Books in the Problems of International Politics series

Based on a qualitative study of 35 cases in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and post-communist Eurasia, this book explores the fate of competitive authoritarian regimes between 1990 and 2008.

In this pathbreaking study of the decolonization era, Adria Lawrence asks why elites in French colonies shifted from demands for egalitarian and democratic reforms to calls for independent statehood, and why mass mobilization for independence emerged where and when it did.

In this book, Shaul Mishal and Ori Goldberg explore the ways in which Shiite leaderships in Iran and Lebanon approach themselves and their world. Contrary to the violent and radical image of religious leaderships in the Islamic Republic of Iran and Lebanese Hizballah, the political vision and practice of these leaderships view the world as a middle ground, shying away from absolutist and extremist tendencies. The political leadership assumed by Shiite religious scholars in Iran and Lebanon has transformed Shiite Islam from a marginalized minority to a highly politicized avant garde of Muslim presence, revitalized the practice and causes of political Islam in its struggle for legitimacy and authority, and reshaped the politics of the Middle East and the globe in its image. Utilizing approaches from social theory, history, theology, and literary criticism, the book presents these leaderships as pragmatic, interpretative entities with the potential to form fruitful relationships between Shiite leadership and the non-Shiite world.

How did democracy became entrenched in the world's largest Muslim-majority country? Indonesia was threatened by deadlock over a new constitution and violence between Islamic and secular groups. These divisions were overcome by adopting gradual constitutional amendments making consensus possible and resulting in multiple elections and a peaceful transfer of power.

What drives a state's choice to assimilate, accommodate or exclude ethnic groups within its territory? Mylonas argues a state's nation-building policies toward non-core groups - individuals perceived as an ethnic group by the state ruling elite - are influenced by its foreign policy goals and relations with external patrons of these groups.

Akturk discusses how the definition of being German, Soviet, Russian and Turkish radically changed at the turn of the twenty-first century. Germany's ethnic citizenship law, the Soviet Union's inscription of ethnic origins in personal identification documents and Turkey's prohibition on the public use of minority languages, all implemented during the early twentieth century, underpinned the definition of nationhood in these countries. Despite many challenges from political and societal actors, these policies did not change for many decades, until around the turn of the twenty-first century, when Russia removed ethnicity from the internal passport, Germany changed its citizenship law and Turkish public television began broadcasting in minority languages. Using a new typology of 'regimes of ethnicity' and a close study of primary documents and numerous interviews, Sener Akturk argues that the coincidence of three key factors - counterelites, new discourses and hegemonic majorities - explains successful change in state policies toward ethnicity.

This book suggests a new explanation for why international peace interventions often fail to reach their full potential. Based on several years of ethnographic research in conflict zones around the world, it demonstrates that everyday elements - such as the expatriates' social habits and usual approaches to understanding their areas of operation - strongly influence peacebuilding effectiveness.

Analyzing Islamist electoral performance and behavior before and after the 2011 revolution that unseated former dictator Hosni Mubarak, this book argues that Islamists win elections not because Egyptians are fundamentalists, but because these parties have more organizational resources to call on than their secular rivals.

Exploring why the United States has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), this book highlights the emergence of the treaty in the context of the Cold War, the partisan nature of women's rights issues in the United States, and disagreements about how human rights treaties work.

This book proposes a new way of understanding events throughout the world that are usually interpreted as democratization, rising authoritarianism, or revolution. Where the rule of law is weak and corruption pervasive, what may appear to be democratic or authoritarian breakthroughs are often just regular, predictable phases in longer-term cyclic dynamics - patronal politics. This is shown through in-depth narratives of the post-1991 political history of all post-Soviet polities that are not in the European Union. This book also includes chapters on czarist and Soviet history and on global patterns.

Hyeran Jo analyzes civil wars over the past twenty years and finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, some rebel groups actually comply with international law. This book examines this phenomenon of compliant rebels and why they exist and emerge all around the world.

Using a new approach to ethnicity that underscores its relative territoriality, the author brings together previously separate arguments focusing on domestic and international factors to offer a coherent theory of what causes ethnic cleansing. Includes comprehensive studies of historical cases in Central and Eastern Europe.

Border security is an obsession of our time. Why is this true and why does it matter? This book offers an in-depth look at border security in the US and worldwide after 9/11. It will appeal to students and researchers in political theory and international relations, and will interest policymakers and general audiences interested in the new security protocols that are proliferating worldwide.

Why do some countries emerge from civil war more democratic than when they entered into it, while others remain staunchly autocratic? Observers widely depict internal conflict as a pathway to autocracy or state failure, but in fact there is variation in post-civil war regimes. Conventional accounts focus on war outcomes and international peacebuilding, but Huang suggests that postwar regimes have wartime origins, notably in how rebel groups interact with ordinary people as part of war-making. War can have mobilizing effects when rebels engage extensively with civilian populations, catalyzing a bottom-up force for change toward greater political rights. Politics after civil war does not emerge from a blank slate, but reflects the war's institutional and social legacies. The Wartime Origins of Democratization explores these ideas through an original dataset of rebel governance and rigorous comparative case analysis. The findings have far-reaching implications for understanding wartime political orders, statebuilding, and international peacebuilding.

This book offers a new, comparative account of the political ideas that arose in the American and Latin American independence movements, highlighting social parallels between their political thinkers. It will be read in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses on American political thought, comparative politics, and the ideology of imperialism.

Based on field research carried out in Syria, this is the first comprehensive study of the Syrian Civil War. The authors' analysis enables readers to understand how peaceful demonstrations developed into a full-scale civil war involving all the major regional and world powers.