A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project. This book is an examination of the effect of contemporary wars (such as the 'War on Terror') on civil life at a global level. Contemporary literature on war is mainly devoted to recent changes in the theory and practice of warfare, particular those in which terrorists or insurgents are involved (for example, the 'revolution in military affairs', 'small wars', and so on). On the other hand, today's research on security is focused, among other themes, on the effects of the war on terrorism, and on civil liberties and social control. This volume connects these two fields of research, showing how 'war' and 'security' tend to exchange targets and forms of action as well as personnel (for instance, the spreading use of private contractors in wars and of military experts in the 'struggle for security') in modern society. This shows how, contrary to Clausewitz's belief war should be conceived of as a "continuation of politics by other means", the opposite statement is also true: that politics, insofar as it concerns security, can be defined as the 'continuation of war by other means'. This book will be of much interest to students of critical security studies, war and conflict studies, terrorism studies, sociology and IR in general. Salvatore Palidda is Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Education at the University of Genoa. Alessandro Dal Lago is Professor of Sociology of Culture and Communication at the University of Genoa.

The field of political demography - the politics of population change - is dramatically underrepresented in political science. At a time when demographic changes - aging in the rich world, youth bulges in the developing world, ethnic and religious shifts, migration, and urbanization - are waxing as never before, this neglect is especially glaring and starkly contrasts with the enormous interest coming from policymakers and the media. "Ten years ago, [demography] was hardly on the radar screen," remarks Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, two contributors to this volume. "Today," they continue, "it dominates almost any discussion of America's long-term fiscal, economic, or foreign-policy direction." Demography is the most predictable of the social sciences: children born in the last five years will be the new workers, voters, soldiers, and potential insurgents of 2025 and the political elites of the 2050s. Whether in the West or the developing world, political scientists urgently need to understand the tectonics of demography in order to grasp the full context of today's political developments. This book begins to fill the gap from a global and historical perspective and with the hope that scholars and policymakers will take its insights on board to develop enlightened policies for our collective future.

Security concerns have mushroomed. Increasingly numerous areas of life are governed by security policies and technologies. Security Unbound argues that when insecurities pervade how we relate to our neighbours, how we perceive international politics, how governments formulate policies, at stake is not our security but our democracy. Security is not in the first instance a right or value but a practice that challenges democratic institutions and actions. We are familiar with emergency policies in the name of national security challenging parliamentary processes, the space for political dissent, and fundamental rights. Yet, security practice and technology pervade society heavily in very mundane ways without raising national security crises, in particular through surveillance technology and the management of risks and uncertainties in many areas of life. These more diffuse security practices create societies in which suspicion becomes a default way of relating and governing relations, ranging from neighbourhood relations over financial transactions to cross border mobility. Security Unbound demonstrates that governing through suspicion poses serious challenges to democratic practice. Some of these challenges are familiar, such as the erosion of the right to privacy; others are less so, such as the post-human challenge to citizenship. Security unbound provokes us to see that the democratic political stake today is not our security but preventing insecurity from becoming the organising principle of political and social life.

Five specialists examine the historical relationship of culture and conflict in various regional societies. The authors use Adda B. Bozeman's theories on conflict and culture as the basis for their analyses of the causes, nature, and conduct of war and conflict in the Soviet Union, the Middle East, Sinic Asia (China, Japan, and Vietnam), Latin America, and Africa. Drs. Blank, Lawrence Grinter, Karl P. Magyar, Lewis B. Ware, and Bynum E. Weathers conclude that non-Western cultures and societies do not reject war but look at violence and conflict as a normal and legitimate aspect of sociopolitical behavior.

War, from the conflicts in the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine to Mexican narco-violence, from neocolonial land grabs in the Global South to racial, border, health, and climate crises all over the planet, defines the most extreme and contradictory expression of the global world. In this fascinating exploration on the history of the thinking of conflict, Edgar Illas departs from military and sociological analyses to propose a theoretical exploration of war as the ontological force that produces political orders. Magma is used as a geological metaphor to theorize the mixtures of politics and war that organize, and disorganize, global society. Divided into two parts, Illas’ study begins by surveying some of the most important thinkers of war, moving from classical antiquity to the twentieth century. Each thinker provides a different inflection in the historical evolution of the being of war. The second part turns to a theorization of the twenty-first century to claim that conflictive relations between capital, state power, political movements, and social life in globalization culminate and at the same time reiterate the paradoxes of war as an ontological event. The Magma of War is an energizing contribution to the task of rethinking politics in relation to war and an invaluable resource to all those conscious of the unstable forms of contemporary social and political life.

The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Political Sociology is a complete reference guide, reflecting the scope and quality of the discipline, and highlighting emerging topics in the field. Global in focus, offering up-to-date topics from an interdisciplinary, international set of scholars addressing key issues concerning globalization, social movements, and citizenship The majority of chapters are new, including those on environmental politics, international terrorism, security, corruption, and human rights Revises and updates all previously published chapters to include new themes and topics in political sociology Provides an overview of scholarship in the field, with chapters working independently and collectively to examine the full range of contributions to political sociology Offers a challenging yet accessible and complete reference guide for students and scholars

The persistence of war as a feature of modern life is examined through issues of identity and difference, that is, the construction of 'self' and 'other' as individual or community. Key texts relating specifically to identity and war are addressed, including those by Nietzsche, Heiddeger, Marcuse, Freud, Lacan, Honneth, Bataille, Simmel, Elshtain, Ruddick, Schmitt, Delanda, Hardt and Negri, Baudrillard, Virilio, Beck and Joas. Its theoretical approach sets this study apart from the traditional political science and IR approaches to the subject and makes a significant contribution within this area of social theory, cultural studies and communication studies.