Global Vigilantes
Global Vigilantes

Author: David Pratten

Publisher: Hurst & Company

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13:

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Vigilantes and organised vigilantism are a growing phenomenon, as this book amply demonstrates. From Northern Ireland to West Africa, from Bombay or Moscow, vigilante movements and ideologies have widespread appeal. Whether as localised 'self-policing' of crime and other forms of social behaviour, or as surveillance of drug trafficking or terrorism, vigilantes patrol the frontiers that emerge as transnational global flows meet real or imagined political borders. Global Vigilantes is the first book to offer a comprehensive overview of contemporary vigilantism in its relation to different members of society and to state authorities. It explores how vigilantes produce and reproduce themselves within shifting climates of hate and fear; it addresses their historical antecedents; explores the cults and cultures of conflict associated with vigilantism, and analyses the modes, meanings and methods of vigilante vilolence.

Global Gangs
Global Gangs

Author: Jennifer M. Hazen

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2014-08-01

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 1452941815

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Gangs, often associated with brutality and senseless destructive violence, have not always been viewed as inherently antagonistic. The first studies of gangs depicted them as alternative sources of order in urban slums where the state’s authority was lacking, and they have subsequently been shown to be important elements in some youth life cycles. Despite their proliferation there is little consensus regarding what constitutes a gang. Used to denote phenomena ranging from organized crime syndicates to groups of youths who gather spontaneously on street corners, even the term “gang” is ambiguous. Global Gangs offers a greater understanding of gangs through essays that investigate gangs spanning across nations, from Brazil to Indonesia, China to Kenya, and from El Salvador to Russia. Volume editors Jennifer M. Hazen and Dennis Rodgers bring together contributors who examine gangs from a comparative perspective, discussing such topics as the role the apartheid regime in South Africa played in the emergence of gangs, the politics behind child vigilante squads in India, the relationship between immigration and gangs in France and the United States, and the complex stigmatization of youths in Mexico caused by the arbitrary deployment of the word “gang.” Featuring an afterword by renowned U.S. gang researcher Sudhir Venkatesh, this volume provides a comprehensive look into the experience of gangs across the world and in doing so challenges conventional notions of identity. Contributors: Enrique Desmond Arias, George Mason U; José Miguel Cruz, Florida International U; Steffen Jensen, DIGNITY–Danish Institute Against Torture; Gareth A. Jones, London School of Economics and Political Science; Marwan Mohammed, École Normale Supérieure, Paris; Jacob Rasmussen, Roskilde U; Loren Ryter, U of Michigan; Rustem R. Safin, National Research Technological U, Russia; Alexander L. Salagaev, National Research Technological U, Russia; Atreyee Sen, U of Manchester; Mats Utas, Nordic Africa Institute; Sudhir Venkatesh, Columbia U; James Diego Vigil, U of California, Irvine; Lening Zhang, Saint Francis U.

Vigilantes beyond Borders
Vigilantes beyond Borders

Author: Mette Eilstrup-Sangiovanni

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2022-04-05

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0691232245

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How and why NGOs are increasingly taking independent and direct action in global law enforcement, from human rights to the environment Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have generally served as advocates and service providers, leaving enforcement to states. Now, NGOs are increasingly acting as private police, prosecutors, and intelligence agencies in enforcing international law. NGOs today can be found investigating and gathering evidence; suing and prosecuting governments, companies, and individuals; and even catching lawbreakers red-handed. Examining this trend, Vigilantes beyond Borders considers why some transnational groups have opted to become enforcers of international law regarding such issues as human rights, the environment, and corruption, while others have not. Three factors explain the rise of vigilante enforcement: demand, supply, and competition. Governments commit to more international laws, but do a poor job of policing them, leaving a gap and creating demand. Legal and technological changes make it easier for nonstate actors to supply enforcement, as in the instances of NGOs that have standing to use domestic and international courts, or smaller NGOs that employ satellite imagery, big data analysis, and forensic computing. As the growing number of NGOs vie for limited funding and media attention, smaller, more marginal, groups often adopt radical strategies like enforcement. Looking at the workings of major organizations, including Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Transparency International, as well as smaller players, such as Global Witness, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, and Bellingcat, Vigilantes beyond Borders explores the causes and consequences of a novel, provocative approach to global governance.

Global Lynching and Collective Violence
Global Lynching and Collective Violence

Author: Michael J. Pfeifer

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2017-02-10

Total Pages: 317

ISBN-13: 0252099303

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Often considered peculiarly American, lynching in fact takes place around the world. In the first book of a two-volume study, Michael J. Pfeifer collects essays that look at lynching and related forms of collective violence in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Understanding lynching as a transnational phenomenon rooted in political and cultural flux, the writers probe important issues from Indonesia--where a long history of public violence now twines with the Internet--to South Africa, with its notorious history of necklacing. Other scholars examine lynching in medieval Nepal, the epidemic of summary executions in late Qing-era China, the merging of state-sponsored and local collective violence during the Nanking Massacre, and the ways public anger and lynching in India relate to identity, autonomy, and territory. Contributors: Laurens Bakker, Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, Nandana Dutta, Weiting Guo, Or Honig, Frank Jacob, Michael J. Pfeifer, Yogesh Raj, and Nicholas Rush Smith.

Gun Crime in Global Contexts
Gun Crime in Global Contexts

Author: Peter Squires

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-27

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 1136184643

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Every year around three-quarters of a million people die (directly or indirectly) as a result of gun violence, with most deaths occurring in the poorest, yet also most highly weaponized parts of the world. Firearm proliferation -- 875 million global firearms -- is a direct contributor to both regional conflicts and to crime. This book attempts to understand the inter-related dynamics of supply and demand which are weaponizing the world. Now over ten years after Peter Squires’s Gun Culture or Gun Control?, the issues pertaining to gun violence and gun control have developed dramatically. With Gun Crime in Global Contexts, Peter Squires offers a cutting-edge account of contemporary developments in the politics of gun crime and the social and theoretical issues that surround the problem. This book contains: an innovative political analysis of neo-liberal globalization and weapon proliferation; an overview of recent gun control debates and gang strategies in the UK; an updated analysis of US gun politics: self-defence, race and the ‘culture war’; a critical analysis of US school and rampage shootings, how they have impacted the gun debate and how different societies have responded to mass shootings; an examination of the UN's development of an Arms Trade Treaty (2001--13); a discussion of weapon trafficking; discussions about youth gangs around the world, including those in Brazil, Kenya, West Africa, Mexico and South Africa. With its interdisciplinary perspective and global reach, this book will be important reading for academics and students interested in youth and gang crime, violent crime and comparative criminal justice, as well as peace and security studies and international relations.

Demobilizing Irregular Forces
Demobilizing Irregular Forces

Author: Eric Y. Shibuya

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-18

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 0745660967

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From Afghanistan and Sierra Leone to East Timor, the aftermath of any armed conflict presents a complex set of challenges. Whatever political agreements may have been reached, conflicts are often at risk of reigniting, and the fates of their former participants remain uncertain. Armed groups may not be easily dissuaded from pursuing belligerent activities which they see as both profitable and understandable behaviour. In the face of these difficulties, the process of disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) attempts to convince combatants to relinquish their weapons and return to civilian life. It is a crucial first step towards lasting peace. Demobilizing Militias is the first comprehensive introduction to DDR in the contemporary world. Examining regions as varied as Africa, Asia and Central America, it guides readers through the different stages of the DDR process as well as assessing competing perspectives surrounding its implementation. Attentive to the problems faced by practitioners, Eric Shibuya argues against a 'one size fits all' approach, emphasizing the importance of social and psychological contexts in fostering the trust that is necessary for DDR to succeed. Accessible and incisive, it will be an ideal resource for students of politics, security and conflict studies, as well as anyone interested in the dynamics of peacebuilding today.

Fada
Fada

Author: Adeline Masquelier

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2019-05-17

Total Pages: 261

ISBN-13: 022662448X

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Niger most often comes into the public eye as an example of deprivation and insecurity. Urban centers have become concentrated areas of unemployment filled with young men trying, against all odds, to find jobs and fill their time with meaningful occupations. At the heart of Adeline Masquelier’s groundbreaking book is the fada—a space where men gather to escape boredom by talking, playing cards, listening to music, and drinking tea. As a place in which new forms of sociability and belonging are forged outside the unattainable arena of work, the fada has become an integral part of Niger’s urban landscape. By considering the fada as a site of experimentation, Masquelier offers a nuanced depiction of how young men in urban Niger engage in the quest for recognition and reinvent their own masculinity in the absence of conventional avenues to self-realization. In an era when fledgling and advanced economies alike are struggling to support meaningful forms of employment, this book offers a timely glimpse into how to create spaces of stability, respect, and creativity in the face of diminished opportunities and precarity.

Inside War
Inside War

Author: Fabio Armao

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-02-22

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 3110471248

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The post-Cold War era was characterised by both the recurrence of state wars and the spread of forms of organised violence other than wars. Asymmetric warfare between alliances led by the USA and groups of insurgents, such as those witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq, coexist alongside domestic conflicts, such as that of former Yugoslavia and, more recently, Libya and Syria; and still other conflicts involving gangs, mafias or narco-traffickers. The massive military-industrial complexes conceived in the context of the threat of nuclear Armageddon are still there of course, but they now coexist with irregular armies of insurgents carrying out massacres through the use of light weapons and improvised explosives devices. This book oppose the idea that this situation prefigures the return to an anarchical, pre-political condition, by assuming that new wars are rather the product of the blurring of the public-private divide, induced by the end of the Cold War, together with globalisation. As a consequence, also the internal and external factors are blurred; and ever more permeable and elusive is becoming even the border between war and crime. Inside War goes beyond a state-centered analysis and adopts an interdisciplinary and multilayered approach, and is intended to foster the dialogue among researchers from different fields. It places war at the core of analysis, assuming that the reality of war is what we make of it; and that the only insurmountable limit to our comprehension of war is our way of knowing and representing it. Fabio Armao teaches courses in Politics and Globalisation Processes, and Criminal Systems. He has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University, and co-convenor of the Standing Group on Organized Crime, European Consortium for Political Research. Founding member of T.wai (Torino World Affair Institute), he is also member of the Editorial Board of ‘Global Crime’. His research interests and publications focus on international wars and geopolitics, on violent non-state actors and transnational organised crime, and on urban security.

Control of Violence
Control of Violence

Author: Wilhelm Heitmeyer

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2010-11-04

Total Pages: 619

ISBN-13: 1441903836

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The Control of Violence in Modern Society, starts from the hypothesis that in modern society we will face an increasing loss of control over certain phenomena of violence. This leads to unpredictable escalations and violence can no longer be contained adequately by the relevant control regimes, such as police, state surveillance institutions, national repression apparatuses and international law. However, before investigating this hypothesis from an internationally and historically comparative perspective, the terms and "tools" for this undertaking have to be rendered more precisely. Since both "control" and "violence" are all but clear-cut terms but rather highly debatable and contested concepts that may take multiple connotations. The main question is whether an increase in certain forms of violence can be explained by the failure or, in turn, "overeffectiveness" of certain control mechanisms. It is asked, for instance, which contribution religion can make to limit violence and, in turn, which destructive potential religion might have in its fundamentalist form. Moreover, the concept of individual self-control as well as social institutions and strategies of collective disengagement and de-radicalization are investigated with regard to their potential for controlling violence. The Control of Violence in Modern Society concludes with a re-examination of the hypothesis of a loss of control by specifying in what cases and under which circumstances we can speak of a loss of control over violence.

Proud to Punish
Proud to Punish

Author: Gilles Gayer

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2024-01-09

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1503637689

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A magisterial comparative study, Proud to Punish recenters our understanding of modern punishment through a sweeping analysis of the global phenomenon of "rough justice": the use of force to settle accounts and enforce legal and moral norms outside the formal framework of the law. While taking many forms, including vigilantism, lynch mobs, people's courts, and death squads, all seekers of rough justice thrive on the deliberate blurring of lines between law enforcers and troublemakers. Digital networks have provided a profitable arena for vigilantes, who use social media to build a following and publicize their work, as they debase the bodies of the accused for purposes of edification and entertainment. It is this unabashed pride to punish, and the new punitive celebrations that actualize, publicize, and commercialize it, that this book brings into focus. Recounted in lively prose, Proud to Punish is both a global map of rough justice today and an insight into the deeper nature of punishment as a social and political phenomenon.