Book Notes
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Author | Nic Marsh |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433030405007 |
| Subject Matter | Notes |
609
Brauer, Jurgen & J. Paul Dunne, eds, 2002.
Arming the South: The Economics of Military
Expenditure, Arms Production and Arms Trade in
Developing Countries. New York: Palgrave. 426
pp. ISBN 0333754409 (hardback).
This weighty and ambitious edited volume
succeeds in tackling an extensive and complex
subject, and offers a wide range of relevant and
thought-provoking scholarship. The book’s
emphasis is on the effects of military expenditure
in developing countries on their economic
growth, democratization and non-military
government expenditure. The breadth of its
subject is covered impressively by the seven
overviews and nine country studies. Highlights
include Ron Matthews’s chapter on the econ-
omics of defence offsets in Saudi Arabia; Jurgen
Brauer offers a perceptive overview of ‘The arms
industry in developing nations’; similarly, Geoff
Harris’s chapter on ‘Military expenditure and
economic development in Asia’ succeeds in pro-
viding an enlightening overview of such a diverse
continent. The one major disappointment comes
from Neil Cooper’s ‘Warlords and logo warriors:
the political economy of post-modern conflict’.
He should be reminded that one does not
produce research at ‘the forefront of new
thinking’ merely by using ‘post-modern’ as a
prefix before every concept. The authors have
higher ambitions – that the book be useful for the
peace movement. Therefore, it concludes with a
chapter by Tony Kempster on peace campaigners’
research needs. Unfortunately, a peace cam-
paigner looking for an academic consensus on the
negative impact of the military is likely to find
instead a confusing plethora of conclusions. What
is the impact of defence expenditure on economic
growth? – in different cases either negative,
neutral or positive. A much more fruitful research
agenda for the peace movement is suggested in
the chapter by Brauer – examining the economic
consequences of the death and destruction caused
when military forces actually fight each other.
Nic Marsh
Brown, Anne, 2002. Human Rights and the
Border of Suffering: The Promotion of Human
Rights in International Politics. Manchester &
New York: Manchester University Press. 232 pp.
ISBN 0719061059 (hardback).
This is a penetrating reflection on the suitability
of dominant human rights approaches to human
suffering. For several years, the author worked in
China for the Australian government. One of her
tasks was to regularly raise human rights issues
with Chinese officials. The encounters made her
wonder about the appropriateness of the tra-
ditional approach. She continued the reflection
after returning to Australia, resulting in the
doctoral thesis now published as a book. She
explores the dominant approach, at least in the
Anglo-American world, to human rights: highly
individualistic, liberal in the Lockean sense,
focusing on condemnation of violations rather
than working on the prevention of abuse. Explor-
ing it through an examination of the Tiananmen
massacre in China, the infliction of suffering on
Aborigines in Australia and on East Timorese
during the Indonesian occupation, she concludes
that the model is far from answering questions
about the nature of the political community
raised by systemic infliction of suffering. She
argues in favour of greater openness in the
approach to human rights. The book is a welcome
challenge to human rights theory and practice,
reflecting a conscientious reflection on serious
dilemmas. The main message must be that
dogmatic application of one particular model of
human rights is unlikely to address the under-
lying problems. No recipes exist on how to reduce
suffering by reference to human rights. While
building on the edifice of universal human rights,
the application to particular situations must be
sensitive to the dynamics and the socio-political
structure of the society encountered, through a
‘long and difficult conversation about the
relationship between political organisation and
suffering’.
Asbjørn Eide
© 2003 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 40, no. 5, 2003, pp. 609–614
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
[0022-3433(200309)40:5; 609–614; 035829]
BOOK
NOTES
07 JPR 40-5 bknts (ds) 23/7/03 8:34 am Page 609
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