors and the Politics of Recognition written by Anna Geis and published by New Approaches to Conflict Ana. This book was released on 2021-06-29 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This edited volume examines asymmetric conflict dynamics through the politics of recognition vis-à-vis armed non-state actors. It explores a diverse range of case studies and considers the risks and opportunities that (non-)recognition may involve for transforming armed conflicts.
Download or read book Why start to dialogue in an armed conflict written by Julian Torres Roa and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2016-11-11 with total page 74 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master's Thesis from the year 2016 in the subject Politics - Region: Middle and South America, grade: A, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Facultat de Ciències Polítiques i de Sociologia), course: Political Science - Master Research, language: English, abstract: The objective of this book is to compare different historical cases of internal armed conflicts in America, to identify the common conditions that previously recorded the cessation of armed actions and beginning of dialogues as a path for starting building a post-conflict scenario. For this purpose, I will make a comparative historical analysis of three armed conflicts in Latin America who opted for the "dialogue" as a mechanism to end the confrontation with the state. The objective of this exercise is to identify the common elements, if any, that existed in the different selected cases when they decided to engage in conversations officially. With the identification of these elements, I intend to demonstrate that there is a common causal explanation of the outcome of the cases, represented as a minimum necessary conditions in the historical development of different armed conflicts to achieve the implementation and development of dialogs between non-governmental armed groups and their governments. The outcome of this work will be the identification of patterns of dynamics of internal armed conflicts based on the research findings, which will serve as a reference material for the study and possible early resolutions of armed conflicts in their social and political dimension stating the dialogue as an effective means to armed conflict resolution and there are enabling conditions that make it successful.
Download or read book The Politics of Military Force written by Frank Stengel and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2020-12-08 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Politics of Military Force examines the dynamics of discursive change that made participation in military operations possible against the background of German antimilitarist culture. Once considered a strict taboo, so-called out-of-area operations have now become widely considered by German policymakers to be without alternative. The book argues that an understanding of how certain policies are made possible (in this case, military operations abroad and force transformation), one needs to focus on processes of discursive change that result in different policy options appearing rational, appropriate, feasible, or even self-evident. Drawing on Essex School discourse theory, the book develops a theoretical framework to understand how discursive change works, and elaborates on how discursive change makes once unthinkable policy options not only acceptable but even without alternative. Based on a detailed discourse analysis of more than 25 years of German parliamentary debates, The Politics of Military Force provides an explanation for: (1) the emergence of a new hegemonic discourse in German security policy after the end of the Cold War (discursive change), (2) the rearticulation of German antimilitarism in the process (ideational change/norm erosion) and (3) the resulting making-possible of military operations and force transformation (policy change). In doing so, the book also demonstrates the added value of a poststructuralist approach compared to the naive realism and linear conceptions of norm change so prominent in the study of German foreign policy and International Relations more generally.
