This book offers a detailed study of the psycho-politics of governmental manipulation, in which a vulnerable population is disciplined by contorting their sense of self-worth. In many conflict settings, a nation’s government exerts its dominance over a marginalized population group through laws, policies and practices that foster stark inequality. This book shows how such domination comes in the form of systems of humiliation orchestrated by governmental forces. This thesis draws upon recent findings in social psychology, conflict analysis, and political sociology, with case studies of governmental directives, verdicts, policies, decisions and norms that, when enforced, foster debasement, disgrace or denigration. One case centers on the US immigration laws that target vulnerable population groups, while another focuses on the ethnic discrimination of the central government of Sudan against the Sudanese Africans. The book’s conclusion focuses on compassion-motivated practices that represent a counter-force to government-sponsored strategies of systemic humiliation. These are practices for building peace by professionals and non-professionals as a positive response to protracted violence. This book will be of much interest to students of peace and conflict studies, sociology, psychology, ethics, philosophy and international relations.

"Cooper shows how the reaction to slavery unveiled the characteristics of freedom and established the foundation for the human rights movement. The book demonstrates how the legacy of slavery continues to shape individual identity as well as the nature of state power to exercise discipline and control over its citizens"--

This book considers how the social construction of crime and the criminalising of political expression impact upon different stages in a violent political conflict. The freedom to express our political opinions is regarded as an essential human right throughout most of the world, and yet, in defence of our security, governments often place various restrictions on it. This book directly considers what these restrictions are in the context of deeply divided societies to understand how they impact upon intergroup relations in four different contexts: nonviolent movements, counter-insurgency, peace negotiations, and post-settlement peacebuilding. Drawing on an extensive body of original interviews and archival material, the volume analyses this relationship through an in-depth consideration of Northern Ireland and South Africa, followed by a wider analysis of Turkey, Sri Lanka, Belgium, and Canada. The overarching argument is that the implications of criminalising political expression depend on both its ‘target’ and the wider social reality it contributes towards. This book will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, transitional justice, law, and International Relations.

"A book on a controversial topic such as U.S. state sanctioned violence questions many of our basic assumptions we hold true. The importance of violence is well attested to by Oxford University Press devoting a Book Series on Interpersonal Violence. However, state sanctioned violence in the U.S. is not, for example. The saying "The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable" comes to mind in writing this book because it holds personal meaning for me that goes beyond being a social worker and a person of color (Latinx). The basic premise and interconnectedness of the themes in this book were reinforced and expanded in the course of writing. Bonilla-Silva (2019, p. 14) states "We are living, once again, in strange racial times," and yes, indeed, we are. My hope is that readers appreciate the numerous threads between themes, some of which have not gotten close attention by the general public and scholars. Harris and Hodge (2017), for example, adeptly interconnect environmental, food, and school-to-pipeline among urban youth of color, illustrating how oppressions converge. Future scholarship will connect even more dots to create the mosaic that constitutes state sanctioned violence. I was relieved to see the extent of scholarship on the topics addressed in this book. Bringing to together this literature, public reports, and the experiences from those currently dealing with state sponsored violence, allowed for a consistent narrative to unfold. Writing a book is always a process of discovery. There is a body of scholarship to buttress the central arguments of this book, but no such literature addressing the structural interconnectedness of the types of state sanctioned violence for social work. The socio-political interactional consequences of place, time, people, and events, sets a social-political context that is understood by social workers and makes our mission distinctive because of this grounding. Viewing state sanctioned violence, including its laws and policies, within this prism allows us to develop a vision or charge that can unite us, as well as a deeper commitment to working with oppressed groups in seeking social justice. Social work is not exempt from having a role in state sanctioned violence. We only to delve into the profession's history and evolution to appreciate how we have reinforced a state sanctioned violence agenda, wittingly or unwittingly. Practice is never apolitical; they either support a state sanctioned violence narrative or resist it with counter-narratives. Social work must be vigilant of how we support state violence. Practice is never apolitical; they either support a state sanctioned violence narrative or resist it with counter-narratives"--

This book explores the emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) as an alternative political force in Uttar Pradesh. It focuses on the historical continuity of Dalit social justice movements and organizational politics from pre- to post-colonial India and its subsequent institutionalization as a political force with the rise of the BSP in the state since the 1980s. The volume discusses the new age Dalit–Bahujan politics and its ethnicization of caste groups to create a bahujan samaj. The book analyzes the focused political leadership of Kanshiram and Mayawati, the strong party organization, and how they evolved an empowered Dalit ideology and identity by grassroots mobilization and championing Dalit icons and history. The author also explores the party’s strategies, slogans and alliances with other political parties and communities and its political manoeuvrings to retain its influence over the electorate. The book also effectively identifies the reasons for the political marginalization of the BSP in present times in the context of the phenomenal rise of the BJP in the state. The book will be of great interest to researchers and scholars of political science, sociology, Dalit and subaltern studies, exclusion studies and those working on the intersectionality of caste and class. It will also be useful for policy makers, think tanks and NGOs working in the domain of caste, marginality, social exclusion and identity politics.

Utilising Northern Ireland as a case study, this book presents an analysis of the gender and sexual politics of conflict transformation. The book synthesises a vast array of international sources with the author’s empirical and theoretical research to produce a powerful gendered critique of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland. It maps the negative effects of the region’s violent conflict on gender and sexual equality and explores the potential of the conflict transformational processes, set in motion by the 1998 Peace Agreement, to transform relationships between different genders and sexualities. Starting from the feminist proposition that building peace requires the inclusion of issues of gender and sexual equality, the author analyses how the new institutional and semantic structures of conflict transformation in Northern Ireland preserved older conservative narratives about gender and sexuality. As older narratives clashed with progressive forms of sexual and gender politics, the core sites of conflict transformation became arenas of gender and sexual struggles. The book outlines these struggles, and charts the positive and inclusive visions of peace developed by activists throughout the period of conflict transformation. This book will be of much interest to students of gender studies, conflict transformation, ethnic conflict, peace studies and Irish politics.

Resolving International Conflict rethinks the dynamics of conflict escalation and continuation by engaging with research from the wide range of subfields in this area. The book suggests a new framework for understanding conflict as a particular form of situation, interaction and tension. It shows how conflicts are shaped by varied dynamics relating to emotion, securitization, incentives, digital technology and violence; even attempts at monitoring, resolving or remembering conflicts may end up contributing to their escalation or continuation. Split into two sections, the first part focuses on the question of why and how conflicts escalate, while the second part analyses the continuation of conflict. The book features several case studies of conflict escalation and continuation - in Bahrain, Israel-Palestine, South Sudan, Northern Ireland and, most prominently, the case of the Syrian uprising and subsequent civil war. Throughout the book, and, in particular, in the conclusion, the consequences for conflict transformation are discussed. This work will be of much interest to students of conflict resolution, peace studies, war and conflict studies, security studies and international relations, in general.