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ID:
129208
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
Almost twenty-five years ago, the political scientist Joseph S. Nye Jr. coined the term "soft power" to capture the influence that the United States exercises not through coercion or inducement but through attraction. Coercion and inducement-the stick and the carrot-are forms of command power (or what Nye calls "hard power"), delivered via economic, diplomatic, or military instruments. Command power is used to compel or bribe others to do what you want them to do. Soft power, in contrast, is less a policy instrument to be wielded than an indirect force; it emanates from the attractiveness of a state's culture, political values, and foreign policies. Soft power encourages other international actors to cooperate with a state (or a multistate organization like the European Union) to pursue what they perceive as shared goals and values. It is therefore a less costly means of attaining desired outcomes than the use of command power.
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| 2 |
ID:
128846
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
A study of land reform illuminates the paradox of economic instruments in counter-insurgency. Where redistributive demands are at the core of a rebellion, foreign powers will find it difficult to respond effectively. Recent years have seen the United States and its allies embroiled in major counter-insurgency campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, and lesser operations in such countries as Yemen and Somalia. These battles against local insurgencies are only the latest in a string of such conflicts that have erupted in nearly every developing region since the end of the Second World War. Sharply debated at home and abroad, they raise the fundamental question of what the counter-insurgents can reasonably hope to achieve in violent settings, even when they deploy an array of military, political and economic instruments. What are the 'moving parts' that foreign powers can manipulate in their efforts to force or encourage violence-reducing reforms in these societies?
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| 3 |
ID:
131759
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| Publication |
2014.
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| Summary/Abstract |
This article proposes a general analytical framework for how we might better understand intrastate war and related forms of organised political violence. It begins by setting out our understanding of agency and structure, before outlining the key structures and agents central to the social construction of political violence. This is followed by a discussion of some of the common discursive practices frequently observed in the lead-up to the outbreak of organised violence, such as the widespread articulation of threat and victimhood narratives, the demonisation and dehumanisation of an enemy other, the renegotiation of norms of violence and the suppression of counter-hegemonic and anti-violence voices. The article argues that organised and sustained political violence is contingent on two key facilitating conditions. First, the presence of a particular set of material and discursive structures, including the military instruments for sustained violence, an economic basis for prosecuting war and a set of society-wide military norms, values and practices; and second, willing and capable agents who can transform the structural potential of the society or group into active participants in violence. The interaction of structures, agents and discursive practices can, in particular historical and spatial contexts, create the specific conditions which make organised violence possible. The discussion is illustrated by reference to a number of recent and historical wars, including the war on terror
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| 4 |
ID:
100138
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