Assistance to Ukrainian War Refugees in Central Europe (2022-2024)
This book offers a comprehensive analysis of the unprecedented situation following the later stages of the war in Ukraine in 2022. It explores the experiences of millions of Ukrainians who sought refuge in neighboring countries and examines the wide-ranging support they received. Focusing primarily on Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and Moldova, the book highlights both the assistance provided by these nations and the personal stories of those who benefited from it. Based on qualitative research, including interviews and discourse analysis, and complemented by an examination of governmental documents and organizational initiatives, this work provides an in-depth account of the efforts made to support those displaced by the conflict. This book will be of interest to academics and practitioners within the NGO and government sectors actively researching Ukrainian refugees in countries that have chosen to host larger numbers of Ukrainians, particularly in Europe and North America.
Economic Governance, Political Freedoms and the Conditions of Societal Violence
This book shows how the underlying causes of civil war and political violence is based in concrete conditions relating to economic governance. The author argues that what matters for cauterizing the potentiality of "sustainable" violence is economic governance, specifically growth-promoting governance that maximizes returns to investment due to competitive free-market processes upheld by the rule of law and the protection of private property rights. Political and economic rights and freedoms are clearly intertwined, but there may be advantages to prefacing one over another. This study shows why and how economic governance matters for generating civil peace, perhaps more so than rival perspectives based on the understanding that violence is motivated by political concerns and grievances that motivate people to rebel broadly. The book demonstrates that the organization of violence that is sustained over long periods of time are far more narrowly focused that the loud discourses generated by violence itself predict. Even if people have legitimate reasons for contesting a government's policies, such concerns become side-tracked, even abandoned, for reasons that may trump the necessity of compromise; namely, because more narrowly organised groups may have advantages for organizing violence and survive sanction. The mechanism through which this may occur is the primary focus of this book. The author examines quantitative data but uses empirical detail from Sri Lanka as a case study. Relying on historical sources on the Sri Lankan conflict to guide the discussion, the author uses data collected by a host of individuals and agencies in the statistical analyses that follow.The work demonstrates that economic governance matters more than the political mechanisms most often argued in the literature. It will be of interest to those studying South Asian Politics, economic development, sociology, history, law, international relations, cultural studies and peace, security and conflict studies.
Capital, Privilege and Political Participation
This book will be available open access upon publication.Capital, Privilege, and Political Participation examines how privilege and people's perceptions of it relate to their involvement in politics. It treats people's stocks of economic, social and cultural capital as indicators of privilege as well as resources that help them engage with politics. It also argues that how people perceive privilege in society, their own lives and politics matters for their political participation. Using survey, interview and focus group evidence, the book shows that capital and perceptions of privilege do, indeed, relate to involvement in a host of political activities. Whilst political participation is a normal if not daily feature of many people's lives, having more economic and cultural capital is associated with being more politically active. Perceiving the role of privilege in society is also linked to higher levels of participation, whilst perceiving privilege in politics is unsurprisingly associated with being less politically active. Questions abound about how, if at all, capital and perceptions of privilege are causally related to political participation, but the book concludes that getting involved in politics is a distinguished activity. Efforts to tackle these inequalities in participation should, according to the people who participated in the research, centre on outreach activities by political institutions, more extensive and consistent citizenship education, and the active opening up of politics to the population.
The Reckoning
When a respiratory virus with a 0.2% fatality rate brought the world's most powerful democracy to its knees, something had gone terribly wrong. In "The Reckoning," historian Thomas Beckett Kane delivers a withering analysis of how the COVID-19 pandemic became not a public health crisis, but a catastrophic failure of leadership, science, and reason. Kane argues that the real virus wasn't SARS-CoV-2-it was the authoritarian impulse that seized control of American society. From the funding of dangerous gain-of-function research that created the virus, to devastating lockdowns that destroyed millions of lives and livelihoods, to a complicit media that amplified fear over facts, this book exposes how a "pandemic of experts" inflicted more damage than the disease itself. Drawing on extensive research and historical precedent, Kane reveals how the same officials who funded the virus's creation became the architects of America's response, how basic constitutional rights evaporated overnight, and why the summer of 2020's riots were the inevitable result of lockdown-induced social collapse. Most importantly, he reveals the crisis representing a turning point in American democracy-one that threatens the very foundations of individual liberty. Bold, uncompromising, and meticulously documented, "The Reckoning" is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how fear conquered freedom, and what it means for America's future. This is the definitive account of our modern madness-and a warning for generations to come.
Gridlock Greenwash
For decades, politicians and planners have promised that congestion charges, low-emission zones, and curbside bans would deliver cleaner, healthier cities. The rhetoric is compelling: slash traffic, cut pollution, save the planet. But what if the reality is more complicated-and far less fair?Gridlock Greenwash uncovers the unintended consequences of anti-car policies, from displaced traffic choking suburban streets to small businesses struggling under delivery restrictions. Drawing on global case studies from London to Milan, Stockholm to San Francisco, this book examines whether the promised air-quality gains are genuine or statistical illusions. It scrutinises the politics, the technology, and the social divides behind urban restrictions, revealing who really pays the price.Rather than arguing for more traffic, this investigation proposes a smarter path forward-designs and policies that genuinely cut emissions without sacrificing mobility equity. With clear analysis and verifiable data, it challenges symbolic environmentalism and lays out a blueprint for truly clean, accessible cities.
The Secrets of Silence
Why black women's stories of encounters with the police are missing from official and unofficial accounts of police violence In The Secrets of Silence, Shannon Malone Gonzalez investigates how the policing of black women is tied to the policing of their stories. Over a period of four years, Malone Gonzalez conducted intimate, life history interviews with black women about their encounters, listening to those who had never shared their stories before, never even been asked to, or had tried repeatedly to speak to those around them to no avail. They all described the unspoken or whispered connections in the ways officers and communities socially control black women to put them "in their place." Centering black women's searches for recognition of their violent encounters with police and other people in their lives, Malone Gonzalez examines the pervasive and often invisible forms of everyday policing that render missing black women's stories from official data, headlines, and community conversations. Articulating what she calls "the space between" recognition of black women's stories and their encounters, Malone Gonzalez shows that policing is as much about silence as it is about violence. Black women's silenced stories, then, provide a way to name and critique the institutional and intimate forms of policing that break and bend black social relations into a complex web of social control. Drawing on abolition feminism and black knowledge traditions, she envisions storytelling--and listening--as a way to reimagine, remember, and reconnect in solidarity and worldbuilding.
Western Corporations and Covert Operations in the early Cold War
This book examines the Vogeler/Sanders espionage case that ruptured ties between the US and UK and Hungary in 1949, and analyses this as an example of Western covert operations in the early Cold War. The work focuses on the 1949 case of ITT in Hungary, where two of its executives, the American Robert A. Vogeler and the Briton Edgar Sanders, were arrested by the secret police, tortured, forced to confess, put on a public show trial, and found guilty of espionage. This happened at a time that the US and the UK were cooperating in numerous operations to undermine the credibility of the communist regime and to encourage local resistance by "all means short of war." Using the case as a lens to examine the dynamics of the early Cold War, the book integrates business history, diplomatic history and intelligence history, and thereby traces the impact of the case on Anglo-Hungarian, American-Hungarian, and Anglo-American relations during the critical period of 1949-1956. Vogeler's case had a strong impact on the growing criticism of the Truman Administration's containment policies and contributed to the demand for a more activist policy of 'liberation of captive peoples'. His experiences also rallied the business community, especially trade associations such as the National Foreign Trade Council, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers, to support the anti-communist crusade both abroad and at home. Vogeler's wife also waged a personal campaign to secure her husband's release and exemplifies the activism of conservative and Catholic women who waged their own anti-communist crusade. The book thus tells the "rest of the story" often omitted in traditional works.This book will be of much interest to students of Cold War history, intelligence studies and European political history.
Countering Misinformation in Political Reporting
This book examines how journalists should deal with the growing tide of political disinformation and public scepticism towards news media. Informed by the latest research from the UK and around the world, the book draws on a series of UK-based studies over a six-year period between 2019-2024, systematically analysing over 4000 news items and sources across fact-checking sites and broadcast programming. It examines audiences through a survey of more than 1,000 people, a news diary study of 200 participants, and fourteen focus groups, in addition to interviewing some of the most prominent news editors and journalists in broadcast news. The authors look beyond disinformation emanating from online and social media platforms to identify where and how misinformation can spread across mainstream media. To enhance the legitimacy of journalism and better serve the public, they argue that news reporting should more regularly and robustly confront false and misleading information from politicians.
Evangelising the Nation
Evangelising the Nation examines the extent to which a particular articulation of Christianity mediated the formation of national identity among the Nagas who inhabit the hill tracts between the Brahmaputra River in India and the Chindwin River in Burma (now Myanmar). This revised second edition revisits the defining attributes of this process and brings to forefront the agential role of religion in shaping modern political identities.This book, based on meticulous archival research, tracks the transmutations of Protestantism from the United States to the hill tracts of Northeast India, and its impact on the form and content of the nation that was imagined and longed for by the Nagas. It also examines how missionaries, local church leaders, and the colonial and post-colonial state mediated nationalist aspirations among the Nagas during the twentieth century. Part of Transitions in Northeastern India series, this lucidly written book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of South Asian history, religion, political science, sociology and social anthropology, and particularly those concerned with Northeast India.
Nigeria's Counter-Terrorism Strategy
This book critically engages with Nigeria's counter-terrorism strategy as a means of identity construction. Drawing on a wealth of archival materials, Kodili Chukwuma analyses how the federal government articulates and justifies its counter-terrorism policy against specific 'terrorist' groups such as Boko Haram in order to construct Nigeria's identity. He argues that the designation of particular terrorist threats as a new form of terrorism in Nigeria - and beyond - enables state counter-terrorism interventions. Revealing the complexities of Nigeria's counter-terrorist strategy, this book sheds new light on critical terrorism and critical security studies in a key postcolonial context.
Simple Sabotage Field Manual
The ultimate guide to everyday sabotage, designed by spies to grind fascism to a halt. Arm yourself with knowledge and strategic incompetence! History proves that the most successful resistance comes from within. Once a covert tool against oppressive regimes, The Simple Sabotage Field Manual is set to inspire a new generation of Americans to fight fascism--at home and abroad. This declassified guide written by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II teaches ordinary citizens to discreetly disrupt enemy operations. How? By leaning into laziness, embracing red tape, whispering misinformation, and being proficient at inefficiency. With democracy teetering on the brink, this manual's tactics are eerily relevant to the modern era. Its advice on causing bureaucratic slowdowns, creating wasteful work habits, and stymying others' productivity will appeal to anyone who's overwhelmed by world politics and itching to take up the fight. It includes helpful tips like these: "Insist on doing everything through 'channels.' Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions." "Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible." "'Misunderstand' orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can." Discover how small, everyday disruptions can throw a wrench into the gears of authoritarian overreach, and change the world one befuddled shrug at a time.
A History of Political Conflict
A pioneering history of voting and inequality, drawing on an unprecedented data set covering more than two centuries of sociological findings. Who votes for whom and why? Julia Cag矇 and Thomas Piketty comb through more than two hundred years of data from some 36,000 French municipalities to show how inequality has shaped the formation of political coalitions, with stark consequences for economic and political development. Cag矇 and Piketty argue that today's tripartite division of French political life--a competition among a bourgeois central bloc and distinct factions of the urban and rural working classes--has a precise, and revealing, historical analogue. To understand contemporary tensions, we can look to the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, another period when runaway economic inequality produced such a three-way rivalry. Cag矇 and Piketty show that tripartition has always been unstable, whereas the binary political conflict enabled by relative equality and typical of most of the twentieth century facilitated social and economic progress. Comparing these configurations over time helps us envisage possible trajectories for the French political system in the coming decades. With its many changes in governmental structure since 1789, France is an ideal laboratory for studying the vicissitudes of modern political life in general, and electoral democracy in particular. Using France as a model, A History of Political Conflict offers a powerful framework for understanding the complex project of building and sustaining democratic majorities.
Covert Action
A comparative international perspective challenges conventional narratives about unacknowledged intervention"Covert action" is generally understood as politically motivated and plausibly deniable interference by one state in the affairs of another state. It includes propaganda, political or economic subversion, paramilitary action, and assassinations. Covert action is the most consequential and controversial form of secret statecraft, and it has become a ubiquitous feature of international politics. However, it is often sensationalized or seen through a narrow, US-centric lens.Covert Action challenges this conventional narrative and redefines secret statecraft by offering a groundbreaking comparative international perspective that explores the practice of unacknowledged intervention across twenty countries and a range of eras. Bringing together leading scholars from around the world, this volume moves beyond the American, and wider, anglosphere perspectives to examine covert action practices across states, regime types, and time.This book will be important reading for historians, political scientists, and policymakers, and it provides a foundational study of the hidden mechanisms of international power. It takes a global perspective and thus transforms the understanding of how nations truly interact behind the scenes, revealing covert action as a complex form of international statecraft.
Public Documents of the State of Maine; Being the Reports of the Various Public Officers and Departments
Divine Diplomacy
This book offers a fresh perspective on the impact of religious beliefs on global diplomacy and security, challenging the conventional wisdom that religion is a source of conflict and violence. It shows how religion can also be a source of cooperation and dialogue, as well as a form of soft power that can shape narratives and influence outcomes. It examines the paradoxes and conflicts arising from America's support for Pakistan's military rulers while promoting democratic values, highlighting the complex interplay between religion and politics. It shows how the Pakistan and United States faced dilemmas and trade-offs in their bilateral relations, balancing their strategic interests and their moral values.
Internal Environmental Displacement in Latin America and the Caribbean
This book offers a comprehensive exploration of the pressing issue of environmentally displaced persons (EDPs) in Latin America and the Caribbean, filling a gap in the existing literature. The concept of EDPs only gained prominence on the international stage in the late 20th century, but despite significant attention in recent years, there has been a conspicuous absence of a consolidated resource on the topic, particularly within this region. This book's editors, distinguished Brazilian scholars with extensive experience in academia and as consultants, have crafted a meticulously researched and thought-provoking volume. It addresses the historical evolution of EDP visibility among different stakeholders and delves into the legal and policy dimensions crucial for the protection of these vulnerable individuals. Drawing from an array of case studies, including Mexico, Haiti, Colombia, and Brazil, the book elucidates the multifaceted challenges faced by EDPs. It examines specific populations (women and girls, children, and indigenous communities) disproportionately affected by environmental displacement. This comprehensive work not only serves an academic purpose but also provides valuable insights and guidance to governments, NGOs, international agencies, and other actors grappling with the dilemma of protecting EDPs in the region. It stands as a unique and indispensable resource, offering a consolidated repository of information, data, and references that is unparalleled in the field. Readers will benefit from the wealth of knowledge and expertise encapsulated within this book, making it an essential addition to discuss the issue.
Universal
The 2025 Massey Lecture delivered by human rights activist and former secretary general of Amnesty International Canada Alex Neve. In this lecture, Alex Neve will lay out the unprecedented and daunting challenges humanity faces and offer a vision, both aspirational and pragmatic, that is grounded in the vital truth enshrined over 75 years ago in the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. The Massey Lectures are co-sponsored by CBC Radio, House of Anansi Press, and Massey College in the University of Toronto. The series was created in honour of the Right Honourable Vincent Massey, former Governor General of Canada, and was inaugurated in 1961 to provide a forum on radio where major contemporary thinkers could address important issues of our time.
