Pakistan Under Siege

Pakistan Under Siege PDF Author: Madiha Afzal
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815729464
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think? Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position—a top-down security perspective, that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes. Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics—the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties—and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula is followed all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes about terrorism and the rest of the world. In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation—one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education—can change course.

Pakistan Under Siege

Pakistan Under Siege PDF Author: Madiha Afzal
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815729464
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 174

Get Book Here

Book Description
Over the last fifteen years, Pakistan has come to be defined exclusively in terms of its struggle with terror. But are ordinary Pakistanis extremists? And what explains how Pakistanis think? Much of the current work on extremism in Pakistan tends to study extremist trends in the country from a detached position—a top-down security perspective, that renders a one-dimensional picture of what is at its heart a complex, richly textured country of 200 million people. In this book, using rigorous analysis of survey data, in-depth interviews in schools and universities in Pakistan, historical narrative reporting, and her own intuitive understanding of the country, Madiha Afzal gives the full picture of Pakistan’s relationship with extremism. The author lays out Pakistanis’ own views on terrorist groups, on jihad, on religious minorities and non-Muslims, on America, and on their place in the world. The views are not radical at first glance, but are riddled with conspiracy theories. Afzal explains how the two pillars that define the Pakistani state—Islam and a paranoia about India—have led to a regressive form of Islamization in Pakistan’s narratives, laws, and curricula. These, in turn, have shaped its citizens’ attitudes. Afzal traces this outlook to Pakistan’s unique and tortured birth. She examines the rhetoric and the strategic actions of three actors in Pakistani politics—the military, the civilian governments, and the Islamist parties—and their relationships with militant groups. She shows how regressive Pakistani laws instituted in the 1980s worsened citizen attitudes and led to vigilante and mob violence. The author also explains that the educational regime has become a vital element in shaping citizens’ thinking. How many years one attends school, whether the school is public, private, or a madrassa, and what curricula is followed all affect Pakistanis’ attitudes about terrorism and the rest of the world. In the end, Afzal suggests how this beleaguered nation—one with seemingly insurmountable problems in governance and education—can change course.

State of Siege

State of Siege PDF Author: Mahmoud Darwish
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 0815609299
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
Mahmoud Darwish (1942–2008), recipient of France’s Knight of Arts and Belles Lettres medal, the Lotus Prize, and the Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom, is widely considered Palestine’s most eminent poet. State of Siege was written while the poet himself was under siege in Ramallah during the Israeli invasion of 2002. An eloquent and impassioned response to political extremity, the collection was published to great acclaim in the Arab world. Munir Akash’s translation, including an introduction exploring the rich mythology of these poems, presents the first book-length, bilingual edition of State of Siege to an English audience.

Under Siege

Under Siege PDF Author: Rashid Khalidi
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231535953
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Under Siege is Rashid Khalidi's firsthand account of the 1982 Lebanon War and the complex negotiations for the evacuation of the P.L.O. from Beirut. Utilizing unconventional sources and interviews with key officials and diplomats, Khalidi paints a detailed portrait of the siege and ensuing massacres, providing insight into the military pressure experienced by the P.L.O., the war's impact on Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, and diplomatic efforts by the United States. A new preface by Khalidi considers developments across the Middle East in the thirty years since the conflict. The preface also cites recently declassified Israeli documents to offer surprising new revelations about the roles and responsibilities of both Israeli leaders and American diplomats in the tragic coda to the war, the Sabra and Shatila massacres.

Local Democracy Under Siege

Local Democracy Under Siege PDF Author: Dorothy Holland
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814737463
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 317

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Book Description
2007 Society for the Anthropology of North America (SANA) Book Award Complete List of Authors:Dorothy Holland, Donald M. Nonini, Catherine Lutz, Lesley Bartlett, Marla Frederick-McGlathery, Thaddeus C. Guldbrandsen, and Enrique G. Murillo, Jr. What is the state of democracy at the turn of the twenty-first century? To answer this question, seven scholars lived for a year in five North Carolina communities. They observed public meetings of all sorts, had informal and formal interviews with people, and listened as people conversed with each other at bus stops and barbershops, soccer games and workplaces. Their collaborative ethnography allows us to understand how diverse members of a community not just the elite think about and experience “politics” in ways that include much more than merely voting. This book illustrates how the social and economic changes of the last three decades have made some new routes to active democratic participation possible while making others more difficult. Local Democracy Under Siege suggests how we can account for the current limitations of U.S. democracy and how remedies can be created that ensure more meaningful participation by a greater range of people. Complete List of Authors (pictured) From Left to Right, bottom row: Enrique Murillo, Jr., Thaddeus Guldbrandsen, Marla Frederick-McGlathery. Top row: Dorothy Holland, Catherine Lutz, Lesley Bartlett, and Don Nonini.

Saints Under Siege

Saints Under Siege PDF Author: Stuart A. Wright
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814795307
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
This volume offers an incisive set of analyses by distinguished religious movements scholars of the massive state raid on the FLDS community in 2008. The book considers the raid as an exemplar case of a larger pattern of state actions against minority religions.

The Test of Our Times

The Test of Our Times PDF Author: Tom Ridge
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429928670
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In the harrowing days after September 11, 2001, the President of the United States reached out to one man to help guide the nation in its quest to shore up domestic security. In this candid and compelling memoir, Tom Ridge describes the whirlwind series of events that took him from the state capital of Pennsylvania, into the fray of Washington, D.C., and onto the world stage as a new leader in the fight against international terrorism. A Washington outsider, Ridge went above and beyond in his new post, identifying the need to integrate response teams on a wide-reaching scale and leading the nation's ambitious initiative of establishing a new Cabinet department, the Department of Homeland Security. The author recounts how the new department's unsung heroes, brought together under great duress, succeeded against difficult odds and navigated the politics of terrorism. Perhaps most importantly, Ridge offers a prescriptive look to the future with provocative ideas such as a national ID card and the use of biometrics to track not just who enters the United States but also how long they are here. Tom Ridge simply tells it like it is, offering a refreshingly honest assessment of the state of homeland security today—and what it needs to be tomorrow.

Under Siege

Under Siege PDF Author: Stephen Coonts
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671742949
Category : Adventure stories
Languages : en
Pages : 548

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Book Description
Captain Jake Grafton faces the duel threats of a determined assassin and a vicious drug lord, both intent on plunging the U.S. into chaos.

State Under Siege

State Under Siege PDF Author: Philip Mauceri
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429976801
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 151

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Book Description
Using a framework that highlights how societal and international factors have shaped state capacities, Philip Mauceri examines Perus volatile politics in the countrys move from a developmentalist state to neoliberalism. He explores the challenges to state authority during the military regimes reformist experiment, arguing that they were intensified in the 1980s by poor planning and limited policy choices. He then examines how social and international conditions have influenced the Fujimori regimes attempt to retool the state along neoliberal lines. }Using a framework that highlights how societal and international factors have shaped state capacities, Philip Mauceri examines the volatile politics in Peru from the Velasco through the Fujimori regimes as the country has moved from a developmentalist state to neoliberalism.Dr. Mauceri begins by reassessing the reformist experiment of the Peruvian military regime (19681980), arguing that it led to the development of unexpected challenges to state authority, both from new social actors and international financial organizations. During the 1980s, these challenges intensified, made even worse by poor planning and limited policy choices. The author then argues that the attempt by the Fujimori regime, backed by a neoliberal coalition, to retool the state indicates the degree to which state capacities are determined by social and international conditions. Mauceri also gives special attention to the relation between changing state power and social control. Separate chapters on the evolution of a Lima shantytown and the Shining Path examine how changes in state-society relations have had impacts at the grassroots level.

The Secular State Under Siege

The Secular State Under Siege PDF Author: Christian Joppke
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745691404
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Throughout human history, religion and politics have entertained the most intimate of connections as systems of authority regulating individuals and society. While the two have come apart through the process of secularization, secularism is challenged today by the return of public religion. This cogent analysis unravels the nature of the connection, disconnection, and attempted reconnection between religion and politics in the West. In a comparison of Western Europe and North America, Christianity and Islam, Joppke advances far-reaching theoretical, historical, and comparative-political arguments. With respect to theory, it is argued that only a “substantive” concept of religion, as pertaining to the existence of supra-human powers, opens up the possibility of a historical-comparative perspective on religion. At the level of history, secularization is shown to be the distinct outcome of Latin Christianity itself. And at the level of comparative politics, the Christian Right in America which has attacked the “wall of separation” between religion and state and Islam in Europe with the controversial insistence on sharia law and other “illiberal” claims from some quarters are taken to be counterpart incarnations of public religion and challenges to the secular state. This clearly argued, sweeping book will provide an invaluable framework for approaching an array of critical issues at the intersection of religion, law and politics for advanced students and researchers across the social sciences and legal studies, as well as for the interested public.

Under Siege

Under Siege PDF Author: Tom Trier
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781849040204
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Under Siege is the first book in any language to document and analyze the ethno-political dynamics of Abkhazia - a region located in the north eastern corner of the Black Sea - which broke away from the post-Soviet Republic of Georgia following a bloody civil war. For fifteen years the region was a de facto independent, though internationally unrecognized, state, until August of 2008, when the short war over South Ossetia (another breakaway territory) ended in Russia's official declaration that Abkhazia and South Ossetia were sovereign. Though few are familiar with the political and economic mechanics of this small, post-Soviet country, Abkhazia has become a crucial component of Russia's struggle to redefine its global influence and a major player in its geopolitical battle with the West. "Under Siege" clarifies Abkhazia's ethno-political dynamics, which have played a major role in the country's state building efforts and have shaped the conditions under which many ethnic communities live. Abkhazians, Armenians, Georgians, and Russians all call Abkhazia home, and this volume explores the effect of the government's de facto status on these groups' idea of nationhood and how continuing tensions between Georgia, Abkhazia, and Russia fail to improve the socio political situation of the region.