Illusions of Conflict

Illusions of Conflict PDF Author: Joseph Smith
Publisher: Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
This book presents the first comprehensive treatment of Anglo-American rivalry over Latin America in the late nineteenth century, who battled for economic and political influence in the region from the Civil War until 1895, when the Venezuelan boundary dispute came to a head and the Monroe Doctrine was finally recognized by the British. Yet author Joseph Smith posits that this was only an illusion of conflict, that the two major powers has shared objectives all along in the region.

Illusions of Conflict

Illusions of Conflict PDF Author: Joseph Smith
Publisher: Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book

Book Description
This book presents the first comprehensive treatment of Anglo-American rivalry over Latin America in the late nineteenth century, who battled for economic and political influence in the region from the Civil War until 1895, when the Venezuelan boundary dispute came to a head and the Monroe Doctrine was finally recognized by the British. Yet author Joseph Smith posits that this was only an illusion of conflict, that the two major powers has shared objectives all along in the region.

Convergence Or Conflict in the Taiwan Strait

Convergence Or Conflict in the Taiwan Strait PDF Author: J. Michael Cole
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138696235
Category : China
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
10 The trap that China set for itself -- 11 The myth of inevitability -- 12 Is war the only option? -- 13 The 2016 elections: A return to uncertainty? -- Part 4 Why Taiwan matters -- 14 The last free refuge -- 15 The folly of abandonment -- 16 What can Taiwan do? -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Overconfidence and War

Overconfidence and War PDF Author: Dominic D. P. Johnson
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674039165
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Get Book

Book Description
Opponents rarely go to war without thinking they can win--and clearly, one side must be wrong. This conundrum lies at the heart of the so-called "war puzzle": rational states should agree on their differences in power and thus not fight. But as Dominic Johnson argues in Overconfidence and War, states are no more rational than people, who are susceptible to exaggerated ideas of their own virtue, of their ability to control events, and of the future. By looking at this bias--called "positive illusions"--as it figures in evolutionary biology, psychology, and the politics of international conflict, this book offers compelling insights into why states wage war. Johnson traces the effects of positive illusions on four turning points in twentieth-century history: two that erupted into war (World War I and Vietnam); and two that did not (the Munich crisis and the Cuban missile crisis). Examining the two wars, he shows how positive illusions have filtered into politics, causing leaders to overestimate themselves and underestimate their adversaries--and to resort to violence to settle a conflict against unreasonable odds. In the Munich and Cuban missile crises, he shows how lessening positive illusions may allow leaders to pursue peaceful solutions. The human tendency toward overconfidence may have been favored by natural selection throughout our evolutionary history because of the advantages it conferred--heightening combat performance or improving one's ability to bluff an opponent. And yet, as this book suggests--and as the recent conflict in Iraq bears out--in the modern world the consequences of this evolutionary legacy are potentially deadly.

The Liberal Illusion

The Liberal Illusion PDF Author: Katherine Barbieri
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472023071
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

Get Book

Book Description
"A very important and long-awaited major contribution to the debate . . . Her work cannot be ignored." --Nils Petter Gleditsch, Journal of Peace Research "Barbieri builds on a solid foundation of work on trade and conflict and specifies the conditions under which trade reduces and increases conflict. . . . The bottom line is that this is an important book in the study of trade and conflict because of its comprehensive approach." --Kathy L. Powers, Perspectives on Politics "Barbieri's analysis reveals the fundamental and intellectual weaknesses of the various arguments on this topic. [A] solid and timely contribution to the literature" --Choice The Liberal Illusion sheds light on an increasingly important question in international relations scholarship and the domain of policy making-whether international trade promotes peace. By examining a broad range of theories about trade's impact on interstate relations and undertaking a set of empirical analyses of the trade-conflict puzzle, Katherine Barbieri provides a comprehensive assessment of the liberal view that trade promotes peace. Barbieri's stunning conclusions depart from conventional wisdom in international relations. Consequently, The Liberal Illusion serves as an important counterargument and a warning call to policymakers who rely upon trade-based strategies to promote peace, strategies that appear to offer little hope of achieving their goals.

Identity and Violence

Identity and Violence PDF Author: Amartya Sen
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393329291
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 238

Get Book

Book Description
The violence of illusion -- Making sense of identity -- Civilizational confinement -- Religious affiliations and Muslim history -- West and anti-west -- Culture and captivity -- Globalization and voice -- Multiculturalism and freedom -- Freedom to think.

Myths, Illusions, and Peace

Myths, Illusions, and Peace PDF Author: Dennis Ross
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101081872
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 392

Get Book

Book Description
"A trenchant and often pugnacious demolition of the numerous misconceptions about strategic thinking on the Middle East" -The New York Times Now updated with a new chapter on the current climate, Myths, Illusions, and Peace addresses why the United States has consistently failed to achieve its strategic goals in the Middle East. According to Dennis Ross-special advisor to President Obama and senior director at the National Security Council for that region-and policy analyst David Makovsky, it is because we have repeatedly fallen prey to dangerous myths about this part of the world-myths with roots that reach back decades yet persist today. Clearly articulated and accessible, Myths, Illusions, and Peace captures the real­ity of the problems in the Middle East like no book has before. It presents a concise and far-reaching set of principles that will help America set an effective course of action in the region, and in so doing secure a safer future for all Americans.

Identity and Violence

Identity and Violence PDF Author: Amartya Sen
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393060072
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Get Book

Book Description
Contends that the violence of today's world is as much a result of misunderstanding as it is of cultural differences and explains that modern conflicts have origins in illusions about factors such as identity and morality.

Conflict Prevention

Conflict Prevention PDF Author: David Carment
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Get Book

Book Description
"Conflict Prevention" evaluates the institutional record on conflict prevention, identifies current trends in conflict prevention practice, and makes recommendations on improving organizational capacity. This volume brings together a diverse group of individuals involved in conflict prevention activities: scholars from developed and developing countries, and practitioners with insights on the work of regional organizations and the United Nations. The first part of the book addresses the question: What is successful conflict prevention? The distinctive answers to this question reflect an understanding of conflict prevention that is both analytically rigorous and useful to practitioners. Conflict prevention can be understood as an important but understated element of statecraft and coercive diplomacy, as the physical presence of a deterrent force, or as a rehabilitative action taken to prevent the re-emergence of violence. Collectively, these interpretations point to the malleability of conflict prevention as a theory and as a policy. Contributors to the second part of the volume reflect on how existing mechanisms and instruments for conflict prevention can be properly evaluated and improved. They focus on several institutions that are at the forefront of conflict prevention policy: the EU, the OSCE, NATO, and the UN. They further show how informational and analytical needs can be used to enhance the quality of conflict analysis and its policy relevance. Drawing on experiences in Africa and the Americas, "Conflict Prevention" concludes with reflections on the efforts and challenges of building regional capacity in the developing world.

Is Conflict Adaptation an Illusion?

Is Conflict Adaptation an Illusion? PDF Author: James R Schmidt
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889194957
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 165

Get Book

Book Description
Conflict adaptation theory is one of the most popular theories in cognitive psychology. The theory argues that participants strategically modulate attention away from distracting stimulus features in response to conflict. Although results with proportion congruent, sequential congruency, and similar paradigms seem consistent with the conflict adaptation view, some researchers have expressed scepticism. The paradigms used in the study of conflict adaptation require the manipulation of stimulus frequencies, sequential dependencies, time-on-task regularities, and various other task regularities that introduce the potential for learning of conflict-unrelated information. This results in the unintentional confounding of measures of conflict adaptation with simpler learning and memory biases. There are also alternative accounts which propose that attentional adaptation does occur, but via different mechanisms, such as valence, expectancy, or effort. A significant (and often heated) debate remains surrounding the question of whether conflict adaptation exists independent of these alternative mechanisms of action. The aim of this Research Topic is to provide a forum for current directions in this area, considering perspectives from all sides of the debate.

Illusions of Emancipation

Illusions of Emancipation PDF Author: Joseph P. Reidy
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469648377
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 519

Get Book

Book Description
As students of the Civil War have long known, emancipation was not merely a product of Lincoln's proclamation or of Confederate defeat in April 1865. It was a process that required more than legal or military action. With enslaved people fully engaged as actors, emancipation necessitated a fundamental reordering of a way of life whose implications stretched well beyond the former slave states. Slavery did not die quietly or quickly, nor did freedom fulfill every dream of the enslaved or their allies. The process unfolded unevenly. In this sweeping reappraisal of slavery's end during the Civil War era, Joseph P. Reidy employs the lenses of time, space, and individuals' sense of personal and social belonging to understand how participants and witnesses coped with drastic change, its erratic pace, and its unforeseeable consequences. Emancipation disrupted everyday habits, causing sensations of disorientation that sometimes intensified the experience of reality and sometimes muddled it. While these illusions of emancipation often mixed disappointment with hope, through periods of even intense frustration they sustained the promise that the struggle for freedom would result in victory.