Interrogating International Relations


Book Description

The book interrogates the disciplinary biases that inform mainstream International Relations today. Examining the grand strategy of the Mughal empire under Akbar, it argues for a historico-cultural notion of power and critiques IR’s tendency to usher in a selective ‘return of history’.




Interrogating Democracy in World Politics


Book Description

Questions the history, meaning and concepts of democracy in contemporary international and global politics.




European Diplomacy in Practice


Book Description

This book aims to show practice approaches at work in the fields of European diplomacy and security broadly conceived. It sets out to provide readers with a hands-on sense of where research on social practices and European diplomacy, security and foreign policy currently stands. The book reviews how practice approaches have evolved in International Relations (IR) and brings together an unique set of contributions which highlights how insights from practice approaches can be applied to advance research on a number of key issues in these fields. While the debate about practices in IR goes beyond the case of diplomacy, the latter has become a showcase for the former and this book continues the debate on practices and diplomacy by zooming in on the European Union. Examples of issues covered include the evolution of EU-NATO relations seen from the perspective of communities of practice, burden sharing as an anchoring practice for European states’ involvement in crisis management operations, the practical knowledge shaping the EU’s responses to the Arab Uprisings, agency as accomplished in and through EU counter-piracy practices and the political resistance to Israeli occupation and the non-official recognition of Palestine performed by EU diplomats. Thus, by focusing on specific practices and analytical mechanisms that contribute to understand the transformations of European diplomacy, security and foreign policy, this book provides essential readings to anyone interested in innovative ways to grasp the contemporary challenges that face the EU and its member states. The chapters originally published as a special issue of European Security.




Interrogating Caribbean Masculinities


Book Description

This anthology of Caribbean feminist scholarships exposes gender relations as regimes of power and advances indigenous feminist theorizing. A particularly strong section of the book deconstructs marginality and masculinity in the Caribbean and provides ground-breaking research with policy implications. Of interest to scholars of feminist theory, gender studies, gender and development, post-colonial theory, and literary and cultural studies.




Interrogation in War and Conflict


Book Description

This edited volume offers a comparative and interdisciplinary analysis of interrogation and questioning in war and conflict in the twentieth century. Despite the current public interest and its military importance, interrogation and questioning in conflict is still a largely under-researched theme. This volume’s methodological thrust is to select historical case studies ranging in time from the Great War to the conflicts in former Yugoslavia, and including the Second World War, decolonization, the Cold War, the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland and international justice cases in The Hague, each of which raises interdisciplinary issues about the role of interrogation. These case-studies were selected because they resurface previously unexplored sources on the topic, or revisit known cases which allow us to analyse the role of interrogation and questioning in intelligence, security and military operations. Written by a group of experts from a range of disciplines including history, intelligence, psychology, law and human rights, Interrogation in War and Conflict provides a study of the main turning points in interrogation and questioning in twentieth-century conflicts, over a wide geographical area. The collection also looks at issues such as the extent of the use of harsh techniques, the value of interrogation to military intelligence, security and international justice, the development of interrogation as a separate profession in intelligence, as well as the relationship between interrogation and questioning and wider society. This book will be of much interest to students of intelligence studies, strategic studies, counter-terrorism, international justice, history and IR in general.




Interrogating and Innovating Comparative and International Education Research


Book Description

Conversations related to epistemology and methodology have been present in comparative and international education (CIE) since the field’s inception. How CIE phenomena are studied, the questions asked, the tools used, and ideas about knowledge and reality that they reflect, shape the nature of the knowledge produced, the valuing of that knowledge, and the implications for practice in diverse societies. This book is part of a growing conversation in which the ways that standardized practices in CIE research have functioned to reproduce problematic hierarchies, silences and exclusions of diverse peoples, societies, knowledges, and realities. Argued is that there must be recognition and understanding of the negative consequences of hegemonic onto-epistemologies and methodologies in CIE, dominantly sourced in European social science traditions, that continue to shape and influence the design, implementation and dissemination/application of CIE research knowledge. Yet, while critical reflection is necessary, it alone is insufficient to realize the transformative change called for: as students, researchers, practitioners and policymakers, we must hear and heed calls for concrete action to challenge, resist and transform the status quo in the field and work to further realize a more ethical and inclusive CIE. Interrogating and Innovating Comparative and International Research presents a series of conceptual and empirically-based essays that critically explore and problematize the dominance of Eurocentric epistemological and methodological traditions in CIE research. As an action-oriented volume, the contributions do not end with critique, rather suggestions are made and orientations modelled from different perspectives about the possibilities for change in CIE. Contributors are: Emily Anderson, Supriya Baily, Gerardo L. Blanco, Alisha Braun, Erik Jon Byker, Meagan Call-Cummings, Brendan J. DeCoster, D. Brent Edwards Jr., Sothy Eng, Ameena Ghaffar-Kucher, Jeremy Gombin-Sperling, Kelly Grace, Radhika Iyengar, Huma Kidwai, Lê Minh Hằng, Caroline Manion, Patricia S. Parker, Leigh Patel, Timothy D. Reedy, Karen Ross, Betsy Scotto-Lavino, Payal P. Shah, Derrick Tu, and Matthew A. Witenstein.




Interrogating Imperialism


Book Description

A collection of multiple perspectives on the "war on terror" and the new imperialism. Looking at the imperialism and the "war on terror" through a lens focused on gender and race, the contributors expose the limitations of the current popular discourse and help to uncover possibilities not yet apparent in that same discourse.




The Interrogation Rooms of the Korean War


Book Description

Traditional histories of the Korean War have long focused on violations of the thirty-eighth parallel, the line drawn by American and Soviet officials in 1945 dividing the Korean peninsula. But The interrogation rooms of the Korean War presents an entirely new narrative, shifting the perspective from the boundaries of the battlefield to inside the interrogation room. Upending conventional notions of what we think of as geographies of military conflict, Monica Kim demonstrates how the Korean War evolved from a fight over territory to one over human interiority and the individual human subject, forging the template for the U.S. wars of intervention that would predominate during the latter half of the twentieth century and beyond. Kim looks at how, during the armistice negotiations, the United States and their allies proposed a new kind of interrogation room: one in which POWs could exercise their "free will" and choose which country they would go to after the ceasefire. The global controversy that erupted exposed how interrogation rooms had become a flashpoint for the struggles between the ambitions of empire and the demands for decolonization, as the aim of interrogation was to produce subjects who attested to a nation's right to govern. The complex web of interrogators and prisoners -- Japanese-American interrogators, Indian military personnel, Korean POWs and interrogators, and American POWs -- that Kim uncovers contradicts the simple story in U.S. popular memory of "brainwashing" during the Korean War




Critical Perspectives on the Responsibility to Protect


Book Description

This edited volume critically examines the widely supported doctrine of the 'Responsibility to Protect', and investigates the claim that it embodies progressive values in international politics. Since the United Nations World Summit of 2005, a remarkable consensus has emerged in support of the doctrine of the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) – the idea that states and the international community bear a joint duty to protect peoples around the world from mass atrocities. While there has been plenty of discussion over how this doctrine can best be implemented, there has been no systematic criticism of the principles underlying R2P. This volume is the first critically to interrogate both the theoretical principles and the policy consequences of this doctrine. The authors in this collection argue that the doctrine of R2P does not in fact embody progressive values, and they explore the possibility that the R2P may undermine political accountability within states and international peace between them. This volume not only advances a novel set of arguments, but will also spur debate by offering views that are seldom heard in discussions of R2P. The aim of the volume is to bring a range of criticisms to bear from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, including international law, political science, IR theory and security studies. This book will be of much interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, humanitarian intervention, human security, critical security studies and IR in general.




Sexual Violence Against Men in Global Politics


Book Description

Sexual violence against men is an under-theorised and under-noticed topic, though it is becoming increasingly apparent that this form of violence is widespread. Yet despite emerging evidence documenting its incidence, especially in conflict and post-conflict zones, efforts to understand its causes and develop strategies to reduce it are hampered by a dearth of theoretical engagement. One of the reasons that might explain its empirical invisibility and theoretical vacuity is its complicated relationship with sexual violence against women. The latter is evident empirically, theoretically, and politically, but the relationship between these violences conjures a range of complex and controversial questions about the ways they might be different, and why and how these differences matter. It is the case that sexual violence (when noticed at all) has historically been understood to happen largely, if not only, to women, allegedly because of their gender and their ensuing place in gender orders. This begs important questions regarding the impact of increasing knowledge about sexual violence against men, including the impact on resources, on understandings about, and experiences of masculinity, and whether the idea and practice of gender hierarchy is outdated. This book engages this diverse set of questions and offers fresh analysis on the incidences of sexual violence against men using both new and existing data. Additionally, the authors pay close attention to some of the controversial debates in the context of sexual violence against men, revisiting and asking new questions about the vexed issue of masculinities and related theories of gender hierarchy. The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of sex, gender, masculinities, corporeality, violence, and global politics, as well as to practitioners and activists.