Peace Research Update from One World, Many Peaces

Peace Research Update for the Week of November 1, 2010

Open Topic: Peace Studies.

Konai Helu Thaman.  "Teacher capacities for working towards peace and sustainable development." International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education  11, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 353-364.   

      The purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of values and beliefs rooted in "non-Western" cultures in implementing global education initiatives such as education for sustainable development (ESD) at the regional and local levels. This is because many of these initiatives are often derived from "Western" cultures and values. Also to reaffirm the importance for educators to respect and use local and indigenous ways of life and knowledge systems in order to make teaching and learning more relevant and meaningful for Pacific students; and to advocate for the development of teachers' capacities to better contextualize their teaching and create more culturally inclusive learning environments. Design/methodology/approach - Informed by the findings of her research on cultural values, educational ideas and teachers' role perception in Tonga, plus her work as the UNESCO Chair in Teacher Education and Culture at the University of South Pacific, the author presents her reflections on the need to further enhance teachers and teacher educators in the Pacific region. Findings - The findings suggests that teacher education programmes that are designed to cultivate teachers' cultural competence may better contribute to making Pacific education more relevant and effective. Originality/value - The ESD discourse often attaches importance to traditional and indigenous knowledge, but there is limited literature discussing how and for what purposes indigenous ways of knowing should be integrated into teacher education. This paper challenges the neglect of teachers in the international education reform discourses; points out the vital role of teachers in facilitating educational reforms, and contributes understanding of the types of teacher capacities higher education needs to foster for peace and sustainability through the case of the Pacific region.
 
Avnery, U. "Negotiating for a Framework Agreement: "The Opposite of a Peace Treaty"." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  29, no. 8 (November 1, 2010): 11-12.   

      First in the negotiations for the "Declaration of Principles," then in the negotiations for interim agreements, we will sell them again, to be sure, for a third, fourth and fifth time in the negotiations for the permanent agreements. [..] I do not believe that he will sign-and even if he did, that does not mean that he would implement it. [..] I insist: there should be no agreement on a process that is designed to lead to a "declaration of principles" or a "framework agreement."
 
Barzegar, K. "BALANCE OF POWER IN THE PERSIAN GULF: AN IRANIAN VIEW." Middle East Policy  17, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 74-87.   

      According to the traditional definition of balance of power, as supported by the United States and conservative Arab regimes of the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Republic of Iran is the prime source of insecurity in the region, and any regional deterrence policy should focus on preventing threats created by Iranian actions. [..] the establishment of a balance of interests among regional and transregional actors will better serve to brine sustainable peace and security to the Gulf.
 
Bassir, J. "Yes to a Just Peace." Palestine - Israel Journal of Politics, Economics, and Culture  16, no. 2 (January 1, 2010): 66-68.   

      Mutual Visions of Peace In spite of the recent war, the views of both sides on how to reach peace do not coincide. [..] as we know, the two sides have been trying to arrive at peace agreements before the war, but to no avail. [..] the people should take it upon themselves to promote reconciliation among themselves; we could, for example, check the areas that were bombed and destroyed by the occupation and visit the other side, the Israeli citizens whose homes were bombed by the Palestinian resistance.
 
Bosma, L., R. Sieving, A. Ericson, P. Russ, L. Cavender, and M. Bonine. "Elements for Successful Collaboration Between K-8 School, Community Agency, and University Partners:: The Lead Peace Partnership." The Journal of School Health  80, no. 10 (October 1, 2010): 501.   

      Researchers, schools, and community organizations are increasingly interested in forming partnerships to improve health and learning outcomes for adolescents. School-based service learning programs with young adolescents have been shown to improve students' health and educational outcomes. Quality school-based service learning practice requires partnerships that are collaborative, mutually beneficial, and address community needs. This article examines core elements of a community-school-university partnership engaged in implementing and evaluating Lead Peace, a service learning program for urban middle school youth. The partnership was assessed through (1) semistructured group interviews with program facilitators at each school at the end of the 2006 to 2007 and 2007 to 2008 school years; (2) key informant interviews with school administrators; and (3) participant observations of partnership meetings. Qualitative analysis was conducted to identify common and emerging themes that contribute to the success of the Lead Peace partnership. Ten themes were identified as keys to the success of the Lead Peace partnership: (1) communication; (2) shared decision making; (3) shared resources; (4) expertise and credibility; (5) sufficient time to develop and maintain relationships; (6) champions and patron saints; (7) being present; (8) flexibility; (9) a shared youth development orientation; and (10) recognition of other partners' priorities. Partnerships that are essential to quality service learning practice require deliberate planning and ongoing attention. Elements of the successful Lead Peace partnership may be useful for other collaborators to consider.
 
Brigham, S. "The American-Soviet Walks: Large-Scale Citizen Diplomacy at Glasnost's Outset." Peace & Change  35, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 594-625.   
      
      Nineteen eighty-seven was a watershed year in the Soviet Union, as Premier Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika initiatives began to change the face of this closed society. On the citizen diplomacy front, the year featured one of the largest-ever initiatives between American and Soviet citizens, the American-Soviet Walk, the first of numerous walks of that scale to take place in the ensuing years. The five-week walk not only pushed the limits of this fledgling openness and democratization but also tread well beyond the traditional, safe conventions of small-scale citizen exchange. This article explores what made these walks unique, from an unexpectedly large peace rally in Novgorod, to an illegal peace demonstration in Red Square, to public meetings with dissidents. It concludes by exploring the deep cultural differences among the citizen representatives from both countries and whether the walks provide a model for future citizen diplomacy when tensions are high between rival countries.
 
Burke, E. "FINANCES AND THE OPERATION OF THE ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY IN THE "LYCURGAN ERA"." American Journal of Philology  131, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 393-423.   

      Between ca. 336 and 324 B.C.E., state revenues to Athens approximated 1,200 talents per annum. As regular income, this was a sum unprecedented in Greek history. Such revenues again allowed for state pay of an imperial scale: for political and judicial service, for work on a building program, and for naval service. But for Athens, a precondition to sustained prosperity was acquiescence to the Macedonian peace. The thesis here is that the demos, long habituated to the practice of state pay, but without much subsidy for most of the fourth century, voted acquiescence. Political leaders, including Lycurgus, to preserve status, yielded to the demos, at the same time overseeing a program of civic renewal that may have helped veil the reality behind the prosperity.
 
Butts, R. "The Will to Believe: Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and America's Strategy for Peace and Security." Review. Presidential Studies Quarterly  40, no. 4 (December 1, 2010): 804-805.   

      All of these by-products of the existing international system caused pacifists and liberal internationalists to think that this would undermine the democratic institutions that had arisen in the United States. Because of the growing interdependence of the worid and technological advances, America would have to abandon its traditional isolation and be drawn into this balance of power system.
 
Byman, D. "How to Handle Hamas." Foreign Affairs  89, no. 5 (September 1, 2010): 45-62.   

      The biggest obstacle to peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians is not the Palestinians' demand that Jewish settlements in the West Bank be dismantled, the barrier separating much of the West Bank from Israel, or the recent rightward shift of the Israeli body politic. It is the emergence of Hamas as the de facto government of the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians reside. Hamas has regularly attacked Israel with rockets from Gaza or allowed others to do so. Many Hamas members have not reconciled themselves to the Jewish state's existence. Despite Hamas' centrality to Israeli security and Palestinian politics, Washington still clings to the policy that the Bush administration established after Hamas beat more moderate Fatah candidates in elections in Gaza in 2006. Peace talks can begin with Hamas on the sidelines, but they cannot finish if Hamas refuses to play ball. Hamas has proved that it has the means to threaten Israel and disrupt peace talks.
 
Colby, J. ""A Chasm of Values and Outlook": The Carter Administration's Human Rights Policy in Guatemala." Peace & Change  35, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 561-593.   
      
      Scholars have often depicted Jimmy Carter's human rights policy as naïve and counterproductive. In doing so, many have pointed to Guatemala, where Carter's policies seemed to alienate the military government without ending its abuses. Yet such critics have failed to acknowledge the obstacles Carter's policy faced as well as its long-term influence on U.S. policy and on Guatemala itself. Drawing upon recently declassified documents, this article explores the challenges the administration's human rights advocates encountered in their attempt to implement Carter's policies. In particular, it emphasizes the resistance of both the U.S. government bureaucracy and Guatemala's military. But it also argues that, despite these difficulties, the Carter administration achieved a shift in U.S.-Guatemalan relations. The legacy of Carter's human rights policy limited Washington's role in the counterinsurgency war and helped push Guatemala toward civilian rule and peace negotiations.
 
Doenecke, J. "The Will to Believe: Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and America's Strategy for Peace and Security." Review. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History  41, no. 2 (October 1, 2010): 321.   

      Doenecke reviews The Will to Believe: Woodrow Wilson, World War I, and America's Strategy for Peace and Security by Ross A. Kennedy.
 
Frank, R. "Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars." Review. Political Science Quarterly  125, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 548-549.   

      Frank reviews Securing the Peace: The Durable Settlement of Civil Wars by Monica Duffy Toft.
 
Gunn, G. "Clairmont on Capital Accumulation and Disaccumulation on a World Scale." Review. Journal of Contemporary Asia  40, no. 4 (November 1, 2010): 674.   

      Gunn reviews Prospects of War and Peace: Reflections on the Global Economic Debacle and Greenspan: The Torments of Contrition by Frederic F. Clairmont.
 
Hirsch, L. ""Playing for Change": Peace, Universality, and the Street Performer." American Music  28, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 346.   

      Playing for Change: Songs Around the World is part of the multimedia project Playing for Change: Peace Through Music. Roger Ridley plays the acoustic guitar and begins to sing his introduction to the famous song "Stand by Me," written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and popularized by Ben E. King, next to a busy sidewalk in Santa Monica, California. At the opening lyric of the original version--"When the night has come"--Grandpa Elliott, a street musician in New Orleans, fills the screen, matching Ridley's key as he sings over the song's standard chord progression, with its soothing sonic stability, in front of a large fence. The camera alternates between the two African American singers, closing the geographical gap between them with tight camera angles that highlight their closeness not only to each other, but to the audience as well. Grammy-winning music producer and engineer Mark Johnson created this video and larger project in order "to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music." To do this, Playing for Change integrates contradictory resources, ideas, personnel, and technologies significant to our present-day context. Specifically, the project reimagines the street musician in conjunction with a muddy mix of impulses associated with benefit concert activity the unifying aura of world music, and the idea of music as a universal language. In this way, the project signifies a nexus of contested ideas regarding good through music and music as good. Here, Hirsch examines the novelty of the project by examining the genesis of Playing for Change, its models, how it diverts from these models through the use of the street performer, as well as the paradoxes of its idealist aspirations.
 
Kainth, K. "AMAF Hosts Forum for New Perspectives on Afghanistan." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  29, no. 7 (September 1, 2010): 57-58.   

      The new Afghan government established by the peace jirga is a "cleptocracy, not a democracy" according to Indiana University Prof. Nazif Shahrani, who spoke about "Afghanistan's Puzzling Future" at the American Muslim Alliance (AMA) Foundation's monthly policy forum at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC on July 12. The country's governmental structure is, in Shahrani's view, a "product of an inappropriate constitutional framework" with a "hyper-centralized executive system," especially "for a war-torn, multiethnic society such as Afghanistan's."
 
Kartomi, M. "Toward a Methodology of War and Peace Studies in Ethnomusicology: The Case of Aceh, 1976-2009." Ethnomusicology  54, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 452.   

      Kartomi aims to contribute a new perspective to the nascent methodology of war and peace studies in ethnomusicology, based mainly on an ethnographic study of the effects of the recent war and post-war peace situations on the performing arts in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (Aceh), and including brief comparisons with some other wars. After reviewing the study of war- and peace-related performing arts in ethnomusicology, she will introduce the history of the performing arts in Aceh's recent wars as a preface to an account of the arts during its most recent war (1976-2005) and the ensuing peace. She will then discuss the general methodology of research into the performing arts in times of war and times of peace. In 2005 the people of this northernmost province of Sumatra were still fighting a civil war between a separatist guerrilla force--the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan. Aceh Merdeka, GAM)--and the Indonesian Army (Tentara Nasional Indonesia, TNI), who were stationed around the province. The separatists' claim to independence was based on Aceh's sense of identity as a sovereign state, which was fueled by the perception that the central government was plundering Aceh's rich natural resources while returning only a tiny fraction of the profits to the province.
 
Kirschner, S. "Knowing Your Enemy: Information and Commitment Problems in Civil Wars." The Journal of Conflict Resolution  54, no. 5 (October 1, 2010): 745.   

      When do civil wars last especially long? Commitment problems can stymie conflict resolution but they are not homogeneous across all civil wars. Indeed, combatants' perceptions of their adversaries significantly affect the severity of commitment problems. Intergroup interactions provide combatants with one crucial type of information about their adversaries and about the risks associated with signing a peace settlement, shaping strategic decisions. The argument is tested against a new data set of all ethnic civil wars between 1945 and 2004. The results demonstrate that intergroup interactions prolong wars when they indicate that a peace deal will be especially fragile or that the costs of it breaking down will be especially high. This is true, regardless of the combatants' goals or their capabilities. In sum, information shapes perceptions and the severity of commitment problems, in turn affecting the duration of civil wars.
 
Marshall, R. "Peace Talks and Troop Withdrawals, But No Peace in Sight." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  29, no. 8 (November 1, 2010): 8-10.   

      A major obstacle to success of the peace talks is that Abbas cannot speak for a united Palestinian people. Since any agreement he signs will undoubtedly require cooperation from Hamas, logic suggests that its representatives be included in the talks.
 
Moran, M. "Gender, Militarism, and Peace-Building: Projects of the Postconflict Moment." Review. Annual Review of Anthropology  39, (January 1, 2010): 261.   

      Scholars have argued for decades about the relationship between biological sex and organized violence, but feminist analysts across numerous disciplines have documented the range and variety of gendered roles in times of war. In recent years, research has brought new understanding of the rapidity with which ideas about masculinity and femininity can change in times of war and the role of militarization in constructing and enforcing the meaning of manhood and womanhood. In the post-Cold War period, "new wars" (Kaldor 1999) have mobilized gender in multiple ways, and peace-building is often managed by external humanitarian organizations. A strange disconnect exists between the massive body of scholarly research on gender, militarism, and peace-building and on-the-ground practices in postconflict societies, where essentialized ideas of men as perpetrators of violence and women as victims continue to guide much program design.
 
Omer, M. "In Gaza, Apathy and Skepticism Over Peace Talks Abound." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  29, no. 8 (November 1, 2010): 14-15.   

      [..] explains Umm Fouad, a 46-year-old mother from Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip, "This is the only place for us to escape" the frequent electricity shortages and resulting sweltering interiors. Because the amount of fuel allowed into Gaza is not sufficient to operate the electrical transformers at full capacity, electricity shortages have became part of daily life here.
 
Shemesh, M. "On Two Parallel Tracks-The Secret Jordanian-Israeli Talks ( July 1967-September 1973)1." Israel Studies  15, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 87-120,203.   

      The secret talks between Jordan and Israel began in 1963 and continued until the two countries signed the peace treaty in 1994. The talks are unique in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The post-Six-Day War talks were held on two tracks: one between Yaakov Herzog, the Director of the PM's office and Zayd al-Rifa'i, King Hussein's private secretary; the second, on a higher level, between Israeli ministers Yigal Allon and Abba Eban and the king. The two sides moved on parallel lines that could never meet. Constraints on both sides contributed to the inevitable logjam. The king genuinely hoped to reach a peace with Israel based on the principles of the Arab Summit and his talks with Nasser. Israel, on the other hand, was reluctant to commit itself to enter into peace negotiations with Jordan, avoiding serious discussion on the principles of peace. Instead it presented the Allon Plan for discussion with the king. Thus, the gap in the positions on the talks' goals, in the components of the solution to the conflict and the peace settlement was unbridgeable. Despite this impasse both parties felt it was in their common interest to pursue the talks, which became a goal in itself. The gap was not only in the concept of peace and talks' objectives, but in all core issues related to peace, such as the territorial issue, especially the status of Jerusalem, and interpretation of UNSCR 242. With hindsight, the core issues in the solution to the West Bank remain unchanged, but the Palestinians replaced Jordan as the main Arab party to determining the future of the West Bank.
 
Stith, C. "Radical Islam in East Africa." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science  632, (November 1, 2010): 55.   

      Islam has a 1,000-year history in West Africa; in East Africa it is even longer. What started out as liberating efforts by Muslims in Africa degenerated into oppressive regimes over time. Over the centuries, conquest increasingly came to define Islam's approach in Africa. How Africa manages its necessity to accommodate Islamic elements in its midst is one of the continent's most daunting challenges. On the one hand, the region is home to a substantial number of Muslims. On the other hand, there is a connection between religious radicalism and poverty. Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, a Muslim, suggested that if belief is the potential seed of radicalism, then poverty is the fertilizer. Overcoming the factional divide within Islam is important because the fissures are latent in countries with large Islamic populations. How Africa manages this challenge has profound long-term implications for peace, stability, and development on the continent.
 
Sucharov, M. "The Israeli Peace Movement: A Shattered Dream." Review. Political Science Quarterly  125, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 549-551.   

      Sucharov reviews The Israeli Peace Movement: A Shattered Dream by Tamar S. Hermann.
 
Suh, J. "THREE FAILURES OF THE PAST, THREE STRUCTURES OF PEACE*." Asian Perspectives  34, no. 2 (January 1, 2010): 201-III.   

      Suh examines the past efforts to denuclearize the Korean peninsula in order to identify the root causes of their failure and a way to overcome them. He identifies the three failures of past efforts that led to North Korea's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2008, and suggests that if the three mistakes are repeated, the region will slide back into insecurity. In conclusion, he proposes concrete measures that can be adopted in the immediate future in order to jumpstart the stalled negotiations and move forward to building the three peace structures.
 
Whitbeck, J. "Two States, One Holy Land: A Framework For Peace." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  29, no. 8 (November 1, 2010): 22-23.   

      Might it not still be possible to blend the practical and psychological preferences of both peoples for a two-state solution with some of the best aspects of a humane one-state solution to produce a vision of a possible future so bright and appealing that both Israelis and Palestinians would be inspired to act on their hopes and dreams, rather than their memories and fears, and to seize this future together and make it a reality? Israelis, Palestinians and the true friends of both must now resist the temptation to despair, raise their sights and pursue a compelling vision of a society so much better than the status quo that both Israelis and Palestinians are inspired to accept in their hearts and minds that peace is both desirable and attainable, that the Holy Land can be shared, that a winner-take-all approach produces only losers, that both Israelis and Palestinians must be winners or both will continue to be losers, and that there is a common destination at which both peoples would be satisfied to arrive and to live together.
 
Wiedenhoft Murphy, W. "Touring the Troubles in West Belfast: Building Peace or Reproducing Conflict?" Peace & Change  35, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 537-560.   
      
      This article examines the development of tourism in West Belfast, Northern Ireland, and explores the extent to which tourism builds peace or reproduces processes of past conflict. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with tour managers and tour guides that include West Belfast in their itineraries and participant observations of tours conducted in West Belfast in the summer of 2007. The findings from this data suggest that while tourism there is reproducing some processes of past conflict, particularly territoriality, it has the potential to build cross-community relationships.
 
kampmark, B. ""No Peace with the Hohenzollerns": American Attitudes on Political Legitimacy towards Hohenzollern Germany, 1917-1918." Diplomatic History  34, no. 5 (November 1, 2010): 769-791.   
      
      Kampmark discusses the foreign policy of the Woodrow Wilson administration toward Germany toward the end of World War I. American diplomats developed a hard-line attitude bent on reshaping the German government into something less militaristic and more democratic.
 
Heinz Fischer.  "Austria's Priorities for Implementing the Millennium Development Goals." Hampton Roads International Security Quarterly: 4 / 2010  (October 1, 2010): 1415.   

      The fate of women affected by armed conflicts and their role in peace building processes continues to be one of the priorities of Austria's policy in development cooperation. Implementing the objectives of Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security in the daily work of the Security Council remains a priority during our membership in the Security Council.

Adamthwaite, A. "Yalta: The Price of Peace." Review. The Journal of Military History  74, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 1324-1325.   

      Adamthwaite reviews Yalta: The Price of Peace by S. M. Plokhy.
 
Anonymous. "Publishers' Page." The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs  29, no. 8 (November 1, 2010): 7.   

      Cohen's Words Apply to Palestinians As Well. Since the "peace process" began nearly two decades ago, Washington has asked Palestinians to wait patiently for a final peace treaty-after leaders decide on yet another "framework" agreement that would lay out the main compromises each side would need to make (see Uri Avnery's analysis on p. 11).

Peace Research Update for the Week of October 18, 2010

Focus on peace and religion.

Abimbola, W. "RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: An Indigenous African Perspective." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 307-309,475.  

      Billions of dollars are being spent every year to eradicate the way of life and identities of indigenous peoples of Africa, Australia, and the Americas in the name of evangelism, which those two religions claim to be part of their holy scriptures. There is very little that we can achieve on the issue of halting environmental change or degradation unless and until we see the universe through the worldview of the indigenous peoples who regard themselves as the custodians òf the earth and whose religions and way of life are intertwined with nature in all its ramifications.
 
Swearer, D. "RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: Buddhist Responses." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 314-318,479.  

      Specializing in poverty alleviation, medical care, vocational training, environmental protection, and disaster relief, the Foundation built its first hospital in eastern Taiwan in 1986. [..] it has opened five more hospitals, a college of medicine (1994) that has become Tzu Chi University, and in 1989 founded Taiwan's first private nursing college.

Boehle, J. "THE UN SYSTEM AND RELIGIOUS ACTORS IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBAL CHANGE." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 383-401,475-476.  

      If we apply the same model of change (citizen movements, NGOs, and religious actors as crucial participants in sustainable global change processes) to the challenges faced by the international community to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, one can conclude that as important as high-level meetings and summits at the United Nations and as important as the work of various UN agencies, and next to the support from governmental development agencies, a popular, global NGO movement, including religious NGOs and religious communities, can make a crucial difference for the achievement of the MDGs. (Thomas, 2005, p. 108) A critical reflection on religion and development clearly needs to address both sides of religion: the positive potential of religions to inspire, to sustain communities, to enter into long-term commitments, to foster compassion, to seek justice and to empower the poor; but also the dogmatic and sectarian side of religion, which can lead to discrimination, to divisiveness, to resistance to pragmatic solutions because of strongly held ideological positions, to inequality between men and women, between believers and non-believers.
 
Boyle, M. "Beyond the "Sigh of the Oppressed Creature": A Critical Geographical Enquiry into Christianity's Contributions to the Making of a Peaceable West." Association of American Geographers. Annals of the Association of American Geographers  100, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 678.  

      At a time when sectarian tension is being viewed as a threat to global peace and religions are being called on to promote ecumenical dialogue and condemn militant fundamentalism, this article offers a critical geographical enquiry into the role of Christianity in the making of a peaceable West. Christianity's historical alignment with the Western project and imbrication in histories of colonialism and imperialism raises questions about its capacity to serve as a progressive force in global affairs today. Placing Christianity under postcolonial scrutiny, this article argues that Christianity offers a variety of complex, contradictory, and competing approaches to peace building that variously defend the hegemonic ambitions of the West on the one hand and support critical practices that usurp and decenter the sovereign supremacy assumed by the West on the other. Critical geographical enquiry can offer Christianity a heightened self-understanding of the role of location, space, and place, in the framing, enactment, and impacts of its different colonial and postcolonial visions. Using the case of the Roman Catholic Church for illustration, the concepts of "milieux of translation," referring to the social, economic, political, and cultural prisms through which theology becomes refracted into praxes, and "formations of the secular," referring to the conditions in secular democracies that permit religions prescribed access to the public realm, are advanced as key to any understanding of the situated production and mobilization of Christianity's strategies for peace. Future dialogue between Christianity and (institutional) geography might usefully begin with an exchange of ideas on how the wider project of historicizing, relativizing, and provincializing the West might best contribute to improved interfaith, intercultural, and intercivilizational dialogue.
 
Clark, J. "Religion and Reconciliation in Bosnia & Herzegovina: Are Religious Actors Doing Enough?" Europe - Asia Studies  62, no. 4 (June 1, 2010): 671.  

      The article explores the question of whether and how religion is being used in Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH) to promote and foster reconciliation. Based primarily on 20 semi-structured interviews with representatives of the three main faiths in BiH - Islam, Orthodoxy and Catholicism - the article's central contention is that religion is a potentially valuable, yet fundamentally under-utilised peace-building tool in BiH.
 
Cohen, S. "The Cloud of Unknowing." Review. Novel  43, no. 2 (July 1, 2010): 357-0_7.  

      When Pynchon writes in Vineland that there are Thanatoids, ghosts of the countercultural 1960s, roaming Northern California or contends in Mason & Dixon that there are people who live inside the hollow center of the earth, he really means it.\n In a section of his introduction subtitled "The Logic of Partial Belief," McClure makes his case against the Enlightenment and the exclusionary rationality that he elsewhere calls "secular fundamentalism" (65) and regards as its legacy: religion "returns with a specific, historically supercharged force, as secular modernity's promises of peace, prosperity, and progress fail to materialize and as reason itself begins to undermine secular rationalism's claims to exclusive authority on matters of truth" (11). [..] as a guide to the rough terrain of reality and the uncharted road that lies ahead, this book, for all its critical strengths and political commitments, seems to me (to use the book's words for a different purpose) to be premised on "a certain reduction of the real" (119) and so to offer an undependable guide to real-world political action.
 
Conn, M. "Justice and Mercy Will Kiss: The Vocation of Peacemaking in a World of Many Faiths." Review. Journal of Ecumenical Studies  45, no. 2 (April 1, 2010): 320.  

      Conn reviews Justice and Mercy Will Kiss: The Vocation of Peacemaking in a World of Many Faiths edited by Michael K. Duffy and Deborah S. Nash.
 
Drew, J. "Editor's Note." Comparative Civilizations Review  no. 62 (April 1, 2010): 1-9.  

      Peace is normal in a civilization based on a state system; general wars occur only ten percent of the time, and then sporadically. [..] peace provides an opportunity for creativity, prosperity, and improved social well-being in a civilization.\n Nevertheless, as a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp.
 
Farrelly, M. "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America - and Found Unexpected Peace." Review. Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly  87, no. 1 (April 1, 2010): 214-215.  
      Because Lobdell's narrative is so compelling, however, I urge instructors to assign the book in its entirety.
 
Heft, J. "RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: Christianity, War, and Peacemaking." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 328-331,476-477.  

      Christianity has gone through many changes with regard to war and peacemaking, beginning with the first few centuries when Christians refused to join Rome's Imperial Army, to the first elaborations of the Just War doctrines beginning in the third century, to the Crusades in the medieval period, and to the present day when the largest single group of Christians, Roman Catholics, officially have made the criteria for a just war more difficult to meet than ever and have begun to elaborate the requirements for peacemaking. [..] in accord with papal teaching, the American bishops have consistently called for universal health care coverage (including undocumented immigrants), the reform of insurance companies that deny coverage to people with preexisting illnesses, and an end to abortion.
 
Hoose, A. "FRANCIS OF ASSISI'S WAY OF PEACE? HIS CONVERSION AND MISSION TO EGYPT." The Catholic Historical Review  96, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 449-469.  

      Scholars often suggest that St. Francis of Assisi opposed the Fifth Crusade, because he renounced the military life at his conversion and preached to the Muslims in Egypt. Yet his renunciation of arms was only one component of his conversion, which he did not require for all Christians. Additionally, Francis neither explicitly nor implicitly opposed the crusade in Egypt but confronted the Muslims with the necessity of conversion. The sultan decided not to execute Francis, not because Francis offered him peace, but because political conditions did not allow such an action. In fact, Francis's missionary ideal corresponded with that of contemporary ecclesiastical and secular authorities who also supported and participated in crusading.
 
Israel, J. "RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: Jewishness and Global Justice*." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 319-327,477.  

      [..] I will conclude by portraying a vision that significantly overlaps with that of "Religion, World Order, and Peace" and joins the effort of its authors to harness the full diversity of human communities and traditions in the pursuit of global justice. [..] I assume that religious leaders can contribute no more or less, on balance, than prominent union representatives, business executives, local politicians, tribal heads, celebrities from television and film, artists, musicians, novelists, athletes, journalists, editorialists, historians, philosophers, and others.
 
Kaplan, G. "THE MYTH OF RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE: SECULAR IDEOLOGY AND THE ROOTS OF MODERN CONFLICT." Review. Theological Studies  71, no. 2 (June 1, 2010): 479-481.  

      C. provides an easily traceable argument that supplies plentiful examples, especially about the contingencies concerning early modern warfare, and largely refrains from the jargon of French poststructuralism that infects much of Milbank's work. Since the Twin Towers fell, arguments about religion and the liberal project have regularly produced more heat than light.
 
Karam, A. "CONCLUDING THOUGHTS ON RELIGION AND THE UNITED NATIONS: Redesigning the Culture of Development." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 462-474,477-478.  

      [..] there is a relative "normalization" of this interaction, which is taking place within the religions institutions themselves - as the scholars lay out clearly - in spite of the tangible sense of disappointment with the speed of this by some, urge for caution by others, as well as some skepticism about these, by yet others. [..] religion, as social service and thus social actor, predates the existence of every modern institution of governance and social service we know today, as does religion as an ethos for political engagement and both war and peace building.
 
Little, D. ""RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE" TEN YEARS LATER." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 297-306,477.  

      Other responses mention the UN only in passing. Because the Millennium Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders was convened on the premises of the UN, and plenary sessions and panels included UN officials, and provided a setting for discussions between them and religious leaders, it is perhaps worthwhile reaffirming this concern.
 
Luongo, F. "The Cult of Saint Catherine of Siena: A Study in Civil Religion." Review. The Catholic Historical Review  96, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 752-753.  

      After the war, as Italy sought a new identity within Europe and the world, Catherine was recast as an apostle of peace and justice, proponent of European unity and international cooperation, and even as a model for the participation of Italian women in political life.
 
Miller, A. "THE FALSE RELIGION OF MIDEAST PEACE." Foreign Policy  no. 179 (May 1, 2010): 50-57,10.  

      America had used its power to make war, and now, perhaps, it could use that power to make peace. In both its secular and religious manifestations, faith is alluring and seductive precisely because it's driven by propositions that bind or adhere the believer to a compelling set of ideas that satisfy rationally or spiritually, but always obligate. Barack Obama is the latest convert, and by all accounts he became a zealous believer, vowing within days of his inauguration to actively and aggressively seek a tasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, as well as Israel and its Arab neighbors. That Obama came out louder, harder, and faster on the Arab-Israeli issue than any of his predecessors was a remarkable testament to just how enduring that faith had become. The peace-process creed has endured so long because to a large degree it has made sense and accorded with US interests.
 
Päivänsalo, V. "A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith: With "On My Religion"." Review. Insight Turkey  12, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 272-273.  

      A Brief Inquiry into the Meaning of Sin and Faith and On My Religion, by John Rawls, are reviewed.
 
Pollack, A. "Whose Torah? A Concise Guide to Progressive Judaism." Review. Shofar  28, no. 3 (April 1, 2010): 179-180.  

      In this slim volume Alpett endeavors to show the progressive values inherent in Jewish tradition and how progressive Judaism encompasses social justice in its approach to the most important social and political issues of our time: sexuality, gender, tace, war and peace, poverty, and the environment.
 
Robinson, F., and J. Gunning. "Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society  20, no. 2 (April 1, 2010): 226-227.  

      [..] he does so in the Palestinian territories, where in elections from 2004 to 2006 he shows Hamas to be an astute political player, notably alert to public opinion, but also being shaped itself by its engagement in democratic processes.
 
Sachedina, A. "RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: A Muslim Perspective." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 332-338,478.  

      [..] the latter goal cannot be achieved without holding accountable those who continue to rule with force and violence even when they lack the necessary political legitimacy. Since 9/11, the world of the faithful in Muslim societies has been in turmoil because the living Islam, dominated by its traditional interpreters, the learned ulema, has not been able to guide the community at the most critical period of its existence.
 
Schaefer, J. "THE TAO OF LIBERATION: EXPLORING THE ECOLOGY OF TRANSFORMATION." Review. Theological Studies  71, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 744-745.  

      A masterful work and rightful recipient of the Nautilus Gold Medal for Cosmology and New Science, The Tao of Liberation is especially well suited for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in courses that concentrate on environmental theology and ethics, sustainability, the relationship between religion and the natural and social sciences, and peace and justice.
 
Seaton, P. "The Difference God Makes: A Catholic Vision of Faith, Communion, and Culture." Review. Perspectives on Political Science  39, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 179-182.  

      The Crossroad Publishing Company 342 pp., $17.79 cloth ISBN: 13:978-0-8245-2582-8 Publication Date: 2009 Political scientists should pay more attention to religious leaders. At best, civil society can by its repressive action maintain relative peace among men and in this fashion insure the minimal conditions under which the Church is able to exercise its teaching and saving ministry.
 
Singer, J. "Sermon for the Laying of the Corner-Stone: The Jewish Temple, Lincoln, Nebraska, Sunday, May 27th, 1923 1." Sociological Origins  6, no. 1 (April 1, 2010): 41-44.  

      Half of the human race today sings Jewish hymns from the Jewish psalms; repeats the hallowed words of Jewish prayers; ponders over the words of Jewish sages and has made a great Jew the symbol of salvation. Whenever a Jewish community rears an edifice of worship and of service, whenever it makes love [of] God and love of humanity the two greatest commandments in life, such a Jewish community is true to its heritage and helps mankind to achieve God's Kingdom on earth; a kingdom of justice, righteousness, of peace and goodwill among men. [..] the ideal Temple that all the consecrated souls of the world are rearing is likewise still uncompleted and calls for many builders and toilers and thinkers in order that the soul of the race may find a habitation of strength and beauty.
 
Soen, V. "Beggars, Iconoclasts, and Civic Patriots: The Political Culture of the Dutch Revolt." Review. The Catholic Historical Review  96, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 570-571.  

      [..] the conflict is now regarded as a civil war, with recurrent reminiscences of medieval traditions of dissent and striking similarities to the contemporary French civil wars. Some readers might find it disappointing that the author reiterates the traditional sharp polarization between the Habsburg repression and the rebel uprising, whereas in the last decades several historians have pointed to the existence of large political and religious "middle groups," peace seekers, and loyal opposition.
 
Soni, V. "RELIGION, WORLD ORDER, AND PEACE: A Hindu Approach." Cross Currents  60, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 310-313,479.  

      [..] the world's religions offer processes and paradigms for peacemaking that go to the heart of the United Nations Charter, and that could be both instructive and instrumental in developing peacemaking approaches and mobilizing peacekeeping communities. According to Gandhi, violent action, regardless of the short-term outcome, is destructive and becomes the very cycle of oppression and injustice it seeks to eliminate.
 
Werkner, I. "RELIGION AND ITS IMPORTANCE IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS: A CASE STUDY OF 2008 RUSSIAN-GEORGIAN WAR." Caucasian Review of International Affairs  4, no. 3 (July 1, 2010): 237-247.  

      War is "contrary to the will of God", according to a 1948 statement from the World Council of Churches in Amsterdam. However, are religious communities able to prevent wars? Despite the lack of importance placed on religion, partially due to the secularisation thesis, religions' potential for violence has become increasingly important in the social sciences since the end of the Cold War and particularly since the attacks of September 11, 2001. However, a question about the peace-making potential of religions increasingly arises in international politics and peace and conflict studies. In this contribution, the role of the Orthodox Churches in the 2008 Russian-Georgian war will be empirically examined. My findings show that the Russian and Georgian Orthodox Churches acted as "double players" during this military conflict whereby they could not release their peace-making potential. I argue that the churches were perceived not only as religious players with a religious peace message but also as political players that supported national claims. As a consequence, the status of religion as an intervening variable - such as assumed in the constructivist approach - is called into question.
 
Wood, G. "Where Creeds Collide." Review. The American Scholar  79, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 111-113.  

       As for the third Abrahamic faith, Griswold is mostly silent- though when I visited Malaysia earlier this year, in Kuala Lumpur I spied a banner that threatened harm to "BANGSAT YAHUDI," which Google translated as "Yiddish bedbugs," but which anti-Semitic idiom would probably render as "bloodsucking Jews." The Christians, too, are impossibly diverse, to the point that an aide-de-camp of one of Griswold's interview subjects, Franklin Graham, the sanctimonious son of Billy Graham, gets testy and threatens to eject Griswold when she fails to tell him that her father is the presiding bishop of the rapidly liberalizing U.S. branch of the Episcopal church.
 
Anonymous, . "BOOKS RECEIVED." Philosophy East and West  60, no. 2 (April 1, 2010): 313-314.  

      Columbia University Press, 2009. Confucian Pragmatism as the Art of Contextualizing Personal Experience and World. Inner Peace for Everyday Living: The Newly Discovered Seeds of Chinese Religious and Political Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 2009. Columbia University Press, 2009. Rong-zom-pa Discourses on Buddhology: A Study of Various Conceptions of Buddhahood in Indian Sources with Special Reference to the Controversy Surrounding the Existence of Gnosis (jn.na: ye shes) as Presented by the Eleventh-Century Tibetan Scholar Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po. The International Institute for Buddhist Studies of The International College for Postgraduate Buddhist Studies, 2009. Columbia University Press, 2009. Columbia University Press, 2009.
 
Anonymous, . "Letters." Commonweal  137, no. 12 (June 18, 2010): 2.  

      Gilbert Meilaender's war record, the future of religion ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE Paul Lauritzen portrays Gilbert Meilaender as a stalwart defender of human life ("Intellectual Street Fighter," May 21). [..] as those months were a tense prelude to the invasion of Iraq, several of the panels were devoted to war and peace.

Peace Research Update for the Week of October 18, 2010

Focus on international relations.

Clavin, P. "Time, Manner, Place: Writing Modern European History in Global, Transnational and International Contexts." European History Quarterly  40, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 624.   

      The article examines the origins and relationships between global, transnational history and international history, and the potential of these fields of enquiry to reshape European history. Divided into three parts, and drawing on a range of global and European examples, the article examines some of the ways in which transnational history holds the potential to blur established chronological boundaries and offer new approaches to the mapping of time. Global and transnational history has also helped to identify new processes and relationships in modern history, posing, in particular, new questions of comparative history arid of Europe's relations with the world. The article concludes by identifying new sites of historical enquiry in European history and proposing additional ones.
 
Cliffe, L. "Land-Marked: Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa/Land, Power and Custom: Controversies Generated by South Africa's Communal Land Rights Act." Review. African Studies Review  53, no. 2 (September 1, 2010): 191-193.
   
      The legal challenge was brought on behalf of four communities. Since the publication of the book it has been successful at the provincial court level and has now been referred to the Constitutional Court.
 
Colgan, J. "Oil and Revolutionary Governments: Fuel for International Conflict." International Organization  64, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 661-694.   

Oil-exporting states, or petrostates, engage in militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) at a much higher rate on average than nonpetrostates. Why is this so? Further, what explains the variation among the petrostates in adopting aggressive foreign policies and engaging in MIDs on that basis? This article develops a theory that proposes that revolutionary petrostates have a higher propensity to launch MIDs than comparable nonpetrostates. This theory is tested with statistical analysis using a new quantitative data set that identifies revolutionary governments in the period 1945-2001. The results show that petro-revolutionary governments constitute a special threat to international peace and security. This evidence of resource-backed aggression challenges the conventional view of petrostates as the targets of international competition for resources.
 
Cox, E. "America in World History." Review. Reference & User Services Quarterly  50, no. 1 (October 1, 2010): 73.   

      Contemporary issues like globalization, free trade, and terrorism are covered with entries like "North American Free Trade Agreement," "Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol," and "War on Terror." (Scribner, 2002) directly handles America's international connections with 121 in-depth essays, covering the first alliances to ethnic cleansing and terrorism.
 
Dunn, L. "Dean Acheson and the Creation of an American World Order." Review. History  38, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 144.   

      Robert McMahon, Mershon Distinguished Professor of History at Ohio State University, is the author of numerous books on U.S. post-World War II foreign relations, and, clearly, he has come to view Acheson as one of the greatest secretaries of state of the twentieth century, if not the greatest. Acheson's belief in a "political economy of freedom" is at the center of McMahon's coverage of the formation of the Truman Doctrine; Marshall Plan; North Atlantic Treaty Organization; postwar reconstruction of Germany and Japan; Korean conflict; and crises associated with Berlin, Cuba, and Vietnam.
 
Fedyszyn, T. "Why NATO Endures." Review. Naval War College Review  63, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 154-155.   

      Thies's rhetorical technique is to document how contemporaneous observers have characterized six tumultuous incidents in NATO's existence as lifethreatening crises, then to evaluate with the clarity of hindsight the alliance's self-healing tendencies. [..] this situation was turned on its head when two superpowers developed alliance systems in an ideological struggle where contesting armies had thermonuclear weapons and needed to be ready to fight for national survival on a moment's notice.
 
Greymorning, S. "The Power of Promises: Rethinking Indian Treaties in the Pacific Northwest." Review. The Western Historical Quarterly  41, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 380.   

      Greymorning reviews The Power of Promises: Rethinking Indian Treaties in the Pacific Northwest edited by Alexandra Harmon.
 
Harknett, R. "Diplomatic Theory of International Relations." Review. Political Science Quarterly  125, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 528-530.   

      Harknett reviews Diplomatic Theory of International Relations by Paul Sharp.
 
Helfferich, T. "The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change." Review. The Journal of Interdisciplinary History  41, no. 2 (October 1, 2010): 279.   

      Helfferich reviews The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe: Religious Conflict, Dynastic Empires, and International Change by Daniel H. Nexton.
 
Hemmings, A., and T. Stephens. "The extended continental shelves of sub-Antarctic Islands: implications for Antarctic governance." The Polar Record  46, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 312-327.   

      This article considers the legal and policy issues surrounding the establishment of continental shelves beyond 200 nautical miles (nm) from sub-Antarctic islands. Under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) a coastal state may establish a continental shelf that extends seawards beyond 200 nm where the continental shelf continues, normally to a total distance of no more than 350 nm. To establish such an extended continental shelf (ECS) a coastal state must file a submission of delineation data with the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), a technical body established by UNCLOS.

The rights of coastal states present particular difficulties in the Antarctic Treaty area (ATA), due to the general non-recognition of the seven territorial claims and the provisions of article IV of the Antarctic Treaty. Accordingly, Antarctic claimant states are generally adopting a restrained approach to the issue of ECS as appertaining to claimed territories in Antarctica in their submissions to the CLCS. These states appear to recognise that they cannot secure the normal prerogatives of a coastal state from territorial sea baselines within the ATA, at least for the duration of the present Antarctic Treaty system (ATS). A different approach is being taken with respect of sub-Antarctic islands lying north of the ATA. Sovereignty over sub-Antarctic territory north of the ATA is, with the exception of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, not contested. Accordingly, rights in relation to any continental shelf attaching to sub-Antarctic islands may be realised, apparently without challenging the Antarctic modus vivendi.

However, the ECS of several sub-Antarctic islands penetrate the ATA. In 2008, the CLCS largely endorsed the 2004 Australian submission that included data on ECS from Australia's sub-Antarctic islands of Macquarie Island and the Heard and McDonald group. The ECS from both groups penetrates south of 60°S into the ATA, in the case of Heard and McDonald covering a huge area. Although the wider dispute regarding sovereignty between the United Kingdom and Argentina adds complexity to the case, the South Sandwich Islands are sufficiently close to the ATA that their continental shelf also penetrates the area. In the event that the CLCS were ever able to make a recommendation on a submission of data relating to the South Sandwich Islands (something that could only occur with the consent of Argentina and the United Kingdom) the result would be a situation similar to that pertaining to the Australian sub-Antarctic islands.

The consequence of these developments is that rights to seabed areas within the ATA have been assigned to individual states. On the face of it, this appears to be in conflict with the norm of collective responsibility that was established by the Antarctic Treaty 50 years ago precisely to constrain sovereignty issues in the region. What is suggested by this practice is a difference in the attitude of Antarctic Treaty Consultative Parties (ATCPs) to rights generated from territory within the ATA and rights generated from external territory. Nonetheless, there may be significant implications flowing from the latter for resource issues within the ATA. Minerals exploitation on sub-Antarctic extended continental shelf within the ATA is precluded in the near-term because of cost, the formal prohibition under article 7 of the 1991 Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty, and the fact that all sub-Antarctic coastal states are ATCPs. However the situation in regard to other resource activities is less clear. Bioprospecting could proceed subject to coastal state approval pursuant to the provisions of UNCLOS relating to marine scientific research, and there is no mandatory regulation under the ATS. The possibility that a coastal state may seek to realise rights on the ECS in relation to genetic resources may complicate collective ATS approaches and pose wider geopolitical challenges. In the longer term, the fact that some Antarctic states are presently seeking to secure rights that are essentially about ensuring their preclusive access to resources may have significant implications for strategic interests in the greater Antarctic region.
 
Kang, D. "Status and Leadership on the Korean Peninsula." Orbis  54, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 546.   

      This article examines both South and North Korea's search for status in international relations. By exploring how these countries seek status for themselves, how states define status for themselves and others, and also what status they are willing to grant other regional states, this paper concludes that crafting a stable regional status hierarchy will be as important to future stability on the Korean peninsula as will be the crafting of a stable balance of power or deepening economic interdependence.
 
Kendall, J. "Deterrence by Presence to Effective Response: Japan's Shift Southward." Orbis  54, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 603.   

      Over the past fifteen years, a quiet strategic shift has occurred in Japan. During the cold war era, Japan's defense was oriented towards the Soviet threat north of Hokkaido. However, under the very real threat of North Korean aggression, the less tangible threat of terrorism, and the perceived need to participate more fully in international peacekeeping activities, Japan has changed the characteristics of its armed forces. Additionally, an increasingly self-confident China is testing Japan's resolve in the waters surrounding Japan, simultaneously speaking of cooperative development while laying claim to a swathe of Japanese territory and waters. An apparently ambivalent United States, in relative decline, watches these proceedings. Japan has reoriented its defense posture to face south, towards the East China Sea, trying to shape Chinese behavior and hedge against future Chinese adventurism. However, with a tangible recommitment of American attention to East Asia and a firm, public, American stand on behalf of Japan's territorial integrity, future conflict can be deterred.
 
Killingsworth, M. "Ethics and International Relations." Review. Australian Journal of Political Science  45, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 528.   

      Killingsworth reviews Ethics and International Relations by Joel H. Rosenthal and Christian Barry.
 
Kosebalaban, H. "THE CRISIS IN TURKISH-ISRAELI RELATIONS: WHAT IS ITS STRATEGIC SIGNIFICANCE?" Middle East Policy  17, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 36-50.   

      [..] the geostrategic changes that followed the end of the Cold War and then the Iraq War generated powerful influences over Turkish foreign policy, making it difficult for Turkey to maintain its onedimensional Western orientation. [..] Turkey's growing power, its security cooperation with Syria and Iran to deal with the Kurdish insurgency, and its competition with Iran over Arab public opinion have prepared the necessary regional and international background for a new strategic environment in the region.
 
Lahav, P. "A Small Nation Goes to War: Israel's Cabinet Authorization of the 1956 War." Israel Studies  15, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 61-86,202.   

      The Suez War had long term ramifications for Israel's status in the Middle East and for its relations with the U.S., Europe, and the USSR. This article is a first segment in the examination of the interplay between military and diplomatic means deployed by Israel in its quest to consolidate the gains of the 1948 war and secure its sovereignty. It provides a detailed analysis of the Israeli cabinet deliberations as it reached the decision to authorize war. The article examines the cabinet's opinions on the language of the motion to go to war, the list of casus belli offered, the secret agreement with France and Britain which precipitated the war, considerations of possible complications, the theory of war and peace, the likelihood of regime change in Egypt, and the preparedness of the home front. It raises the question of the relevance of the comparative size and strength of a nation as it ponders the option of launching a war.
 
Leverett, H., M. Indyk, I. Lustick, and P. Pillar. "U.S. POLICIES TOWARD ISRAEL AND IRAN: WHAT ARE THE LINKAGES?" Middle East Policy  17, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 1-22.   

      According to this conventional wisdom. From this perspective, an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement - or. more accurately, an Israeli-Fatah peace agreement and the creation of a more prosperous Fatah enclave in the West Bank - would undermine popular support for Hamas, even in Gaza; marginalize Hamas as an actor in Palestinian politics; and effectively terminate Iranian influence in Palestinian affairs, with significant negative consequences for Iran's regional standing. [..] though they are non-state actors.
 
MacDonald, P. "Why NATO Endures." Review. Political Science Quarterly  125, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 553-555.   

      MacDonald reviews Why NATO Endures by Wallace Thies.
 
Moszynski, P. "UN chief urges world leaders to put MDGs back on track." British Medical Journal  341, no. 7774 (September 25, 2010): 623.   

      Only one of the United Nations eight millennium development goals, agreed at a meeting of world leaders in New York in 2000, is on target to be met by 2015, the latest UN summit meeting heard this week. But the UN's general secretary Ban Ki-moon, insisted that the other seven goals were still within reach. He said that "there is no global project more worthwhile" and called on the leaders to provide the necessary investment, aid, and political will to ensure that the goals are achieved. A number of countries have achieved major successes in fighting poverty, improving school enrolment and child health, expanding access to clean water, strengthening control of malaria and tuberculosis, and widening access to treatment for HIV. But progress has been uneven, and without additional efforts the goals are likely to be missed in many countries, the UN's latest figures show. The only goal on rack is that of having global poverty.
 
Pan, C. "China and the Global Politics of Regionalization." Review. Australian Journal of Political Science  45, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 522.   

      Pan reviews China and the Global Politics of Regionalization edited by Emilian Kavalski.
 
Rivas, D. "Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City." Review. The Americas  67, no. 2 (October 1, 2010): 293-295.   

      Original concerns about access to rubber led Ford to consider developing rubber plantations in the Amazon, but ultimately the two planned towns he had built there, Fordlandia and Belterra (neither of which he ever visited) were a consequence of his urge to develop model communities that embraced modern values of efficiency while also maintaining an aura of traditional community life, complete with family garden plots to keep residents in tune with the land. While the bulk of the book traces the domestic roots of one man's drive to shape the world(s) around him according to his values and visions, Grandin ultimately places the story of Henry Ford's quixotic quest to create an American town in Brazil's Amazon in a readable, powerful, albeit one-sided indictment of the consequences of the rise of global industrial capitalism to the Amazon basin and the Third World at large.
 
Sandberg, K., S. Andresen, and G. Bjune. "A new approach to global health institutions? A case study of new vaccine introduction and the formation of the GAVI Alliance." Social Science & Medicine  71, no. 7 (October 1, 2010): 1349.   

      There is an emerging research agenda to analyse empirically the forces driving changes in global health governance. This study applies analytical tools from international relations research to explain the formation of international health regimes. The study utilizes two explanatory perspectives: individual leadership, and the interests of key non-state actors in the formation process, using the case of the formation of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI) from 1995 to 1999. The case study is based on material from interviews with key actors, an archival review of documents from the Children's Vaccine Initiative (CVI), and published literature. Findings show that the regime formation process was initiated by individuals who were primarily affiliated to scientific communities and who led to the World Bank and the Gates Foundation becoming champions of a new coordinating mechanism for new vaccine introduction. Negotiations in the regime formation process were between a small group of founding agencies with divergent interests regarding immunization priorities. The case also sheds light on the authority of the WHO and the resources of the Gates Foundation in driving the process towards the final structure of the alliance. The paper discusses the potential contribution of the international relations approach compared to policy research as a way of understanding the institutional dynamics of global health, particularly in respect of relations between countries and non-state actors.
 
Spechler, M., and D. Spechler. "Is Russia Succeeding in Central Asia?" Orbis  54, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 615.   

      On a number of recent occasions, the top Russian leadership has expressed its special interest in the affairs of former Soviet republics, including the assertion that Russia has a "privileged" relationship with these now independent states. Is this a claim of accomplished fact, of future intention, or perhaps an empty expression of nostalgia for lost status? As we see it, the record of Russian actions in the largest group of these states -- the five of Central Asia -- allows us to exclude the first and question whether the second is realizable. Russia must contend with the aspirations of those states themselves, as well as the determined interests of China and, to a lesser extent, the West.
 
Trenin, D. "How to Bury the Cold War." Current History  109, no. 729 (October 1, 2010): 308-309.   

      Regarding regional suspicion of the Kremlin's motives, a breakthrough could come if Moscow made a dedicated effort to fully normalize relations only with Poland - the key country - but also with the Baltic states. [..] the United States and Russia should both lead, on parallel tracks.
 
Wachman, A. "Suffering What It Must? Mongolia and the Power of the 'Weak'." Orbis  54, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 583.   

      Mongolia is not a hapless object on which the great powers may act at will. Like other small states existing on the periphery of great powers, Mongolia has -- and does exercise -- political agency. Its policies and actions affect not only the bilateral relationship it has with each of the greater powers, but -- as an outgrowth of those bilateral relations -- it also exerts some influence on the relationship that the great powers, in turn, have with each other. ".. you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
 
Watts, M., and W. Walstad. "Economic Education in an International Context." Journal of Economic Education  41, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 410-412.   

      The authors explain the purpose and context for the 2009 International Symposium on Economic Education that was the source for articles on four nations with relatively developed systems for economic education: Australia, England, Japan, and Korea. The authors highlight several key comparisons from the four articles that appear in this Journal of Economic Education issue.
 
Wilson, S. "Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914-1938." Review. Asian Studies Review  34, no. 3 (September 1, 2010): 382-384.   

      Japan now seeks a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. Since 1945, Japanese leaders have more generally followed "a nearly consistent posture of international accommodationism" (p. 220). 
 
Anonymous, . "Decentering Kabul." The Wilson Quarterly  34, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 71-73.   

      THE SOURCE: "Defining Success in Afghanistan" by Stephen Biddle, Fotini Christia, and J. Alexander Thier, in Foreign Affairs, July- Aug. 2010. SINCE 2001, THE GOVERNMENT of Afghanistan, led by Hamid Karzai and backed by the United States, has struggled to build a centralized democracy.
 
Anonymous, . "NEW FACES AROUND THE CENTER." The Wilson Quarterly  34, no. 4 (October 1, 2010): 9.   

      Matthew Nelson, a lecturer in politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, plans to study religious education in Pakistan, while Marjorie Spinili, a history professor at the University of South Carolina, will look at how the women's rights movement of the 1970s spurred political polarization in America Longtime New York Times medical correspondent Lawrence Altman is researching how journalists report on the health of presidents and other significant political figures.
 
Bishku, M. "SOUTH AFRICA AND THE MIDDLE EAST." Middle East Policy  17, no. 3 (October 1, 2010): 153-174.   

      [..] Jewish and Lebanese ethnic populations in South Africa have factored in relations with Israel and Lebanon. [..] the area of primary foreignpolicy interest for both Apartheid-era and current South Africa leadership has been Southern Africa.
 
Cirincione, J. "Towards nuclear zero." Review. Nature  467, no. 7315 (September 30, 2010): 528-529.   

      Rhodes has some good news. Since the end of the cold war, he says, "the irregular but unmistakable trend in international relations has been towards the reduction and elimination of nuclear arsenals".