The events of the 11th of September 2001 revealed most dramatically that globalization has a shadow. While large sections of the world’s population enjoy the perceived benefits of globalization, others seek to utilize globalization for their own politically violent purposes. If 9/11 demonstrated anything, it is that globalization can as readily facilitate violence and insecurity as it can produce stability, prosperity and political order. This edited volume offers important new methodological and multi-disciplinary insights into the study of globalization and political violence. It brings together studies from various disciplines in order to address the precise nature of the relationship between globalization and political violence as it seeks to offer new theoretical and empirical understandings of the types of actors involved in political violence, either as perpetrators or victims. Examples of the studies include the changing character of state militaries and state-to-state conflict under globalization, the emergence of ‘new wars’ fuelled by globalization, the role of state militaries in intervention, new forms of violence directed by states against refugees and anti-globalization protesters, the role of terrorist actors post-9/11, networks for the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the rise of private military firms amongst others. The Globalization of Political Violence will be of interest to students and researchers of politics, international relations, security studies and international political economy.

Written by leading scholars in a range of disciplines (from law, philosophy, politics and sociology to media studies and translation studies), this book provides key insights into the globalization of violence and the role of translation in this context, and includes detailed empirical analyses of media representations and translators' accounts.

Violence and Politics points out a paradox of contemporary political violence: it appears to be growing in scope and complexity even in this era of unprecedented democratic and economic growth. These essays cover a number of timely issues including pro-life terrorism, hate crimes, Islam's connection (or stereotyped connection) to violence, rape as a war crime, ethnic conflicts, and violence against those protesting for civil rights for women, gays and lesbians and blacks. Contributors cross disciplines and subdisciplines to examine the counter-intuitive persistence of violence in advanced democracies and in steadily improving developing countries.

A dozen essays by US and European urbanists, anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists develop an approach to understanding the increasing violence that has occurred on a global scale over the past couple decades, and try to construct a more adequate comprehension of global processes than has been provided in the language of globalization. Among the topics are class projects, social consciousness, and the contradictions of globalization; and the case for citizenship as social contract.

Recently, a wall was built in eastern Germany. Made of steel and cement blocks, topped with razor barbed wire, and reinforced with video monitors and movement sensors, this wall was not put up to protect a prison or a military base, but rather to guard a three-day meeting of the finance ministers of the Group of Eight (G8). The wall manifested a level of security that is increasingly commonplace at meetings regarding the global economy. The authors of Shutting Down the Streets have directly observed and participated in more than 20 mass actions against global in North America and Europe, beginning with the watershed 1999 WTO meetings in Seattle and including the 2007 G8 protests in Heiligendamm. Shutting Down the Streets is the first book to conceptualize the social control of dissent in the era of alterglobalization. Based on direct observation of more than 20 global summits, the book demonstrates that social control is not only global, but also preemptive, and that it relegates dissent to the realm of criminality. The charge is insurrection, but the accused have no weapons. The authors document in detail how social control forecloses the spaces through which social movements nurture the development of dissent and effect disruptive challenges.

This book examines the phenomenon of paramilitarism across Latin America and the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia, offering a nuanced perspective while identifying key patterns in the way paramilitary violence is implicated in processes of capital accumulation, state-building, and the reproduction of social power. Paramilitary violence, a key modality of coercion in the era of globalization, has been pursued by states and dominant classes in the Global South, to reproduce or extend their power over subaltern groups. Paramilitary groups are responsible for atrocities, including extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture, rape, and forced displacement. The book integrates empirically rich investigations into an emergent theory of political violence, capturing the relationship between parastatal armed actors, capital, and the state. The analysis sheds light on globally relevant phenomena such as the end of the Cold War, the shifting role of US hegemony, and evolving nature of the nation-state. The book is suitable for academics, graduate and upper-year undergraduate students, and policy-makers in development, human rights, and violence prevention. Given its interdisciplinary subject, it appeals to scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including political science, sociology, political anthropology, development, peace and conflict, security and terrorism, international relations, and global studies.

We live today in an interconnected world in which ordinary people can became instant online celebrities to fans thousands of miles away, in which religious leaders can influence millions globally, in which humans are altering the climate and environment, and in which complex social forces intersect across continents. This is globalization. In the fifth edition of his bestselling Very Short Introduction Manfred B. Steger considers the major dimensions of globalization: economic, political, cultural, ideological, and ecological. He looks at its causes and effects, and engages with the hotly contested question of whether globalization is, ultimately, a good or a bad thing. From climate change to the Ebola virus, Donald Trump to Twitter, trade wars to China's growing global profile, Steger explores today's unprecedented levels of planetary integration as well as the recent challenges posed by resurgent national populism. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.