Believers, Skeptics, and Failure in Conflict Resolution by Ian S. Spears
| Published date | 01 September 2020 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0020702020954181 |
| Date | 01 September 2020 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
state-owned enterprises. In chapter 2, we read of China’s strategies to become a
“global innovator” as well as some of the results achieved so far. In chapter 3, we
gain a greater understanding of how China’s leaders are developing a modern
financial system to sustain economic growth while maintaining a dominant role
for state-owned (and directed) financial institutions, a balancing act that has
resulted in the emergence of significant risks to China’s financial stability. In
chapters 4 and 5, we are taught how Chinese capital is being deployed interna-
tionally through foreign direct investment (mergers and acquisitions as well as
greenfield investments conducted by private and state-owned firms). We learn,
too, about the Belt and Road Initiative, an umbrella strategy devised under Xi
Jinping’s leadership to develop physical and digital infrastructure to facilitate eco-
nomic exchanges between China and its Asian neighbours as well as with the
African and European continents.
The book’s last chapter focuses on what China means for Canada and how
the latter should respond. Here, Dobson calls on Canada to develop a
“China strategy” that should go beyond “diversifying trade and investment”
(115). She grounds this argument in the following narrative: “China is different,
but cooperation is possible and differences can be acknowledged and managed”
(118). Canada’s China strategy should include promoting public learning about
China, participating in Asia’s security order, negotiating a “living” (sector by
sector) trade agreement with China, using multilateral institutions to pressure
China “to adopt laws consistent with global standards” (142), and relying on
international coalitions (of governments, civil society, and the media) to address
China’s increasing assertiveness on the international scene. As such, rather than
providing a concrete strategy with specific actions to pursue, Dobson offers a
strategic map with a laundry list of things that Canada could do for successfully
“living with China.” Here, the reader may wish for a specific strategy; however,
one has to recognize that “strategic elements [...] take time to develop and follow
through” (142).
Ian S. Spears
Believers, Skeptics, and Failure in Conflict Resolution
London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 241pp. $118 (cloth)
ISBN: 978-3-030-14143-1
Reviewed by: Fen Osler Hampson (Fen.Hampson@carleton.ca), Carleton University
Ian Spears’s new book, Believers, Skeptics, and Failure in Conflict Resolution, offers
a synoptic analysis of what he considers to have been a steady litany of major
failures in the practice of conflict resolution by the international community—a list
that includes the Rwandan genocide, continuing conflict in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ukraine–Russia, and that
hardy perennial, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, which has dashed the peacemak-
ing aspirations of many White House incumbents.
448 International Journal 75(3)
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