Modern Just War Theory


Book Description

Contributions to Illuminations: A Scarecrow Press Series of Guides to Research in Religion provide students and scholars, lay readers and clergy, with a road map to research in key areas of religious study. All commonly constructed with introductions to the topic and reviews of key thinkers, concepts, and events, each volume includes surveys of the primary and secondary sources, with critical evaluations of their places in the canon of thought and research on the topic. Focusing primarily on the knowledge required by today’s students and scholars, each guide is a must-have for any student of religion. The twentieth century saw an explosion of wars and an accompanying explosion of literature on the morality of war. Thinking among Christian clerics and scholars on the idea of “just war” shifted with developments on the battlefield. Alternatives to just war theory, such as pacifism and realism, found new proponents in the published work of the neo-Anabaptists and Niebhurians. Meanwhile, proponents of Christian just war theory had to address challenges from competing ideologies as well as ththose presented by the changing nature of warfare. Modern Just War Theory: A Guide to Research, by scholar and librarian Michael Farrell, serves as a manual for students and scholars studying Christian just war theory, helping them navigate the wealth of just war literature produced in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Farrell’s guide provides an introduction to the major developments of just war theory in the twentieth century, including sections on how to research just war theory, an overview of some of the most important theorists and developments of the twentieth century, and discussions of key search terms and related topics. Farrell then surveys and evaluates key primary and secondary sources for researchers on just war theory, as well as related sources on Christian realism and the responses of just war theorists to proponents of pacifism and secular just war theories. Modern Just War Theory will appeal to students and scholars of theology, military history, international law, and Christian ethics




Naming Violence


Book Description

Much is at stake when we choose a word for a form of violence: whether a conflict is labeled civil war or genocide, whether we refer to “enhanced interrogation techniques” or to “torture,” whether a person is called a “terrorist” or a “patriot.” Do these decisions reflect the rigorous application of commonly accepted criteria, or are they determined by power structures and partisanship? How is the language we use for violence entangled with the fight against it? In Naming Violence, Mathias Thaler articulates a novel perspective on the study of violence that demonstrates why the imagination matters for political theory. His analysis of the politics of naming charts a middle ground between moralism and realism, arguing that political theory ought to question whether our existing vocabulary enables us to properly identify, understand, and respond to violence. He explores how narrative art, thought experiments, and historical events can challenge and enlarge our existing ways of thinking about violence. Through storytelling, hypothetical situations, and genealogies, the imagination can help us see when definitions of violence need to be revisited by shedding new light on prevalent norms and uncovering the contingent history of ostensibly self-evident beliefs. Naming Violence demonstrates the importance of political theory to debates about violence across a number of different disciplines from film studies to history.




Security and Human Rights


Book Description

In the wake of the events of September 11th, the task of reconciling issues of security with a respect for fundamental human rights has emerged as one of the key challenges facing governments throughout the world. Although the issues raised by the rise of security have been the subject of considerable academic interest, to date much of the debate surrounding the impact of security on human rights has taken place within particular disciplinary confines. In contrast, this collection of essays from leading academics and practitioners in the fields of criminal justice, public law, international law, international relations and legal philosophy offers a genuinely multidisciplinary perspective on the relationship between security and human rights. In addition to exploring how the demands of security might be reconciled with the desire to protect established rights, Security and Human Rights offers a fresh perspective on the broader legal and political challenges that lie ahead as states attempt to control crime, prevent terrorism and protect their citizens.




Public Affairs Quarterly


Book Description

Philosophical studies of public policy issues.




Political Torture in Popular Culture


Book Description

Political Torture in Popular Culture argues that the literary, filmic, and popular cultural representation of political torture has been one of the defining dimensions of the torture debate that has taken place in the course of the post-9/11 global war on terrorism. The book argues that cultural representations provide a vital arena in which political meaning is generated, negotiated, and contested. Adams explores whether liberal democracies can ever legitimately perpetrate torture, contrasting assertions that torture can function as a legitimate counterterrorism measure with human rights-based arguments that torture is never morally permissible. He examines the philosophical foundations of pro- and anti-torture positions, looking at their manifestations in a range of literary, filmic and popular cultural texts, and assesses the material effects of these representations. Literary novels, televisual texts, films, and critical theoretical discourse are all covered, focusing on the ways that aesthetic and textual strategies are mobilised to create specific political effects. This book is the first sustained analysis of the torture debate and the role that cultural narratives and representations play within it. It will be of great use to scholars interested in the emerging canon of post-9/11 cultural texts about torture, as well as scholars and students working in politics, history, geography, human rights, international relations, and terrorism studies, literary studies, cultural studies, and film studies.




Crimes Committed by Terrorist Groups


Book Description

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Examines terrorists¿ involvement in a variety of crimes ranging from motor vehicle violations, immigration fraud, and mfg. illegal firearms to counterfeiting, armed bank robbery, and smuggling weapons of mass destruction. There are 3 parts: (1) Compares the criminality of internat. jihad groups with domestic right-wing groups. (2) Six case studies of crimes includes trial transcripts, official reports, previous scholarship, and interviews with law enforce. officials and former terrorists are used to explore skills that made crimes possible; or events and lack of skill that the prevented crimes. Includes brief bio. of the terrorists along with descriptions of their org., strategies, and plots. (3) Analysis of the themes in closing arguments of the transcripts in Part 2. Illus.







The Torture Debate in America


Book Description

As a result of the work assembling the documents, memoranda, and reports that constitute the material in The Torture Papers the question of the rationale behind the Bush administration's decision to condone the use of coercive interrogation techniques in the interrogation of detainees suspected of terrorist connections was raised. The condoned use of torture in any society is questionable but its use by the United States, a liberal democracy that champions human rights and is a party to international conventions forbidding torture, has sparked an intense debate within America. The Torture Debate in America captures these arguments with essays from individuals in different discipines. This volume is divided into two sections with essays covering all sides of the argument from those who embrace absolute prohibition of torture to those who see it as a viable option in the war on terror and with documents complementing the essays.