International Security and Peacebuilding: Africa, the Middle East, and Europe

by Abu Bakarr Bah (Editor), Rebecca Gulowski (Contribution by), Dauda Abubakar (Contribution by), Eva van Baarle (Contribution by), Michelle Schut (Contribution by)

Overview

The end of the Cold War was to usher in an era of peace based on flourishing democracies and free market economies worldwide. Instead, new wars, including the war on terrorism, have threatened international, regional, and individual security and sparked a major refugee crisis. This volume of essays on international humanitarian interventions focuses on what interests are promoted through these interventions and how efforts to build liberal democracies are carried out in failing states. Focusing on Africa, the Middle East, and Europe, an international group of contributors shows that best practices of protection and international state-building have not been applied uniformly. Together the essays provide a theoretical and empirical critique of global liberal governance and, as they note challenges to regional and international cooperation, they reveal that global liberal governance may threaten fragile governments and endanger human security at all levels.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253023841
Publisher:	Indiana University Press (Ips)
Publication date:	01/30/2017
Pages:	212
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Abu Bakarr Bah is Associate Professor of Sociology at Northern Illinois University. He is author of Breakdown and Reconstitution: Democracy, the National-State, and Ethnicity in Nigeria and editor-in-chief of African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Conundrums of Global Liberal Governance
Abu Bakarr Bah
1. Negotiating Narratives: R2P and the Conundrum of the Monopoly of Legitimized Use of Force
Rebecca Gulowski
2. Responsibility to Protect: The Paradox of International Intervention in Africa
Dauda Abubakar
3. Dancing Boys and the Moral Dilemmas of Military Missions: The Practice of Bacha Bazi in Afghanistan
Michelle Schut and Eva van Baarle
4. Managerial Capacity in Peacekeeping Operations: The Case of EUFOR
Unsal Sigri, M. Abdulkadir Varoglu and Ufuk Basar
5. Personalized Mediations and Interventions in the Ivoirian Conflict
Amy Niang
6. African Agency in New Humanitarianism and Responsible Governance
Abu Bakarr Bah
7. Regime Change: Neo-Liberal State-Building and Its Collapse on Iraqi Society
Deniz Gökalp

Bibliography
About the Contributors
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Scholars investigating the nexus of neoliberal governance and geopolitics, those interested in the practical limitations of international law, and those exploring everyday, lived experience of international policy will all find sections of this thoughtful, well researched volume useful."—African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review

"A strong, multi-regional analysis of global liberal governance, its practice, and outcomes. By adopting a critical discursive approach to these questions, these essays challenge conventional narratives about recent operations, both the most turbulent and the most successful."—Kenneth Omeje, editor of Conflict and Peacebuilding in the African Great Lakes Region

"Abu Bakarr Bah provides an incisive analysis of the different trajectories of war, peace building, and state reconstitution in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Côte D'Ivoire. Rich in empirical data and theoretical reflections, it shows how the international community, driven by new humanitarian and political paradigms, contributed to resuscitating these decaying states from the maelstrom of the 1990s and 2000s. It offers veritable lessons for everyone invested in a stable and prosperous West Africa."—Ismail Rashid – Vasser College

"In International Statebuilding in West Africa, Bah and Emmanual tackle a critically important but almost always overlooked question in the study of civil war and "failed states": how can states be built transformatively in the wake of civil wars? All too often, the moment of rebuilding in the wake of war focuses on patching together the state that was, typically with all their flaws and often replicating the very features that nurtured war. This book asks what might be possible if this moment was utilized to imagine new states, states that reflect the diverse peoples, needs, and cultural histories of their nations. Through a careful articulation of what happened in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Cote d'Ivoire, Bah and Emmanuel offer fresh and vitally important insights for the possibilities of building better states, and ensuring peaceful and prosperous futures. A must-read for peace studies scholars."—Dr. Catherine E. Bolten - University of Norte Dame

From the Publisher

Scholars investigating the nexus of neoliberal governance and geopolitics, those interested in the practical limitations of international law, and those exploring everyday, lived experience of international policy will all find sections of this thoughtful, well researched volume useful.

African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review

A strong, multi-regional analysis of global liberal governance, its practice, and outcomes. By adopting a critical discursive approach to these questions, these essays challenge conventional narratives about recent operations, both the most turbulent and the most successful.

Kenneth Omeje