As part of our current theme on extremism and violence, SEN Journal: Online Exclusives is thrilled to present an original article by Dr. Bill Kissane. He has recently edited a new book, entitled Reconstructing National Identity after Europe’s Internal Wars, 1918-2011, which is forthcoming.
There are many words that creep into the social science vocabulary from the real world without sufficient critical analysis. One of these is ‘reconstruction’. Commonly used with reference to places, events, and objects of art, its place within the social science lexicon is very specific. It denotes large-scale projects of social and political engineering after the experience of war and/or natural disaster, events that are of such magnitude that either the state or international organisations play a major role in restoring the status quo ante. The first such experiment was of course the Reconstruction era following the American Civil War. Yet the importance of such episodes in contemporary European history has been so marked that one recent study of democratic theory in the twentieth century summarised (and praised) the era of ‘Reconstruction Thought’ that followed the Second World War [1]. As opposed to the ideological zeal of the 1920s and 1930s, in this period radical visions of mass politics were tempered by the experience of disaster and war between 1939 and 1945. Reconstruction, like much else, comes ‘after the fall’.
As part of our current theme on extremism and violence, SEN Journal: Online Exclusives is pleased to present a recently published piece by Khaled Fattah on tribes and terrorism in the Middle East. This article was first published by Canada International Council and is republished by SEN with the permission of the author. The original article can be found here.
Photo by Explorer Mikael Strandberg
With the recent stepping up of controversial U.S. drone attacks in tribal areas of Yemen, and post-Arab Spring confrontations with militant jihadist groups in tribal areas of Egypt, Libya, and North Africa, a number of misconceptions surrounding the links between tribes and terrorism in the Arab Middle East continue to plague press coverage and policy reports. The first of these misconceptions is that tribal areas are lawless, ungoverned spaces – a modern-day Wild West. Another misconception is that the ultra-conservative culture of Arab tribes is fertile ground in which to root the violent ideology of transnational terror cells. The truth is that much of the current commentary about tribes and tribalism in the Arab Middle East reflects the Pentagon’s experiences so far in the American-led “War on Terror.” This war has now shifted from boot-heavy invasions to ghost wars in which drones hover over countries with significant tribal populations: Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya, and Mali. The War on Terror is now primarily carried out via “open secret” predator drone missions that increasingly target exclusively tribal areas.
Conference Title: ‘Beyond the Ivory Tower: IR and the Real World’
Panel Title: ‘IR’s Deep Impact: Ethnic Conflict Research and Policy Making/Formulation’
Panel Organizer: Hannes Artens – Lecturer in War and Security Studies, University of Hull
This panel seeks to investigate and critically examine the role of academic researchers of ethnic conflict as protagonists in conflict dynamics, and consequently the impact this has on policy making and formulation. In line with the overall conference theme, particular emphasis will be given to situating the discipline of IR, and its epistemological underpinnings in the context of ethnic conflict research and analysis as well as to probe intersections between academia and political praxis.
The Association for Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) is pleased to announce the call for papers for the 23rd ASEN Annual Conference: Nationalism and Revolution. The conference will take place from the 9-11th April, 2013 at the London School of Economics. This call for papers is also available to download as a PDF <http://www2.lse.ac.uk/researchAndExpertise/units/ASEN/Conference/23AsenConferenceFlier.pdf> .
Confirmed keynote speakers include: John Breuilly, Charles King, John Lonsdale, Karma Nabulsi, Stein Tønnesson and Sami Zubaida.
Proposals are invited for papers focusing on the following themes:
