Foreign Fighters is the comprehensive study of foreign fighters examines patterns of recruitment using original data sets and detailed diverse case studies, and how recruiters use frames of existential threat to strengthen rebel groups.
Previous researches examine how transnational ethnic ties impact the relationship between host states and diaspora and why states and ethnic minorities in the diaspora may occasionally support violent rebel organizations in the homeland. However, these previous studies do not really consider the relationships among co-ethnic organizations without a homeland government. This book tackles the following important questions: How and when do co-ethnic Kurdish organizations provide open support for each other during conflict-peace cycle events? Moreover, do external threats impact the relationship among co-ethnic organizations? The aim of this research is to identify the causal factors that influence the transnational networks between Kurdish organizations. Research findings reveal that political rationality and external threats seem to be stronger predictors of political behavior than ethnic ties in the Kurdish case. This study helps scholars and policy makers to evaluate the impact of transnational networks between co-ethnic Kurdish organizations in cases of civil war, which may play a crucial role in the escalation and de-escalation of international conflicts. In addition, this research helps to understand the role of co-ethnic organizations in building sustainable peace in areas of conflict.
Many view civil wars as violent contests between armed combatants. But history shows that community groups, businesses, NGOs, local governments, and even armed groups can respond to war by engaging in civil action. Characterized by a reluctance to resort to violence and a willingness to show enough respect to engage with others, civil action can slow, delay, or prevent violent escalations. This volume explores how people in conflict environments engage in civil action, and the ways such action has affected violence dynamics in Syria, Peru, Kenya, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Spain, and Colombia. These cases highlight the critical and often neglected role that civil action plays in conflicts around the world.
Anatomy of a Civil War demonstrates the destructive nature of war, ranging from the physical to the psychosocial, as well as war’s detrimental effects on the environment. Despite such horrific aspects, evidence suggests that civil war is likely to generate multilayered outcomes. To examine the transformative aspects of civil war, Mehmet Gurses draws on an original survey conducted in Turkey, where a Kurdish armed group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), has been waging an intermittent insurgency for Kurdish self-rule since 1984. Findings from a probability sample of 2,100 individuals randomly selected from three major Kurdish-populated provinces in the eastern part of Turkey, coupled with insights from face-to-face in-depth interviews with dozens of individuals affected by violence, provide evidence for the multifaceted nature of exposure to violence during civil war. Just as the destructive nature of war manifests itself in various forms and shapes, wartime experiences can engender positive attitudes toward women, create a culture of political activism, and develop secular values at the individual level. In addition, wartime experiences seem to robustly predict greater support for political activism. Nonetheless, changes in gender relations and the rise of a secular political culture appear to be primarily shaped by wartime experiences interacting with insurgent ideology.
This book analyses the issue of child soldiers in order to understand how armed groups engage with international organizations to gain international legitimacy. The work examines why some armed groups ‘follow the rules’ of international humanitarian law and others do not. It argues that armed groups in conflicts around the world engage with international organizations in order to gain international legitimacy and to show they are following the laws of war. By examining the issue of child soldiers in contemporary armed conflict, the volume establishes a typology of which groups will engage with international actors and follow the laws of war – and which will not. The main aim of the book is to understand the rationality of even the most violent of actors, and to understand when and how armed groups can be encouraged to follow the laws of war. The work draws from extensive primary research conducted among armed groups in Syria and Myanmar, including al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the many small ethnic insurgent groups of Myanmar. This book will be of much interest to students of war and conflict studies, security studies, international humanitarian law, and International Relations.
The original Handbook of International Relations was the first authoritative and comprehensive survey of the field of international relations. In this eagerly-awaited new edition, the Editors have once again drawn together a team of the world′s leading scholars of international relations to provide a state-of-the-art review and indispensable guide to the field, ensuring its position as the pre-eminent volume of its kind. The Second Edition has been expanded to 33 chapters and fully revised, with new chapters on the following contemporary topics: - Normative Theory in IR - Critical Theories and Poststructuralism - Efforts at Theoretical Synthesis in IR: Possibilities and Limits - International Law and International Relations - Transnational Diffusion: Norms, Ideas and Policies - Comparative Regionalism - Nationalism and Ethnicity - Geopolitics in the 21st Century - Terrorism and International Relations - Religion and International Politics - International Migration A truly international undertaking, this Handbook reviews the many historical, philosophical, analytical and normative roots to the discipline and covers the key contemporary topics of research and debate today. The Handbook of International Relations remains an essential benchmark publication for all advanced undergraduates, graduate students and academics in politics and international relations.
Empirical studies and theoretical analyses examine the causes and consequences of disruptions in cross-border economic relationships, including political conflict, economic sanctions, and institutional collapse. Cross-border economic relationships gradually strengthened in the decades after World War II; for most of the postwar period, international trade and investment have grown faster than output, a process often termed “globalization.” In recent years, however, economic relationships have grown more fragile, subject to disruption by such factors as political conflict, economic sanctions, and the dissolution of institutional arrangements. This timely CESifo volume offers empirical studies and theoretical analyses that examine the causes and consequences of these disrupted economic relationships. Contributors propose a new theoretical framework for understanding the economic impact of intergroup conflict and develop a predictive model to analyze the contagion of regional wars. They offer empirical studies of the economic effect of targeted sanctions and boycotts, including those imposed upon Iran, Russia, and Myanmar; argue provocatively that natural disasters are associated with increased international trade; analyze trade duration, finding previously identified explanatory factors to be insufficient for explaining variations in trade survival over time; and critically review the hypothesis that oil was a crucial factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union. Contributors Daniel P. Ahn, Tibor Besedeš, Kilian Heilmann, Wolfgang Hess, Julian Hinz, Melise Jaud, Tristan Kohl, Madina Kukenova, Chenmei Li, Rodney D. Ludema, Volker Nitsch, Maria Persson, Chiel Klein Reesink, Arthur Silve, Enrico Spolaore, Martin Strieborny, Marvin Suesse, Peter A. G. van Bergeijk, Thierry Verdier, Romain Wacziarg
An unprecedented analysis of the crucial but underexplored roles the United States and other nations have played in shaping Syria’s ongoing civil war “One of the best informed and non-partisan accounts of the Syrian tragedy yet published.”—Patrick Cockburn, Independent Syria’s brutal, long-lasting civil war is widely viewed as a domestic contest that began in 2011 and only later drew foreign nations into the fray. But in this book Christopher Phillips shows the crucial roles that were played by the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar in Syria’s war right from the start. Phillips untangles the international influences on the tragic conflict and illuminates the West’s strategy against ISIS, the decline of U.S. power in the region, and much more. Originally published in 2016, the book has been updated with two new chapters.
A small Kurdish city located in northern Syria, Kobane, became symbolically significant when ISIS laid siege to the city between September 2014 and January 2015. This pivotal moment in the fight against ISIS threw the international spotlight on the Kurds. The Kobane Generation analyses how Kurdish diaspora communities mobilised in France after the breakout of the Syrian civil war and political unrest in Turkey and Iraq in the 2010s. Tens of thousands of people, mostly but not exclusively diaspora Kurds, demonstrated in major European capitals, expressed their solidarity with Kobane, and engaged in transnational political activism towards Kurdistan. In this book, Mari Toivanen discusses a series of critical events that led to different forms of transnational participation towards Kurdistan. The focus of this book is particularly on how diaspora mobilisations became visible among the second generation, the descendants of Kurdish migrants. The book addresses important questions, such as why second-generation members felt the need to mobilise and what kind of transnational participation this led to. How did the transnational participation and political activism of the second generation differ from that of their parents, and is such activism simply diasporic or also related to more global changes in political activism? The Kobane Generation offers important insights on the generational dynamics of political mobilisations and their significance to understanding diaspora contributions. More broadly, it sheds light on second-generation political activism beyond the diaspora context, analysing it in relation to global transformations in political subjectivities.