Expansive and engaging, this book investigates the fluidity of sites of power and authority in global politics. Examining the key shifts and turns of politics in globally oriented spaces since the end of the Cold War, contributions from leading scholars explore the continually shifting parameters of global governance.
In order to analyse configurations of power that transcend the territorial trap, the Caucasus is an excellent case in point. Its past and present exhibit an extraordinary richness in power practices of diverse forms that intersect on various scales. This comprehensive volume offers an innovative procedural perspective on the actual workings of power not necessarily tied to the nation-state. Its focus goes well beyond national scales to tackle the manifold impacts of transboundary flows. The authors, from a wide range of academic disciplines, provide original empirical data from this intriguing but largely untapped region, with respect to the critical study of statehood. They also shed light on the diversity of political space and the ongoing process of spatial re-alignment. The chapters in this collection focus on: land governance practice in the North Caucasus; practices of local administration in Georgia; Shia influence from Iran in Azerbaijan; and trajectories of Ottoman influence in Adjara and Abkhazia respectively. They cover the South as well as North Caucasus, examining configurations of power that entangle smaller and larger scales, and providing perspectives on transboundary flows between the area and both Turkey and Iran. This book was originally published as a special issue of the journal Eurasian Geography and Economics.
This short introduction conveys the complexities associated with the term "territory" in a clear and accessible manner. It surveys the field and brings theory to ground in the case of Palestine. A clear and accessible introduction to the complexities associated with the term "territory". Provides an interdisciplinary survey of the many strands of research in the field. Addresses specific areas including interpretations of territorial structures; the relationship between territoriality and scale; the validity and fluidity of territory; and the practical, social processes associated with territorial re-configurations. Stresses that our understanding of territory is inseparable from our understanding of power. Uses Israel/Palestine as an extended illustrative case study. The author’s strong legal and geographical background gives the work an authoritative perspective.
This book uses extractive industry projects in Africa to explore how political authority and the nation-state are reconfigured at the intersection of national political contestations and global, transnational capital. Instead of focusing on technological zones and the new social assemblages at the actual sites of construction or mineral extraction, the authors use extractive industry projects as a topical lens to investigate contemporary processes of state-making at the state–corporation nexus. Throughout the book, the authors seek to understand how public political actors and private actors of liberal capitalism negotiate and redefine notions and practices of sovereignty by setting legal, regulatory and fiscal standards. Rather than looking at resource governance from a normative perspective, the authors look at how these negotiations are shaped by and reshape the self-conception of various national and transnational actors, and how these jointly redefine the role of the state in managing these processes for the ‘greater good’. Extractive Industries and Changing State Dynamics in Africa will be useful for researchers, upper-level students and policy-makers who are interested in new articulations of state-making and politics in Africa.
The book presents a new materialist understanding of acts of deliberate destruction of the built environment and, specifically, of the politics of aggressive spatial containment and regularization of urbanity employed within the conflict in Israel/Palestine. Building on recent scholarship on slow violence and urbicidal policies, it discusses the different dimensions of the violence against the urban space, as well as exposes the complex material-semiotic character of the urban territory and of its destruction. By referring to the concepts of “ethno-territoriality” and “the right to the city,” the book aims to generate an enhanced understanding of problems situated at the overlap of urban studies and investigations of state-sponsored violence, focusing specifically on issues related to urban warfare. Adopting a new materialist perspective, the book is a searing examination of political violence in our times. The volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of political science, international relations, cultural studies, and urban studies. It will also appeal to NGO professionals and activists across the world.
Power and Space sets out the inherently spatial nature of power today and seeks to change the conversation around how power exercises us in the contemporary moment. The essays brought together in this book are a response to the fact that conventional descriptions of power and its ordered geographies no longer chime with our lived experience. Spatiality matters to the workings of power nowadays, and this book sheds light on what it is that we face when power is exercised through more subtle, spatially nuanced arrangements. It is divided into three parts, each representing a different kind of engagement with power’s relationship to space, from the spatial shifts in the way power is exercised through to its assemblage-like entanglements and, in turn, its progressive topological character. Throughout the book, a wide range of social, political and economic examples are drawn upon to illustrate a more provisional sense of power, ranging, for instance, from the seductive logic of privatized public spaces to the attempt by a data analytics company to manipulate political behaviour, through to the offshore spaces invented by rising financial elites to challenge the established banking order. Illustrating the new-found abilities of the powerful to make their presence felt, this book provides an accessible account of the practical workings of power in the present day. It will be invaluable to students and academics in human geography and urban studies as well as politics, sociology and cultural studies.
The edited collection Spatial Practices: Territory, Border and Infrastructure in Africa presents research findings from the German Research Council’s Priority Programme 1448 “Adaptation and Change in Africa” (2011-2018). At the heart of the volume are important new spatial practices that have emerged after the end of the Cold War in the fields of conflict, climate change, migration and urban development, to name but a few, and their ordering effects with regard to social relations. These findings bear particular relevance for the co-production of territorialities and sovereignties, for borders and migrations, as well as infrastructures and orders. Contributors are: Sabine Baumgart, Andrea Behrends, Marc Boeckler, Martin Doevenspeck, Ulf Engel, Claudia Gebauer, Karsten Giese, Katharina Heitz Tokpa, Shahadat Hossain, Anna Hüncke, Gabriel Klaeger, Kelly Si Miao Liang, Andreas Mehler, Felix Müller, Detlef Müller-Mahn, Wolfgang Scholz, Sophie Schramm, Jannik Schritt, Michael Stasik, Florian Weisser, Julia Willers, and Franzisca Zanker.
Unpacking the major debates, this Oxford Handbook brings together leading authors of the field to provide a state-of-the-art guide to governance in areas of limited statehood where state authorities lack the capacity to implement and enforce central decision and/or to uphold the monopoly over the means of violence. While areas of limited statehood can be found everywhere - not just in the global South -, they are neither ungoverned nor ungovernable. Rather, a variety of actors maintain public order and safety, as well as provide public goods and services. While external state 'governors' and their interventions in the global South have received special scholarly attention, various non-state actors - from NGOs to business to violent armed groups - have emerged that also engage in governance. This evidence holds for diverse policy fields and historical cases. The Handbook gives a comprehensive picture of the varieties of governance in areas of limited statehood from interdisciplinary perspectives including political science, geography, history, law, and economics. 29 chapters review the academic scholarship and explore the conditions of effective and legitimate governance in areas of limited statehood, as well as its implications for world politics in the twenty-first century. The authors examine theoretical and methodological approaches as well as historical and spatial dimensions of areas of limited statehood, and deal with the various governors as well as their modes of governance. They cover a variety of issue areas and explore the implications for the international legal order, for normative theory, and for policies toward areas of limited statehood.
The Politics of Possession investigates how struggles overaccess to resources and political power constitute property andauthority recursively. Such dynamics are integral to stateformation in societies characterized by normative and legalpluralism. Includes some of the latest theoretical work on the dynamics ofaccess and property and how they are joined to questions of powerand authority Explores how access to resources is often contested and rifewith conflict, particularly in post-colonial and post-socialistcountries Offers a thought-provoking approach to the study of everydayprocesses of state formation Shows how the process of seeking authorization for propertyclaims works to legitimize the authorizers, and the effortsundertaken by politico-legal institutions to gain legitimacyunderpin and undermine various claims of access and property Contributors explore from a wide empirical compass of originalresearch spanning Latin America, Africa, South-East Asia, andEastern Europe
The core of this edited volume originates from a special issue of the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (JOTSA) that goes well beyond the special issue to incorporate the stimulating discussions and insights of two Middle East Studies Association conference roundtables and the important work of additional scholars in order to create a state-of-the-field volume on Ottoman sociolegal studies, particularly regarding Ottoman international law from the eighteenth century to the end of the empire. It makes several important contributions to Ottoman and Turkish studies, namely, by introducing these disciplines to the broader fields of trans-imperial studies, comparative international law, and legal history. Combining the best practices of diplomatic history and history from below to integrate the Ottoman Empire and its subjects into the broader debates of the nineteenth-century trans-imperial history this unique volume represents the exciting work and cutting-edge scholarship on these topics that will continue to shape the field in years to come.
