Technical politics

This book critically examines the range of policies and programmes that attempt to manage economic activity that contributes to political violence. Beginning with an overview of over a dozen policies aimed at transforming these activities into economic relationships which support peace, not war, the book then offers a sustained critique of the reasons for limited success in this policy field. The inability of the range of international actors involved in this policy area, the Development-Security Industry (DSI), to bring about more peaceful political-economic relationships is shown to be a result of liberal biases, resulting conceptual lenses and operational tendencies within this industry. A detailed case study of responses to organised crime in Kosovo offers an in-depth exploration of these problems, but also highlights opportunities for policy innovation. This book offers a new framework for understanding both the problem of economic activity that accompanies and sometimes facilitates violence and programmes aimed at managing these forms of economic activity. Summaries of key arguments and frameworks, found within each chapter, provide accessible templates for both students and aid practitioners seeking to understand war economies and policy reactions in a range of other contexts. It also offers insight into how to alter and improve policy responses in other cases. As such, the book is accessible to a range of readers, including students interested in peace, conflict and international development as well as policy makers and practitioners seeking new ways of understanding war economies and improving responses to them.

This book considers the underlying causes of the end of social democracy's golden age. It argues that the cross-national trend in social democratic parties since the 1970s has been towards an accommodation with neo-liberalism and a corresponding dilution of traditional social democratic commitments. The book looks at the impact of the change in economic conditions on social democracy in general, before examining the specific cases of Germany, Sweden and Australia. It examines the ideological crisis that engulfed social democracy. The book also looks at the post-1970 development of social policy, its fiscal implications and economic consequences in three European countries. It considers the evolution of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from its re-emergence as a significant political force during the 1970s until the present day under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The book also examines the evolution of the Swedish model in conjunction with social democratic reformism and the party's relations to the union movement. It explores the latest debate about what the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) stands for. The SPD became the role model for programmatic modernisation for the European centre-left. The book considers how British socialist and social democratic thought from the late nineteenth century to the present has treated the objective of helping people to fulfil their potential, talents and ambitions. It aims to contribute to a broader conversation about the future of social democracy by considering ways in which the political thought of 'third way' social democracy might be radicalised for the twenty-first century.

This book argues for greater openness in the ways we approach human rights and international rights promotion, and in so doing brings some new understanding to old debates. Starting with the realities of abuse rather than the liberal architecture of rights, it casts human rights as a language for probing the political dimensions of suffering. Seen in this context, the predominant Western models of right generate a substantial but also problematic and not always emancipatory array of practices. These models are far from answering the questions about the nature of political community that are raised by the systemic infliction of suffering. Rather than a simple message from ‘us’ to ‘them’, then, rights promotion is a long and difficult conversation about the relationship between political organisations and suffering. Three case studies are explored: the Tiananmen Square massacre, East Timor's violent modern history and the circumstances of indigenous Australians. The purpose of these discussions is not to elaborate on a new theory of rights, but to work towards rights practices that are more responsive to the spectrum of injury that we inflict and endure.