In a world of transnational economics and mass communications, ethnic conflict and nationalism have recently re-emerged as major political forces. Is this due to the advance of modernity? Will a global culture supersede nationalism? In fact, the revolution of modernity has revitalized ethnic memories and communities, as people look for stability and meaning in an age of unprecedented change and return to their ethnic heritages. Ethnic nationalism challenges, but also reinforces the national state. By comparison, supra-national ideals seem vague and pale, and the dream of a cosmopolitan global culture is utopian. For all its shortcomings, Anthony Smith argues, the nation and its nationalism is likely to remain the only realistic and widespread popular ideal of community.
The turn of the century has seen the US greatly enhance its military supremacy across the world. It has also played a key role in shaping the international economic order. More recently, however, its world-wide economic domination has started to diminish as other regions and countries have become globally important players. Simon Bromley brings a fresh perspective to these issues, arguing that it is as yet unclear whether the US will be capable of rising to the challenges posed by the new world order. He carefully examines the intricacies of these debates including the American ideology of a liberal international order and the relation of this to the Bush doctrine; US power in the transatlantic arena and US-European integration in relation to the EU and NATO; and the geo-politics of oil. He looks at a range of challenges to US dominance, including the weakening of the dollar; the rapid growth and industrialization of Asia; and the strengths and weaknesses of Bush's foreign policy. This book is set to spark debate amongst students and scholars of international politics, as well as appealing to anyone interested in the changing shape of the international order.
Those who work with children and young people have a responsibility to safeguard and promote their welfare. Recognizing and detecting signs of emotional abuse and neglect is an important responsibility as well as a key skill. As well as ensuring that children and young people are free from harm, it is equally important to ensure their well-being and quality of life. This new edition of Olive Stevenson’s highly respected text is updated throughout to include the latest policy and research developments, and expanded to include greater consideration of topics such as the impact of parental mental health, substance abuse and alcoholism on parental capacity and the issue of parents with learning disabilities. Providing clear guidelines for the assessment and intervention of child neglect, Neglected Children and Their Families is an invaluable resource for all those studying and working in childcare, including social workers, health visitors and child nurses. Includes recent policy and research developments in the field, and includes latest government initiatives Provides best-practice guidelines for the detection and assessment of neglect Written by a highly-respected authority in the area Evidence-based, accessible and practical in style
Until recently, the topic of female sexual offenders remained under-researched, and many incorrect assumptions and beliefs still surround the subject. This book is organised in to five parts around eleven chapters. It provides a comprehensive overview of the latest research in this often overlooked area and discusses both adult female offenders and adolescents/younger children who commit sexual offences against children. After an in-depth evaluation of research literature, the author then considers a range of treatment approaches and directions for future research.
Emotional abuse and neglect are at the core of all types of child maltreatment, and have the most harmful effects on the physical and psychological development and well-being of children. Yet they are considered to be the most difficult to deal with by those who have the responsibility to protect and intervene in effective ways. In this book the author explores the concept of a damaged child, and asks what are the different types of injury, ranging from active to passive, physical to emotional, that stop children from reaching their full potential psychologically and physically? The author questions whether emotional damage to a child can be repaired and answers questions such as: Is some injury irreversible? What therapeutic techniques are available to deal with emotional abuse? Can the abusers as well as the abused be helped to change? Case studies are provided to illustrate the features of emotional abuse, and chapters are devoted to the assessment and prediction of emotional abuse, effects of emotional abuse as the child grows up, intervention and treatment and working with the family as a whole.
Wars throughout history have been fought in the name of ideology, religion and the pursuit of peace. Our thinking about war – when it is justified, how it should be fought and how it is perceived – has changed dramatically over time. Whereas in the past war has been seen as a battle of wills, this provocative and illuminating new book shows how war has evolved into an exercise in risk management. In a rare blend of political science, sociology, history and cultural thought, Christopher Coker peels away the layers of meaning shrouding our current understanding of war and warfare. Using the ideas of writers such as Zygmunt Bauman, Ulrich Beck and Frank Furedi, he shows that risk has become the language of business, politics and public policy and so we should not be surprised that it has now become the language of war. The book highlights the increasing difference between homeland security and national security in the modern world, arguing that the defense of the citizen is often now more challenging than the defense of the state. By demonstrating the changing character and complexity of conflict from World War I to the current the current fight against terrorism, the book provides a powerful and highly distinctive account of the re-branding of war in an age of risk. This book is set to ignite debate amongst students and scholars of international politics as well as appealing to anyone interested in war and its place in contemporary society.
Using real-world examples and in-depth case studies, Forced Migration and Global Politics systematically applies International Relations theory to explore the international politics of forced migration. Provides an accessible and thought-provoking introduction to the main debates and concepts in international relations and examines their relevance for understanding forced migration Utilizes a wide-range of real-world examples and in-depth case studies, including the harmonization of EU asylum and immigration policy and the securitization of asylum since 9/11 Explores the relevance of cutting-edge debates in international relations to forced migration
Future developments in war, armed conflict and international relations are central to our collective fate in this century. This book looks forward by considering the forces that will drive changes in military organizations, sources of conflict, the power of states and the nature of the international system. New military technologies will alter how wars are fought and will influence the balance of power. Changes in the global environment will provide new causes of conflict and will change economic priorities. As a result, the state will survive as the key social institution and populations will look to it to acquire and to distribute scarce resources like water, energy and land. Many of the changes that seem transformatory today, like globalization, the internet and mass consumerism, will be shown to be less significant than we believe them to be. Hirst puts such changes into perspective by comparing them with the revolutionary changes in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in Europe: the firepower revolution, the rise of the sovereign territorial state and the parallel development of the international system, and the creation of world trade. These basic structures of the modern world are still with us and will remain, despite major changes in twenty-first-century society. This book will appeal to students of politics, political sociology & international relations as well as the interested general reader.
The book investigates the ways in which state-centred approaches to international relations have limited our understanding of global, political, economic and cultural processes. By assessing a wide range of such state-centred work, Youngs identifies the challenges we must address to grasp the complexity of the contemporary world.
There have been significant political eras which have shaped not only the structure of world politics but the way in which it has been studied. The geopolitical and ideological contours of the Cold War period, for example, had an impact on almost every aspect of world politics and the study of international relations for around 45 years. This book argues that, just as the collapse of the Soviet Union in the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall signalled the end of strategic polarization, it also marked the apparent end of a particular form of polarized debate around political, social and economic ideas. The various new directions taken by scholars of international relations in the post-Cold War era constitute a large part of a ‘new agenda' for the discipline. This collection reflects the variety of issues and approaches that have become part and parcel of this agenda over the past ten years. Issues tackled in this volume include the power of culture and ideology, the concept of globalisation, inequality, human rights and security as well as reflections on new forms of polarization in the post-Cold War world. Each contributor addresses the nature of changes and continuities in world politics, considers how the discipline of international relations itself has changed and reflects on possible directions for the twenty-first Century. This book will be of great interest to scholars of international relations, global politics, economics and related disciplines.