Search results
committing to ‘defeat extremism’ ( Her Majesty’s Government, 2015 , p. 6), the UK government admitted it was still searching for a clear definition of extremism that could stand up in court ( Hooper, 2017 ). While the question of what counter-extremism is hoping to achieve becomes ever more important, the answer remains elusive. This chapter hopes to offer a critical framework to evaluate counter-extremism strategies, borrowed from the realm of peace studies, in order to offer a way to answer this question. Answering this question is of profound importance. If counter
Gerry Fitt was a key political figure in Northern Ireland for over twenty years, yet there is no major historical evaluation of his contribution, nor of his legacy or place in the memory of the minority community there. Drawing on unpublished party and private papers, recently released Irish and British government papers, and interviews, this book is the first academic study of the role of Gerry Fitt in the politics of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and will examine the first decade of the party through the lens of his leadership.
Fitt was a driving force behind the original vision of the party and played a central role in creating the identity of the SDLP as a ‘radical socialist party’ which provided a ‘new’ style of nationalism, by prioritising socio-economic issues over the constitutional question. Yet, Fitt noted that he was often in an ‘unhappy minority of one’ over many issues and at times the relationship between himself and his party colleagues was ‘very uneasy’. This book, therefore, sheds new light on the formation of the SDLP, examining the reasons and processes through which the party was formed and the often conflicting policies and sense of political identity that the party portrayed throughout the 1970s. Contrary to the official narrative of the party, this book presents an alternative and more nuanced view of the machinations which moulded party policy in its first decade.
This book is essential reading for students and scholars of modern Irish and British politics and the Northern Ireland conflict. It will also appeal to those interested in conflict resolution in divided societies.
Recent years have seen the proliferation of discourses surrounding extremism and related terms. Encountering Extremism offers readers the opportunity to interrogate extremism through a plethora of theoretical perspectives, and to explore counter-extremism as it has materialised in plural local contexts. Through offering a critical interrogation along these two planes – the theoretical and the local – Encountering Extremism presents a unique, in-depth and critical analysis of a profoundly important subject. This book seeks to understand, and expose the implications of, a fundamental problematic: how should scholars and strategists alike understand the contemporary shift from counter-terrorism to counter-extremism?
Starting with a genealogical reflection on the discourse and practices of extremism, the book brings together authors examining the topic of extremism, countering extremism and preventing extremism from different theoretical perspectives, such as critical terrorism studies, postcolonialism and gender studies. It then turns to analyses of the specific consequences of this new discourse in international and local contexts such as the United Nations, Nigeria, Tunisia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Spain.
In February 2004, Tariq Ramadan, the well-known Swiss-born academic and commentator on Islamic matters, applied for a non-immigrant US visa on accepting a professorship in peace studies at the University of Notre Dame. He was granted a visa, but in July the State Department revoked it, citing the ‘ideological exclusion provision’ of the USA
Edited and introduced by Nobel Laureate John Hume, T.G. Fraser and Leonie Murray, this book provides a range of unique insights into the issues surrounding peacemaking, delivered by major international figures with direct experience in this area at the highest level. Based on a series of lectures on the theme of ‘Peace’ given under the auspices of the Tip O’Neill Chair in Peace Studies at the University of Ulster’s Magee campus and funded by The Ireland Funds, each lecture is presented with an introduction placing it in its proper context within the discourse on peacemaking. The volume makes an invaluable contribution to the study of peace and conflict studies, international history, international relations and international politics.
France has been a central actor in human protection, yet the existing literature has too often focused on Anglo-Saxon states or states that are wary of its development. In order to address this gap, this book provides an original and much-needed account of France’s relationship to human protection since the 1980s. It analyses a ‘tale of two norms’ using an innovative theoretical framework: The first is ‘France’s domestic norm of human protection’, and the second is the dominant international principle or norm of human protection at the time (chiefly humanitarian intervention in the 1990s and the responsibility to protect (R2P) in the 2000s). Through this ‘tale of two norms’, and also thanks to interviews with key actors such as Gareth Evans and Bernard Kouchner and analysis of fourteen case studies, the book reshapes our understanding of the development and influence of key principles and norms of human protection. It also corrects prevailing assumptions about France’s foreign policy and allows us to anticipate its future foreign policy more accurately. Last but not least, by showing how important it is to pay more attention to the interplay between domestic and international norms and building an innovative framework that can be used beyond the analysis of France and human protection, the book makes a key contribution to the literature on norms and International Relations theory more generally. The book is therefore an essential read for anyone interested in human protection, peace studies, France, foreign policy analysis, International Relations and norm diffusion.
For the three decades of the Northern Ireland ‘Troubles’ (1968–98), the United Kingdom experienced within its borders a profound and polarizing conflict. Yet relatively little research has addressed the complex effects, legacies and memories of this conflict in Britain. It occupies a marginal position in British social, cultural and political history, and the experiences and understandings of those in or from Britain who fought in it, were injured or harmed by it, or campaigned against it, have been neglected both in wider scholarship and in public policy. In the peace process since 1994, British initiatives towards ‘post-conflict’ remembering have been limited and fragmented.
This ground-breaking book provides the first comprehensive investigation of the history and memory of the Troubles in Britain. It examines the impacts of the conflict upon individual lives, political and social relationships, communities and culture in Britain; and explores how the people of Britain (including its Irish communities) have responded to, and engaged with the conflict, in the context of contested political narratives produced by the State and its opponents. Setting an agenda for further research and public debate, the book demonstrates that ‘unfinished business’ from the conflicted past persists unaddressed in Britain; and advocates the importance of acknowledging legacies, understanding histories, and engaging with memories in the context of peace-building and reconciliation. Contributors include scholars from a wide range of disciplines (social, political and cultural history; politics; media, film and cultural studies; law; literature; performing arts; sociology; peace studies); activists, artists, writers and peace-builders; and people with direct personal experience of the conflict.
Extending Bourdieu’s theory and a peace-studies approach, the concluding chapter of this book reflects on the significance of the research in light of political-economic developments in neo-jihadism from 2017 to 2020, and within the global economic system. It incorporates a comparative consideration of other political movements: anarchism, left-wing activism, the Global War on Terrorism, and a twenty-first-century rise in right-wing extremism. It also considers evolutionary developments within the phenomenon of neo-jihadism, including the possible future political activities of Al Qaeda and Islamic State. Drawing on theoretical and strategic inferences of the variegated nature of neo-jihadism, and empirical insights from research presented in this book, it ultimately suggests reframing strategic emphasis on surface-level contradictions or paradoxical relationships between the political-economic propaganda and financial practices of neo-jihadist organisations. As an alternative to this approach, it advocates paying greater attention to underlying structural connections between such organisations and the Western neoliberal entities and societal systems they externally oppose.
The book explores the relationship between violence against women on one hand, and the rights to health and reproductive health on the other. It argues that violation of the right to health is a consequence of violence, and that (state) health policies might be a cause of – or create the conditions for – violence against women. It significantly contributes to feminist and international human rights legal scholarship by conceptualising a new ground-breaking idea, violence against women’s health (VAWH), using the Hippocratic paradigm as the backbone of the analysis. The two dimensions of violence at the core of the book – the horizontal, ‘interpersonal’ dimension and the vertical ‘state policies’ dimension – are investigated through around 70 decisions of domestic, regional and international judicial or quasi-judicial bodies (the anamnesis). The concept of VAWH, drawn from the anamnesis, enriches the traditional concept of violence against women with a human rights-based approach to autonomy and a reflection on the pervasiveness of patterns of discrimination (diagnosis). VAWH as theorised in the book allows the reconceptualisation of states’ obligations in an innovative way, by identifying for both dimensions obligations of result, due diligence obligations, and obligations to progressively take steps (treatment). The book eventually asks whether it is not international law itself that is the ultimate cause of VAWH (prognosis).
Introduction My philosophy of peace Nobel Laureate John Hume It was a great honour for me to be appointed Tip O’Neill Professor of Peace Studies at the University of Ulster’s Magee campus, and to be given the opportunity of inviting so many distinguished speakers to share their thoughts and experiences of peacemaking. Tip O’Neill was a valued friend, who did not hesitate to use his considerable influence in Washington to advance the cause of peace in Ireland. He was the first Speaker of the House of Representatives to come to Northern Ireland. I was able to