Mobilizing in Uncertainty

Mobilizing in Uncertainty PDF Author: Anastasia Shesterinina
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501753789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Winner of the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies Co-winner of the Charles Taylor Book Award How do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Mobilizing in Uncertainty explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Anastasia Shesterinina uncovers that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. People consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened and mobilized to protect. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded. Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

Mobilizing in Uncertainty

Mobilizing in Uncertainty PDF Author: Anastasia Shesterinina
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501753789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Winner of the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social Studies Co-winner of the Charles Taylor Book Award How do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Mobilizing in Uncertainty explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Anastasia Shesterinina uncovers that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. People consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened and mobilized to protect. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded. Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

Mobilizing Invisible Assets

Mobilizing Invisible Assets PDF Author: Hiroyuki ITAMI
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674038983
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 201

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Book Description
Successful corporate strategies, says this leading professor of management, depend upon dynamic marshaling of a firm's "invisible assets"--information-based resources such as technological know-how, the visibility of a brand name, or knowledge of a customer base--as well as tangible assets such as people, goods, and money. Hiroyuki Itami emphasizes the ways strategy must fit the firm's external environment (customers, competitors, and ever-changing technology) and also the importance of internal fit within the organization. He uses invisible assets as a single organizing concept to discuss the appropriateness of strategy in each area.Strategy, Itami insists, must be adapted to rapidly changing conditions and must sometimes be prepared in advance of expected change. The most powerful strategy may often intentionally create imbalance in the short run in order to accumulate invisible assets and energize the organization. Itami examines successful strategies of Japanese firms, which have always operated in an environment of uncertainty and all-pervasive change. Sony and Honda are not the only examples, however--Itami also discusses IBM, Volkswagen, and the Swiss watch industry. The range of examples gives the book wide applicability and appeal to American business executives, who are now facing a similar situation of rapid change.The clarity and sound construction of Itami's argument will make it useful not only to MBAs and theorists of international business and comparative management, but also to "real world" planners and managers who are currently coping with just the sort of situations Itami describes.

Brutality in an Age of Human Rights

Brutality in an Age of Human Rights PDF Author: Brian Drohan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 150171466X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 383

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Book Description
In Brutality in an Age of Human Rights, Brian Drohan demonstrates that British officials’ choices concerning counterinsurgency methods have long been deeply influenced or even redirected by the work of human rights activists. To reveal how that influence was manifested by military policies and practices, Drohan examines three British counterinsurgency campaigns—Cyprus (1955–1959), Aden (1963–1967), and the peak of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland (1969–1976). This book is enriched by Drohan’s use of a newly available collection of 1.2 million colonial-era files, International Committee of the Red Cross files, the extensive Troubles collection at Linen Hall Library in Belfast, and many other sources. Drohan argues that when faced with human rights activism, British officials sought to evade, discredit, and deflect public criticism of their actions to avoid drawing attention to brutal counterinsurgency practices such as the use of torture during interrogation. Some of the topics discussed in the book, such as the use of violence against civilians, the desire to uphold human rights values while simultaneously employing brutal methods, and the dynamic of wars waged in the glare of the media, are of critical interest to scholars, lawyers, and government officials dealing with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and those to come in the future.

Narkomania

Narkomania PDF Author: Jennifer J. Carroll
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501736949
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Against the backdrop of a post-Soviet state set aflame by geopolitical conflict and violent revolution, Narkomania considers whether substance use disorders are everywhere the same and whether our responses to drug use presuppose what kind of people those who use drugs really are. Jennifer J. Carroll's ethnography is a story about public health and international efforts to quell the spread of HIV. Carroll focuses on Ukraine where the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs is higher than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and unpacks the arguments and myths surrounding medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in Ukraine. What she presents in Narkomania forces us to question drug policy, its uses, and its effects on "normal" citizens. Carroll uses her findings to explore what people who use drugs can teach us about the contemporary societies emerging in post-Soviet space. With examples of how MAT has been politicized, how drug use has been tied to ideas of "good" citizenship, and how vigilantism towards people who use drugs has occurred, Narkomania details the cultural and historical backstory of the situation in Ukraine. Carroll reveals how global efforts supporting MAT in Ukraine allow the ideas surrounding MAT, drug use, and HIV to resonate more broadly into international politics and echo into the heart of the Ukrainian public.

A Little War That Shook the World

A Little War That Shook the World PDF Author: Ronald D. Asmus
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
ISBN: 023010228X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
The brief war between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 seemed to many like an unexpected shot out of the blue that was gone as quickly as it came. Former Assistant Deputy Secretary of State Ronald Asmus contends that it was a conflict that was prepared and planned for some time by Moscow, part of a broader strategy to send a message to the United States: that Russia is going to flex its muscle in the twenty-first century. A Little War that Changed the World is a fascinating look at the breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, the decay and decline of the Western Alliance itself, and the fate of Eastern Europe in a time of economic crisis.

African Futures

African Futures PDF Author: Brian Goldstone
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022640241X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Civil wars, corporate exploitation, AIDS, and Ebola—but also democracy, burgeoning cities, and unprecedented communication and mobility: the future of Africa has never been more uncertain. Indeed, that future is one of the most complex issues in contemporary anthropology, as evidenced by the incredible wealth of ideas offered in this landmark volume. A consortium comprised of some of the most important scholars of Africa today, this book surveys an intellectual landscape of opposed perspectives in order to think within the contradictions that characterize this central question: Where is Africa headed? The experts in this book address Africa’s future as it is embedded within various social and cultural forms emerging on the continent today: the reconfiguration of the urban, the efflorescence of signs and wonders and gospels of prosperity, the assorted techniques of legality and illegality, lotteries and Ponzi schemes, apocalyptic visions, a yearning for exile, and many other phenomena. Bringing together social, political, religious, and economic viewpoints, the book reveals not one but multiple prospects for the future of Africa. In doing so, it offers a pathbreaking model of pluralistic and open-ended thinking and a powerful tool for addressing the vexing uncertainties that underlie so many futures around the world.

Away from Chaos

Away from Chaos PDF Author: Gilles Kepel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231551940
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
The Middle East is one of the world’s most volatile regions. In recent years, from the optimism and then crushing disappointment of the Arab uprisings through the rise and fall of the Islamic State, it has presented key international security challenges. With the resilient jihadi terror threat, large-scale migration due to warfare and climate change, and fierce competition for control over oil, it promises to continue to be a powder keg. What ignited this instability? Away from Chaos is a sweeping political history of four decades of Middle East conflict and its worldwide ramifications. Gilles Kepel, called “France’s most famous scholar of Islam” by the New York Times, offers a clear and persuasive narrative of the long-term causes of tension while seamlessly incorporating on-the-ground observations and personal experiences from the people who lived through them. From the Yom Kippur/Ramadan war of 1973 to the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Away from Chaos weaves together the various threads that run through Middle East politics and ties them to their implications on the global stage. With keen insight stemming from decades of experience in the region, Kepel puts these chaotic decades in perspective and illuminates their underlying dynamics. He also considers the prospects of emerging from this long-lasting turmoil and for the people of the Middle East and the world to achieve a more stable future.

Political Turmoil in a Tumultuous World

Political Turmoil in a Tumultuous World PDF Author: David Carment
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030706869
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
In the last two years, Canadian society has been marked by political and ideological turmoil. How does an increasingly divided country engage a world that is itself divided and tumultuous? Political instability has been reinforced by international uncertainty: the COVID-19 pandemic, populism, Black Lives Matter, and the chaotic final year of the Trump presidency that increased tensions between the West, China and Russia. Even with a Biden presidency, these issues will continue to influence Canada’s domestic situation and its ability to engage as an effective global actor. Contributors explore issues that cause or reflect these tensions, such as Canada’s willingness to address pressing crises through multilateralism, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Can Canada forge its own path in a turbulent world?

Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis

Social Movements in Times of Austerity: Bringing Capitalism Back Into Protest Analysis PDF Author: Donatella della Porta
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9780745688589
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Recent years have seen an enormous increase in protests across the world in which citizens have challenged what they see as a deterioration of democratic institutions and the very civil, political and social rights that form the basis of democratic life. Beginning with Iceland in 2008, and then forcefully in Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, Greece and Portugal, or more recently in Peru, Brazil, Russia, Bulgaria, Turkey and Ukraine, people have taken to the streets against what they perceive as a rampant and dangerous corruption of democracy, with a distinct focus on inequality and suffering. This timely new book addresses the anti-austerity social movements of which these protests form part, mobilizing in the context of a crisis of neoliberalism. Donatella della Porta shows that, in order to understand their main facets in terms of social basis, strategy, and identity and organizational structures, we should look at the specific characteristics of the socioeconomic, cultural and political context in which they developed. The result is an important and insightful contribution to understanding a key issue of our times, which will be of interest to students and scholars of political and economic sociology, political science and social movement studies, as well as political activists.

Gendered Paradoxes

Gendered Paradoxes PDF Author: Amy Lind
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271076364
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 186

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Book Description
Since the early 1980s Ecuador has experienced a series of events unparalleled in its history. Its “free market” strategies exacerbated the debt crisis, and in response new forms of social movement organizing arose among the country’s poor, including women’s groups. Gendered Paradoxes focuses on women’s participation in the political and economic restructuring process of the past twenty-five years, showing how in their daily struggle for survival Ecuadorian women have both reinforced and embraced the neoliberal model yet also challenged its exclusionary nature. Drawing on her extensive ethnographic fieldwork and employing an approach combining political economy and cultural politics, Amy Lind charts the growth of several strands of women’s activism and identifies how they have helped redefine, often in contradictory ways, the real and imagined boundaries of neoliberal development discourse and practice. In her analysis of this ambivalent and “unfinished” cultural project of modernity in the Andes, she examines state policies and their effects on women of various social sectors; women’s community development initiatives and responses to the debt crisis; and the roles played by feminist “issue networks” in reshaping national and international policy agendas in Ecuador and in developing a transnationally influenced, locally based feminist movement.