Abstract
Allison, Roy (2013) Russia, the West, and Military Intervention. Oxford: Oxford University Press. x, 308 pp. ISBN 9780199590636.
There is hardly a more contested and deliberately distorted issue in current international politics than the imperatives for, and legitimacy of, military intervention, and each day of civil war in Syria adds frustration to the deadlocked deliberations over this issue. Allison takes a particular approach to this deepening controversy that is of interest to every party involved, as Russia has assumed the role of the main opponent of Western efforts at shaping the rules that would guide the execution of such interventions. When examining this role, it is worth remembering that numerous Russian interventions in the 1990s produced little controversy, and it was only the NATO intervention in Kosovo (which makes a chapter in this neatly structured book) that was the watershed moment in Russia’s responses to Western military experiments. Another chapter deals with the Russian–Georgian war in August 2008, and it constitutes one of the most balanced and thoughtful analyses of that case of ‘power projection’. Allison argues that the ‘consistency of Russian skepticism and resistance to Western-led interventions’ cannot be explained by neo-realist assessments of balance of power and shouldn’t be reduced to personal animosities, but is rather caused by ‘normative friction’ (p. 207). There is indeed a fundamental and deepening divergence of views on who sets the rules of proper behavior on the global arena and who controls the normative agenda. The West might worry about humanitarian catastrophes, but the Russian position reflects ‘a front rank priority to preserve its domestic structures of power’ (p. 217). As Putin’s regime regresses from ‘enlightened’ to increasingly harsher authoritarianism, its insecurity in its own legitimacy may inevitable cause greater emphasis on state sovereignty at the expense of human security. The book offers a solid academic analysis of this trajectory.
Pavel Baev
Aslam, Maleeha (2012) Gender Based Explosions: The Nexus between Muslim Masculinities, Jihadist Islamism and Terrorism. New York: United Nations Press. xviii, 316 pp. ISBN 9789280812084.
In light of the despair behind the war on terror over the past decade, a plethora of literature has emerged concerning the fundamental question of Islam and terrorism. This book explores the role of gender in terrorism not from a feminist perspective, but rather from a masculine one. It is an excellent interlude to the traditional literature which has been largely transfixed on pointing to fundamental connections between Islam and terrorism. Aslam uses the concept of gender as a vantage point to investigate these questions, focusing particularly on the experiences of young men. She puts the blame for the rise in militancy among youth on the non-existent opportunities given to them in Muslim societies. It is also interesting that instead of investigating more extremist views, or using typical madrassas and religious schools as arenas to collect her data, the author actually looks at the ‘performatory acts’ of common men who suffer from a lack of healthy activities and are in search of quick glory. Men with limited opportunities for the future may choose to ‘live fast and die young, and die as a warrior, a hero’ (p. 275), and jihadist organizations become an easy conduit to channel their frustrations. In addition, the male chauvinism among Muslim societies which favours valour and the quest of dying for honour further drives these processes. This book is of immense value for peace studies scholars, as in order to devise effective and long-term counterterrorist strategies, gender issues cannot be overlooked. Aslam’s suggestion to control this upsurge of terrorism through ‘people centered interventions’ providing Muslim men opportunities for ‘self actualization’ can be an effective long-term measure (p. 275).
Muhammad Shoaib Pervez
Barnett, Michael (2011) Empire of Humanity: A History of Humanitarianism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. xi, 296 pp. ISBN 9780801447136.
In Empire of Humanity, Michael Barnett attempts to fit the history of humanitarianism into a single, and perhaps too neat, chronological narrative. Barnett divides his meta-narrative into three: the age of imperial humanitarianism, the age of neo-humanitarianism and the age of liberal humanitarianism. To do the work of tying these bounded time periods together, he deploys the taxonomy ‘alchemical’ and ‘emergency’. The emergency type of humanitarianism – the classical type – focuses on assisting those in need or at risk (typically the activities undertaken by the international Committee of the Red Cross). The alchemical type has much in common with the so-called new humanitarianism in vogue a decade ago, and is concerned with removing the underlying causes of suffering and social injustice. Barnett’s description of humanitarianism as a formative moment of contemporary ethics of care leads to the very ambitious claim that the history of humanitarianism is a modern international history. Yet the most important limitation of Barnett’s approach remains his failure to critically grapple with ‘the humanitarian international’ as the history of more actors than a few British or US-based organizations (as has been very vocally acknowledged by the author himself). As time passes, the narrow selection of political events, relief providers and cultural and geographical contexts discussed will look increasingly like a historical fact in itself. Nonetheless, perhaps the single most important issue demonstrated by Barnett in this volume is that humanitarian challenges and problems are not new, and neither is the so-called ‘crisis of legitimacy’ or of efficiency that nowadays habitually besets the enterprise. While having been criticized for being both decontextualized and selective, Empire of Humanity is an important and well-written contribution to the consolidation of the field of humanitarian studies.
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik
Cerami, Alfio (2013) Permanent Emergency Welfare Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Exclusive Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. xvii, 270 pp. ISBN 9780230299795.
Alfio Cerami has written an excellent and important contribution to the welfare state literature by focusing on and analyzing development of welfare regimes in sub-Saharan Africa. He shows the need for an interdisciplinary approach to analyze welfare states and combines this with insights into Africa’s development and differences between countries. Cerami uses in-depth studies, and his analysis is performed with a clear understanding of what is needed for development in Africa in the coming years, arguing for loyalty-enhancing and system-stabilizing strategies. He introduces the case studies by considering different developmental strategies and how they are related to various welfare regimes, ranging from those with exclusionist tendencies to regimes focusing on integration and inclusion. There is a strong and clear focus on institutional and social structural mechanisms and how they influence developmental outcomes. Given the variation in colonial histories and civil conflicts in African countries, Cerami’s framework is useful in order to look more deeply into how and why the continent’s welfare regimes have developed as they have. The challenges of democratization and poor economic development are considered, as are problems related to use of natural resources and corruption in some countries. The book’s framework emphasizes the role of historical development, arguing that while path-dependencies in developmental trajectories matter greatly, at the same time these pathways can also be changed. Part of whether these changes can successfully take place critically depends on whether the welfare regimes are universal and inclusive or not. In summary, this is a highly recommended book given its depth and new knowledge about sub-Saharan African countries not often portrayed and analyzed through the lens of welfare regimes.
Bent Greve
Colgan, Jeff D (2013) Petro-Aggression: When Oil Causes War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. xiv + 312 pp. ISBN 9781107654976.
The author’s thesis is simple but appealing: it is not oil that promotes international war, but an interaction between revolutionary government and abundant oil income. Revolutionary rulers are risk-takers: in a ‘petrostate’ they obtain the financial clout to fund arms purchases, bribe the masses, and repress them when necessary. This argument is buttressed using a quantitative study and four case studies. The before-and-after comparisons of three radical revolutionary petrostates (Iran, Iraq, Libya) and one moderate (Venezuela) confirm that all four countries pursued more aggressive international policies after revolutionary governments took over. The final case study concerns Saudi Arabia, which has never seen a revolutionary takeover. A second quantitative study tests (and rejects) the idea that revolutionary government itself is a result of being a petrostate. The case studies are well integrated with the statistical analysis, although the Arab Spring and Gaddafi’s fall are covered only in a brief postscript, and Chavez’s death (understandably) not at all. Policy implications (apart from the need to contain and deter candidates for international aggression) are: (a) reduce the importance of oil, (b) secure more energy independence for the USA, and (c) improve the management of natural resources. Many questions can be raised about the statistical analysis (how reliable are the MID conflict initiation data? Could an oil-to-radicalism link work through a weak state argument?). But this book moves the research frontier forward and will set an agenda for future work – although it would have done so even more effectively if the author had posted his replication data on a public website. Finally, the references have more errors than one would expect in a book from a reputable publisher.
Nils Petter Gleditsch
DeBrouwer, Anne-Marie; Charlotte Ku, Reneé Römkens & Larissa van den Herik, eds (2013) Sexual Violence as an International Crime: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Cambridge: Intersentia. xxiv, 400 pp. ISBN 9781780680026.
This edited volume in a book series on transitional justice reviews two decades of international criminal prosecution of war-related sexual violence crimes, and considers the next steps. Specifically, it aims to ‘document practices that non-lawyers and lawyers must confront when intervening in conflict situations that may result in legal action, non-legal or awareness-creating action’ (p. 9). The book is divided into three parts. The first section focuses on the milestones in international criminal law pertaining to the prosecution of sexual violence. The second part looks at the social, legal and medical data collection and its use for the criminal law process. The third part looks at how awareness can be raised on several levels, addressing issues related to sexual violence in war, alleviation of shame and stigma, and silence around sexual violence crimes. Throughout the volume the discussions are about how to juxtapose single acts of extreme violence against mass brutality. These difficulties are addressed in relation to legal process, data/evidence gathering, and the balancing of the relative well-being of the affected individuals. Despite the increased attention, awareness raising, and legal prosecution, sexual violence crimes remain under-analyzed and under-prosecuted relative to other acts of violence in war, and the book suggests several reasons as to why this is still the case. The general awareness that sexual violence is not only a private concern, however, alleviates some of the private suffering and pain and brings new documentation and new insights into the legal process. Further, this insight is important in relation to reparation and treatment of individual victims, both men and women. This is a rich volume which is easily accessible for a non-legal scholarly audience and can be read and appreciated by anyone interested in improving the situation for silenced victims of war violence.
Inger Skjelsbæk
Derman, Bill; Anne Hellum & Kristin Bergtora Sandvik (2013) Worlds of Human Rights: The Ambiguities of Rights Claiming in Africa. Leiden: Brill. xiii, 338 pp. ISBN 9789004246478 (pbk).
Using ethnographic case studies from a range of contexts, this book presents a refreshing view on the ambiguities that can be found within the current human rights struggles in sub-Saharan Africa. Challenging the growing emphasis of a rights-based approach that focuses on the transformative capacity of human rights, the authors highlight that claim-making in itself may result in a complex of legal pluralities at the local level. The book is divided into three thematic sections focused on the relationship between human rights and struggles concerning land and property, gender equality and legal identity, respectively. In Part I, case studies from South Africa, Mozambique and Tanzania address how land scarcity, the demand for efficiency in land use and alternating property relations cause disagreements about land tenure. Concentrating on women’s rights, Part II makes use of examples from South Africa, Tanzania and Niger to situate how various groups of women conceptualize and strive for human rights. The triangular relationship between the African state, human rights and international humanitarian actors is described in Part III, where case studies from Uganda, Eritrea and Malawi illustrate how political agency and rights-claiming is shaped by an individual-oriented humanitarianism. ‘As human rights principles are translated and conveyed through legislation, legal education programs, development programs or humanitarian assistance’, the authors emphasize that struggles against inequality may themselves ‘feed into unequal power relations and varying cultural practices which can reinforce existing inequalities’ (p. 9). This anthology, which links human rights-claiming to power, encourages readers interested in peacemaking to reflect on how well-intended efforts derived from contemporary human rights discourse may cause additional marginalization when implemented locally. It is warmly recommended.
Nora Mehsen
Heine, Jorge & Ramesh Thakur (2011) The Dark Side of Globalization. New York: United Nations University Press. xxi, 302 pp. ISBN 9789280811940.
Like any global paradigm shift, globalization’s effects are felt differently across the planet. This edited volume explores this asymmetry, surmising that as globalization increases, nefarious elements like trafficking, laundering, and organized crime also proliferate. However, this volume is less an engagement on globalization itself than a compilation of scattered and disparate problems, complicated by contributor assumptions that globalization needs be zero-sum with clear winners and losers. This is a highly uneven work, with valuable theoretical clarity (notably in le Pere & Vickers, Goredema, Gutiérrez & Almeira, Hassan, and von Bülow) languishing alongside writers basing arguments in clichés. For example, one author claims that Venezuelans who do not support former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez are ‘racist’ (p. 45). Equating ‘illegal’ activities with a ‘dark side’ regarding globalization’s less benevolent consequences also ignores activities that may in fact be enormously beneficial to the ‘losers’ as defined elsewhere in the volume, such as illegally produced HIV medications. More fundamentally, ‘globalization’ is often used interchangeably to mean finance flows in the text, but they are merely one component of a financial, cultural, and mobility-based revolution – one that has in fact made the world more peaceful. The only author to address this point (p. 19) actually argues the opposite with a single anecdote in support. Attempts to tie conflict in Kashmir, Nepal, and Maoist India into a warning on globalization’s effects are also strained. Contributions on the internet and social media, cyberwar and espionage, or other boundary betraying contemporary knowledge gaps could have provided fresh dialogue on how globalization truly influences the world’s citizens today. Unfortunately, by basing the primary arguments in old tropes and outdated catchphrases, the volume misses a golden chance to set the 21st-century globalization agenda.
Jason Miklian
Holt, Peter M & Martin W Daly (2011) A History of the Sudan: From the Coming of Islam to the Present Day, 6th edn. Harlow: Longman. xii, 199 pp. ISBN 9781405874458.
South Sudan’s secession from Sudan on the 9th July 2011 has triggered a small avalanche of tendentious, bloated, amateurish, and hastily researched publications attempting to outline and explain Sudan’s political history. Buried underneath is the short, accessible and reliable sixth edition of Holt and Daly’s A History of the Sudan, which makes most of the other books superfluous. The first edition appeared in 1961 and new editions have subsequently been published at irregular intervals. Holt passed away in 2006 – one of the grand old men of Sudan History – but Daly still carries the baton. Instead of lazily padding extra pages onto the back of the previous edition, Daly has managed the remarkable feat of covering yet another decade of intricate and momentous Sudan history, while at the same time reducing the overall page count by 23. Thus compacted, the book is succinct and precise, but not exactly a beach read – its tempered analyses, rich vocabulary (e.g. ‘palaver’, ‘jejune’, ‘opprobrium’) and frequency of long, complex sentences appeal particularly to the academically trained. Yet, Holt & Daly provide what most people need to know about Sudan’s political history: it is difficult to find two guides more qualified to lead freshmen or more seasoned Sudan hands through the murky, bewildering and constantly surprising jungle of Sudanese state-building, political intrigue, war and rebellion. Some would find the emphasis on the agency of the Sudanese top politicians a bit old-fashioned, but they would be hard pressed to find a better point of departure for exploring other historical aspects of what used to be the largest country in Africa.
Øystein H Rolandsen
Ibester, Katherine (2011) The Paradox of Democracy in Latin America: Ten Country Studies of Division and Resilience. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. xv, 396 pp. ISBN 9781442601802.
‘Losers don’t really lose, they just win less’ (p. 7). While referring to the concessions democracy affords to non-winners in competitive political contexts, this line from Katherine Ibester’s book might just as well be an adequate description of the general state of democracy in Latin America. While much has been written about the weaknesses of democracy in Latin America, there still is a great deal to be celebrated about the politics of a continent that was largely autocratic little more than a generation ago. As the ‘division and resilience’ in the title infers, the book deals with the polarizing themes inherent in the political context on the continent: the sharp social and economic cleavages in Latin American societies, and the social movements and grassroots organizations that have struggled to gain a foothold. The book cycles through several common themes: legacies of violence that are yet to be overcome; profound inequalities and social injustice; prevalent clientelism and personalization of politics in weak states; and the emergence of civil society organizations and the slow moves toward more deliberative forms of political participation. Ten case studies written chiefly by Ibester but also with contributions from select country experts are introduced by three theory-forward chapters on the concept, history and institutional aspects of Latin American democracy. The case studies are informative and well-written, but as one may expect with such a broad scope, do at times lack in depth. The book is concluded by a somewhat catch-all chapter on what policies and approaches do and do not work in strengthening democracy. While not groundbreaking, this book certainly makes for rewarding reading.
Kristian Hoelscher
Khalidi, Rashid (2013) Brokers of Deceit: How the US Has Undermined Peace in the Middle East. Boston, MA: Beacon. xxxvii, 167 pp. ISBN 9780807044759.
Brokers of Deceit is an interesting project. By using three case studies of US mediation in the Arab–Israeli conflict, Rashid Khalidi attempts to show that the USA has favoured Israel so massively that in essence it has destroyed all chances of peace along the lines – a two-state solution – that it has claimed to aim for. The three cases he has chosen are the Begin proposal for Palestinian autonomy from 1982, the Madrid–Oslo process and the Middle East diplomacy during the Obama presidency. In all these cases the results of the negotiations favour Israel, and make real Palestinian self-determination increasingly unlikely. Khalidi makes the argument that these results are not determined by the intentions of the US president as such, as several presidents have intended otherwise, but that three intertwined political structures make it so. These are the primacy of US domestic politics; the lack of external pressure from the oil rich Gulf states; and the lack interest for Palestinian rights. Khalidi also raises the issue of language, pointing out that certain discourses have become so ingrained in the common understanding of the conflict that the terminology itself has become a hindrance to a real peace process. The overarching argument is convincing, making the introduction the best chapter in the book. Unfortunately, however, Khalidi’s book serves only as an appetizer to a full meal that could have been, promising far more than is delivered, leaving this reader longing for the book that he was promised. Ultimately, Khalidi is unable to convincingly tie his theory with his cases, and his cases are not sufficiently stringent to make them stand alone.
Jørgen Jensehaugen
Kingstone, Peter (2011) The Political Economy of Latin America: Reflections on Neoliberalism and Development. Abingdon & New York: Routledge. xii, 177 pp. ISBN 9780415998277.
Peter Kingstone covers a good deal of ground in a short amount of space in his Political Economy of Latin America. Highly readable, the book is structured around the interwoven yet contradictory themes that have shaped the continent’s recent history and continue to define it, namely how states and markets have negotiated and competed for influence across space and time. Issues taken up include how import-substitution, industrialization and neoliberalism shaped economic and social conditions; how economic crises saw the return of the Left and the re-emergence of the State; and a consideration of both the positive and predatory roles market-led development has played. Kingstone does well to show how polarized State-versus-Market approaches failed to lead to stable and equitable societies, with the book closing with a reasoned discussion of the critical role that institutions play. While correctly noting that the region is wealthier, more equal and more democratic than any time in its history, Kingstone reminds us that ‘the picture is still not reassuring’ (p. 127), with many countries seeing omnipresent violence, extreme levels of social and economic inequality, and increasingly fragile democratic systems. Despite these challenges, his conclusion is hopeful, with the role of institutions being central. While somewhat skirting around the adage that ‘to develop better institutions, institutions must be better developed’, Kingstone notes that citizens are beginning to demand more from elected officials, and the destructive informal institutions which have undermined formal institutional changes are slowly being eroded. Importantly, he shows that institutional reform will see both states and markets function better, and be mutually reinforcing. These are insights it would be wise to take note of.
Kristian Hoelscher
Lawoti, Mahendra & Susan Hangen, eds (2012) Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nepal: Identities and Mobilization after 1990. New York: Routledge. xvii, 265 pp. ISBN 9780415780971.
Those who thought that Nepal’s 1996–2006 civil war was primarily about communism (including almost everyone in the international community) were rudely shocked when large-scale ethnic violence erupted in Nepal’s southern Terai/Madhesh region just a year later. This volume, the ‘first comparative analysis of identity-based movements in Nepal’ that ‘aims to understand the rapid rise in ethnic and nationalist motivation’ (pp. 5–6), uses that revelation as an intellectual springboard. Containing deep, nuanced analysis of several communities relatively ignored by mainstream analysis, the volume brings powerful insights into the Nepalese ethnic panoply. Demolishing the notion of ethnic harmony in Nepal before 2007 (or pre-1996 for that matter) as a ‘patently manufactured myth’ (p. 38), it illustrates the importance of questioning the history-makers when drawing historical lessons. Dastider’s chapter is especially insightful, showing how overlapping, shifting identities can render sweeping statements on the nature of any ethnic group impossible. Concluding with fine chapters by Lawoti that transform this collection into a truly comparative volume, the material is clearly presented and accessible even to those unfamiliar with the boggling variety of South Asian ethnic politics. Still, some chapters are dated; others shoehorn the Maoists into pre-existing arguments. Some of the less violent and less well-known of Nepal’s 50+ ethnic groups could have been explored, or raising the level of analysis upward to the shifting nature of ethnicity across Nepal as it influences demography and the still stubborn notion of territoriality as defining ethnic movement success. The volume is essential reading for those wishing to understand the basis behind Nepal’s still-raging debate on its ethnic federation, and encourages additional research on what remains a tremendously rich and under-researched topic.
Jason Miklian
Morris, Ian (2013) The Measure of Civilization: How Social Development Decides the Fate of Nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. xvi, 381 pp. ISBN 9780691155685.
Despite renewed interest in ‘big history’, that is, long trends leading up to the present and how the contemporary world compares with the past, many issues remain contested and difficult to evaluate without systematic data. For example, researchers have offered vastly divergent assessments of the historical development in China relative to the West, where some hold that the West has always been relatively more developed than other regions while others see a resurgent Asia as a return to previous periods with relative parity. This book develops a measure of social development applicable across long time periods based on energy capture (measured as calorie consumption per capita), social organization (proxied by largest city), information technology (measured by literacy), and war-making capacity (based on the size of armies). Morris presents data for the most developed regions in the West (including the Middle East) and the East (mainly China). The figures suggest a quantum leap in human development from 1800 and a relative Western dominance over the East for the last 15,000 years, save for the period 550–1750. This is a truly impressive effort to measure development in the long run. However, the focus on comparing the West and the East at times become too dominant, and undermines attention to overall human and global progress. Nations are mentioned in the subtitle, but there is little discussion of the modern nation state or global markets. Morris sees energy capture as essentially driving the other dimensions of development, but provides less explicit analysis to support this conclusion. For example, the contemporary era probably has an unprecedented war-making capacity, yet war has plausibly decreased.
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch
Nacos, Brigitte L; Yaeli Bloch-Elkon & Robert Y Shapiro (2011) Selling Fear: Counterterrorism, the Media, and Public Opinion. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. xv, 241 pp. ISBN 9780226567198.
Can governments, even in democracies, utilize the media to influence, manipulate, or even control public opinion? This book represents an outstanding effort to empirically and conceptually answer this question, providing systematic evidence to analyze the connection between the Bush Administration’s post-9/11 counterterrorism acts, the media coverage of terrorism and counterterrorism issues, and public opinion on these issues. This book offers great insights for peace research: in the high-tech world, media coverage, which is able to shape public attitudes, is not independent of a conflict itself; rather it can be a part of it. The authors focus on five issue areas: how public perceptions were affected by government-issued terrorist alerts and the publicized threat made by Al-Qaeda, the trade-off between civil liberties and national security, the buildup to the Iraq War, terrorism prevention, and the preparedness for terrorist attacks. By using excellent context analysis of television news and poll data, the authors find that after 9/11 the Bush Administration was active in setting the media agenda in its own favour, which in turn heightened its public support, at least in the first and third issues. Regarding counterterrorism efforts narrowing civil liberties or terrorism prevention and preparedness, news coverage and public support were only modest or low. The authors seem to assume a unidirectional relationship between media coverage and public opinion, by saying, for example, that low media coverage on terrorism prevention led to the public paying little attention to this issue. But it could be that the media, fully aware that the public is not interested in watching news on terrorism prevention, was reluctant to air related news. While this does not reduce the contribution or richness of this book, readers should be aware of the bidirectional relationship between media coverage and public opinion.
Chia-yi Lee
Patten, Howard A (2013) Israel and the Cold War: Diplomacy, Strategy and the Policy of the Periphery at the United Nations. London: IB Tauris. x, 234 pp. ISBN 9781848858084.
Israel and the Cold War investigates Israel’s policy of the periphery in the period 1947–82. The main title of the book is thus misleading as the Cold War is not the focus in any other significant way than forming the timeline. The policy of the periphery can roughly be summed up as leapfrogging isolation. Israel quickly realized that it would be difficult to make any form of political cooperation with its Arab neighbors for the foreseeable future. To compensate for this regional isolation Israel sought to cooperate with the non-Arab states further afield. These states often shared the same enemies as Israel. Howard Patten focuses on the three main such peripheral states: Turkey, Iran, and Ethiopia. Each of these states is given two chapters, one covering 1956–72 and another covering 1973–82. What Patten convincingly shows is that the ties between Israel and the three states were surprisingly stable despite the public strains they showed. The three peripheral states in question would often harshly criticize Israel at the UN while purchasing arms and cooperating in military training behind the scenes. Even Iran, after the Islamic revolution, continued to buy weapons from the ‘lesser Satan’. The discrepancy between public rhetoric and behind the scenes realpolitik could hardly have been clearer. In the end, however, the cooperation with Turkey is the only one of the three that has outlasted the Cold War. Howard Patten’s account is both well written and well argued, giving valuable insight into the intricacies of regional policies.
Jørgen Jensehaugen
Ross, Michael L (2012) The Oil Curse: How Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations. Princeton, NJ & Oxford: Princeton University Press. xxi, 289 pp. ISBN 9780691145457.
Previous research has shown that petroleum wealth typically leads to lower economic growth, fewer job opportunities for women, and a higher risk of civil wars. In The Oil Curse, Michael Ross explores these claims further, challenging previous research – including his own – that argues that oil extraction hinders growth and makes governments weaker and less efficient. Ross argues that petroleum states have grown at about the same rate as other countries, despite the fact that they should have grown much faster. He claims that the failure to benefit from such an economic opportunity is due to at least two factors: the inability of states to include women in the workforce; and their failure to manage the volume and volatility of their resource revenues. The book is cutting-edge as it builds on previous findings by extracting, integrating and refining essential aspects of earlier research. However, the book goes further in that it disentangles specific mechanisms of the resource curse, providing a larger and more nuanced picture of the challenges facing oil economies. In exploring issues of democracy, civil war and economic growth in light of petroleum wealth, Ross includes an overlooked element, namely the role of women, and shows how this is an important aspect and overlooked issue when discussing petro-development. While Ross’s book has a very accessible style requiring little pre-knowledge of the issue, he also provides advanced and detailed descriptions of his statistical analysis, an approach that will satisfy academics, policymakers and practitioners. The puzzle of how to accountably manage petroleum wealth is high on the international agenda. Given that more and more countries – particularly those with limited state capacity – are discovering oil, this book is both timely and important.
Siri Aas Rustad
Steinbruner, John D; Paul C Stern & Jo L Husbands, eds (2013) Climate and Social Stress: Implications for Security Analysis. Washington, DC: National Academies Press. xiv, 238 pp. ISBN 9780309278560.
The report on Climate and Social Stress prepared for the US intelligence community is a careful and solid elaboration on potential security implications that climate change will have for the USA, coupled with hands-on policy recommendations and monitoring advice. It is put together by leading US scholars in the field with a diverse range of academic backgrounds, from Politics and International Relations, to Earth System Science, Climatology, Geography and Medicine. The study’s aim to evaluate evidence on the possible direct and indirect connections between climatic impacts around the globe and US national security concerns (mainly outside US territory) is successfully achieved by thoroughly reviewing existing academic and policy literature on the topic. The volume covers a comprehensive spectrum of potential climate-insecurity dynamics: single, clustered and sequenced extreme climate events, both local and distant; climate vulnerability and social response mechanisms; water, food and health security; and different forms of insecurity ranging from social instability to violent conflict and state failure. Additionally, the report gives valuable recommendations for future research, and outlines monitoring activities to be developed by the intelligence community to improve mitigation and make prevention efforts more effective. The report is unique: there is a welcome absence of gloomy and simplistic statements of climate-induced catastrophes and it includes a thorough review of findings from different research fields. It is a valuable read for anyone wishing to reflect on social implications of climate change and understand the necessary measures to mitigate potential security risks.
Gerdis Wischnath
Levy, Jack & William Thompson (2011) The Arc of War: Origins, Escalation, and Transformation. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. ix, 282 pp. ISBN 9780226476292.
In The Arc of War, Levy & Thompson argue that the evolution of warfare is the result of macro-level changes, with an emphasis on major shifts in the political economy and development during the agricultural and industrial revolutions. Specifically, the authors identify key variables – military events, the organization of the armed forces, political economy, weapons technology, and the threat environment – which co-evolve as a shift in one variable leads to a significant change in the others. The authors take advantage of a great deal of previous research concerning the evolution of warfare and synthesize it to either support or challenge their own argument in a very clear, readable way. Using this co-evolutionary framework, the authors develop four arguments, concerning: the origins of war, historical accelerations in warfare, cycles of political centralization and decentralization, and the evolution of war as it relates to the economic differences between the global north and south. Levy & Thompson conclude that the likelihood of warfare changes as its appeal as a method for pursuing interests and solving conflicts fluctuates. Thus, rather than being a monocausal relationship, the six spheres identified by Levy & Thompson suggest that warfare evolves in a give-and-take relationship between variables and conditions. However, it is troubling that they exclude variables such as culture or ideology from the six core variables. The authors downplay the potential impact of these variables and suggest future scholars will be tasked with properly defining and incorporating them. Despite these omissions, Levy & Thompson have developed an extremely interesting and useful framework for studying historical changes that influence the evolution of warfare.
Nicholas Ward
Vasquez, John A, ed. (2012) What Do We Know About War? 2nd edn. Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield. xix, 390 pp. ISBN 9781442212633.
John A Vasquez has compiled a comprehensive and well-organized second edition of his anthology on the factors that bring about war and peace. It features some well-known names within the literature, such as Jack S Levy, Peter Wallensteen, Paul F Diehl, and Gary Goertz. The book is divided into three parts: factors that bring about war; factors that promote peace; and reflections and conclusions on the scientific study of peace and war. Its purpose is to sum up 80 years of research on the topic of war between states. A key strength of the book is that several of the authors present new analyses based on up-to-date data, rather than contributions merely being secondary studies of previous research. The book’s first part, consisting of seven chapters, is concerned with the classic causes of interstate war, such as geography, building of alliances, and the process of rivalry. Part two takes a closer look at the other side of the coin, namely how one can promote peace. Central themes here are the capitalist peace and the democratic peace arguments. The book’s final section attempts to reflect on peace research and how this arm of international relations should progress. This is best accomplished in Peter Wallensteen’s chapter, where he suggests a new research program which would focus on the correlates on peace. Overall, this is a volume that is well structured, enlightening, and offers new insights to the study of war. Its main message, and one that is important, is that researchers also need to focus on factors that bring about peace, not only those which may cause conflicts.
Tor Georg Jakobsen
Authors of Book Notes in this issue:
Pavel Baev – PRIO
Kristian Skrede Gleditsch – University of Essex
Nils Petter Gleditsch – PRIO
Bent Greve – Roskilde University
Kristian Hoelscher – University of Oslo & PRIO
Tor Georg Jakobsen – NTNU
Jørgen Jensehaugen – NTNU
Chia-yi Lee – Washington University in St Louis
Nora Mehsen – University of Oslo
Jason Miklian – PRIO
Muhammad Shoaib Pervez – Lahore School of Economics
Øystein H Rolandsen – PRIO
Siri Aas Rustad – PRIO
Kristin Bergtora Sandvik – PRIO
Inger Skjelsbæk – PRIO
Nicholas Ward – West Virginia University
Gerdis Wischnath – PRIO