This book describes how international law regulates the problems that arise where economic activity meets violent conflict.

As a pervasive occurrence in the contemporary world, wars and their economic sources are defining social and political processes in a variety of national and transnational contexts. Rebel Economies: Warlords, Insurgents, Humanitarians explores historical, anthropological and political dimensions of war economies by non-state actors across different periods and regions, while presenting their multiple manifestations as a unified, congruent phenomenon. Through a variety of conceptual and disciplinary approaches, the authors investigate, in the past and present and across three continents, the nexuses between economy, war, social transformation and state-building, revealing in the process differences and similarities that would otherwise remain hidden. Through this broad-gauge approach, the book aims, first, to rethink much of the debate around “non-state war economies,” and, secondly, to expand the conversation by consciously treating this theme as a conspicuous and distinct aspect of both economy and war. This is not just a different approach but a fundamental departure from the ways in which current discussions over the economy of wars, civil conflicts, and revolutions, have informed research orientations over several decades.

As insurgencies rage, a burning question remains: how should insurgents fight technologically superior state armies? Commentators rarely ask this question because the catchphrase 'we fight by the rules, but they don't' is nearly axiomatic. But truly, are all forms of guerrilla warfare equally reprehensible? Can we think cogently about just guerrilla warfare? May guerrilla tactics such as laying improvised explosive devices (IEDs), assassinating informers, using human shields, seizing prisoners of war, conducting cyber strikes against civilians, manipulating the media, looting resources, or using nonviolence to provoke violence prove acceptable under the changing norms of contemporary warfare? The short answer is 'yes', but modern guerrilla warfare requires a great deal of qualification, explanation, and argumentation before it joins the repertoire of acceptable military behavior. Not all insurgents fight justly, but guerrilla tactics and strategies are also not always the heinous practices that state powers often portray them to be.

International Humanitarian Law (IHL) is in a state of some turbulence, as a result of, among other things, non-international armed conflicts, terrorist threats and the rise of new technologies. This incisive book observes that while states appear to be reluctant to act as agents of change, informal methods of law-making are flourishing. Illustrating that not only courts, but various non-state actors, push for legal developments, this timely work offers an insight into the causes of this somewhat ambivalent state of IHL by focusing attention on both the legitimacy of law-making processes and the actors involved.

This book aims to understand how public organizations adapt to and manage situations characterized by fluidity, ambiguity, complexity and unclear technologies, thus exploring public governance in times of turbulence.

This unique volume offers a definitive new history of European economies at war from 1914 to 1918. It studies how European economies mobilised for war, how existing economic institutions stood up under the strain, how economic development influenced outcomes and how wartime experience influenced post-war economic growth. Leading international experts provide the first systematic comparison of economies at war between 1914 and 1918 based on the best available data for Britain, Germany, France, Russia, the USA, Italy, Turkey, Austria-Hungary and the Netherlands. The editors' overview draws some stark lessons about the role of economic development, the importance of markets and the damage done by nationalism and protectionism. A companion volume to the acclaimed The Economics of World War II, this is a major contribution to our understanding of total war.

"This book ... emphasizes the role of economic factors in the conditions that lead to state collapse, give rise to and sustain conflict, and complicate peacebuilding." The book argues that "existing state-level focus tends to ignore the role of regional linkages in permitting and sustaining conflict and as obstacles to transformation." Furthermore that, "the focus on the dynamics of conflict in states of the developing world tends to artificially distance the outside, predominantly "Western" world from their genesis and evolution ..." (taken from introduction)