Understanding political ideas and movements

This book critically examines the range of policies and programmes that attempt to manage economic activity that contributes to political violence. Beginning with an overview of over a dozen policies aimed at transforming these activities into economic relationships which support peace, not war, the book then offers a sustained critique of the reasons for limited success in this policy field. The inability of the range of international actors involved in this policy area, the Development-Security Industry (DSI), to bring about more peaceful political-economic relationships is shown to be a result of liberal biases, resulting conceptual lenses and operational tendencies within this industry. A detailed case study of responses to organised crime in Kosovo offers an in-depth exploration of these problems, but also highlights opportunities for policy innovation. This book offers a new framework for understanding both the problem of economic activity that accompanies and sometimes facilitates violence and programmes aimed at managing these forms of economic activity. Summaries of key arguments and frameworks, found within each chapter, provide accessible templates for both students and aid practitioners seeking to understand war economies and policy reactions in a range of other contexts. It also offers insight into how to alter and improve policy responses in other cases. As such, the book is accessible to a range of readers, including students interested in peace, conflict and international development as well as policy makers and practitioners seeking new ways of understanding war economies and improving responses to them.

This book makes the case for an inclusive form of socialist feminism that will benefit both individuals and societies, and that puts multiply disadvantaged women at its heart. It argues that developing a feminist vocabulary is a key part of feminist politics, and it demystifies some key terms, including patriarchy and intersectionality. The book’s longest chapter engages with fierce disputes between some feminists and some trans women, and suggests possible compromises and ways forward. It argues throughout that the analysis of gender cannot be isolated from that of class or race, that patriarchy is inexorably entangled with capitalism, and that the needs of most women will not be met in an economy based on the pursuit of profit. In making these arguments, it explains why capitalism is not meeting human needs and it highlights the flaws in the ideologies that sustain it; it also shows how the assumptions of neoliberalism are incompatible with anything other than a narrow, elitist form of feminism that has little relevance for most women. Throughout, the book asserts the social, economic and human importance of the unpaid caring and domestic work that has been traditionally done by women, and the need to redistribute this and value it properly. It concludes that the combination of some policy trends, the increased presence of feminists in positions of influence and a rise in all kinds of grassroots activism give grounds for optimism about a future that could be both more feminist and more socialist.

This book analyses British news media coverage of the 2003 invasion of Iraq. It describes the analytical framework that serves as the basis for theoretically informed and systematic analysis of wartime media performance. The book synthesises a range of models, hypotheses and explanatory variables to set out a framework composed of three models of news media performance: the elite-driven model, the independent model and the oppositional model. It provides three case studies which, in different ways, illuminate each model of news media performance in wartime. The three case studies include the case of Jessica Lynch, the case of Ali Abbas and the case of the anti-war movement. The book then presents an account of how the relationship between foreign policy, news media and war might be expected to operate, based on current theoretical understanding. In order to place British coverage of the invasion in context, the book offers brief summaries of the structure and character of Britain's television news services and its press. The book provides an analysis of the ways in which the news media's visual depictions of the war reinforced supportive coverage. It is devoted to documenting and analysing evidence for negotiated and oppositional coverage. The book also examines the representation of civilian casualties, military casualties and humanitarian operations across both television and press, three subject areas that generated a good deal of media criticism.