PPR424: Conflict, International Intervention and Global Governance

Objectives

The module examines the significance of globalisation for the emergence of internal, regionalised and networked forms of conflict and instability. This includes the development of transborder shadow economies and extra-legal global networks capable of supporting new and emerging forms of private political authority and insurgency. Such developments compound the present crisis in global security.

The main forms of humanitarian, developmental and security responses are also examined. Of particular importance is the merger of development and security in the post-Cold War period and the radicalisation of aid in terms of the current attempts to transform societies as a whole. This is critically analysed in relation to several civil-military operations currently underway in Africa, Latin America, the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. The role of NGOs, UN agencies and private companies in social reconstruction and civil-society support is of particular interest. The module concludes with an appreciation of such developments in relation to an evolving system of global governance.

Structure

A series of thematic classes in the first half of the course focuses on the nature of interventionism in the developing world within the context of global governance and theorisations of security.

In the second half, case studies will include the Middle East, the Balkans, Afghanistan, Africa and Latin America. By the end of the course students will have covered the central conceptual debates relating to contemporary security and development and will have applied these to several of the case studies listed above.

Select Bibliography

Boggs, Carl, The Crimes of Empire: Rogue Superpower and World Domination, Zed 2010

Gutierez, F. & Scjpmwalder, G., Economic Liberalisation and Political Violence, Zed, 2010

Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security. Zed, 2001

Michael Ignatieff, Empire Lite: Nation-Building in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan. Vintage, 2003

Joanna Macrae, Aiding Recovery? The Crisis of Aid in Chronic Political Emergencies. Zed, 2001

Gerald Schneider et al. (eds.), Globalization and Armed Conflict. Rowman & Littlefield, 2003

Antonio Donini et al. (eds)., Nation-Building Unravelled? Aid, Peace and Justice in Afghanistan. Kumarian Press, 2004

Third World Quarterly, Vol. 27 (2006), no. 1 Special Issue: From Nation-Building to State-Building

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