Book Notes
| DOI | 10.1177/00223433030405011 |
| Author | Pavel Baev |
| Date | 01 September 2003 |
| Published date | 01 September 2003 |
| Subject Matter | Notes |
in war); ‘prologue’; ‘war’; and ‘aftermath’. The
fifth section is a ‘forum’, where seven authors
discuss in shorter texts whether ‘humanitarian
war’ is a contradiction in terms. Many have a
polemic touch: Eric Herring writes of ‘the
politics of Rambo(uillet)’; Chris Brown speaks
dismissively of ‘default Pilgerism’ (referring to
the Australian journalist). Contributions take
differing views: for instance, some (Chris Brown,
Melanie McDonagh) come out in favour of the
idea of ‘just war’, while Booth writes of ‘Ten
flaws of just wars’. Booth’s introduction also
contains some inspiring ideas, in particular, his
argument that reinterpreting Kosovo’s past –
showing that what happen did not have to
happen – can be a way towards ‘a more emanci-
patory future’.
Sven Gunnar Simonsen
Callaghy,Thomas; Ronald Kassimir & Robert
Latham, eds, 2001. Intervention and Trans-
nationalism in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. 336 pp. ISBN 0521001412.
Studies of African politics have, like political
science in general, been characterized by a
division between studies of political development
within each country, on the one hand, and inter-
national relations on the other. While the former
have focused on internal structures and processes,
the latter has concentrated on relations between
states, and between individual states and the
larger state system of which they are a part. The
contributions to this volume join the trend of
investigating forms of linkages that do not fit into
the neat division between ‘the domestic’ and ‘the
international’. The volume focuses on how
African actors and societies are linked to actors,
structures and discourses within and outside state
borders. Such links, the editors argue, are not
merely contingent, but constitutive. Thus, they
cannot be understood by starting with the con-
ventional separation of the internal and the
external, and then analysing transnational
linkages in terms of their effects on national and
international politics. Distinguishing between
‘authority’ and ‘order’, the editors argue that the
classical Hobbesian problem of order needs to be
replaced by a perspective which sees order and
authority as inseparable. The book contains
chapters on a wide range of transboundary
phenomena: both legal and illegal, state and non-
state, including the UN and international
financial institutions (Barnett, Latham,
Callaghy); illicit trade in diamond and weapons
(Nordstrom, Reno); human rights (Obi); private
security firms and mercenaries (Reno, Roitman);
and NGOs (Callaghy, Schmitz, Obi). It is a
highly stimulating book which should be essen-
tial reading for students of African politics, inter-
national relations and globalization alike.
Stein Sundstøl Eriksen
Findlay, Trevor, 2002. The Use of Force in UN
Peace Operations. Oxford: Oxford University
Press for SIPRI. xii + 486 pp. ISBN 0198292821.
If aresearcher or, indeed, a politician looks for a
definitive study of how the forces under the UN
flag resort to violence and what lessons are to be
learned from this experience, this book is exactly
that. It investigates every UN mission in which
substantial force was used, traces the parallel
development of norms concerning the use of force,
and examines the wider debates about the UN role
in securing peace, focusing particularly on the
explosion of these debates since the mid-1990s.
The book is a product of the SIPRI project Peace-
keeping and Regional Security, which was led by
the author from 1993 to 1997; it is also a result of
his sustained research, which is updated to early
2002. Every point taken in this impeccably
designed volume is thoroughly documented, and
every conclusion is supported by carefully selected
evidence. The author points out the new quality
of debates in the UN Headquarters under Secre-
tary-General Annan that indicates ‘a move away
from the amateurism and diplomatic wishful
thinking’ (p. 389) and leads to improvements in
UN capabilities to deploy increasingly complex
peace operations. At the same time, he fully
acknowledges the constraints, some of which are
deliberately reinforced by member-states while
others are covered by diplomatic clichés like ‘lack
of political will’. The setback for the UN from the
war in Iraq may be massive, but the conclusion
that comes so clearly from this volume, that no
other body could possibly shoulder the burden of
peace operations, still stands.
Pavel Baev
Hadzic, Miroslav, 2002. The Yugoslav People’s
Agony: The Role of the Yugoslav People’s Army.
Aldershot: Ashgate. x + 293 pp. ISBN
0754616428 (hardback).
BOOK NOTES 611
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