Book Notes
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343305050695 |
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
237
Bailes, Alyson J. K. & Isabel Frommelt, eds,
2004. Business and Security: Public–Private Sector
Relationships in a New Security Environment.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. xvi + 328 pp.
ISBN 0199274509.
A broad agenda was dealt with during a two-day
conference organized by SIPRI and the Liechten-
stein-Institute in Vaduz in September 2003.
Judging by the contributions collected, two topics
dominated: conflict and terrorism. For both
topics, the particular role of private companies
and their interaction with governments was dis-
cussed. On conflict, there are a number of contri-
butions covering the fairly well-trodden issue of
conflict commodities, as well as a few on the
question of whether and how companies can con-
tribute to containing, and possibly even over-
coming, conflict. Most chapters, however, deal
with terrorism, where again, the public–private
interface has many aspects. On the one hand,
private economic actors are worried about the
costs of terrorism for business, while they are also
keen for governments to protect vital infrastruc-
ture. On the other hand, governments need
private companies, particularly banks, to cooper-
ate in the fight against international terrorism,
which requires private actors, such as banks, to
become much more transparent to governments.
As the conference brought together a wide range
of experts from private companies, academia,
governments, NGOs and international organiz-
ations from all over the world, there is no single
message in the book, other than that the tra-
ditional division of responsibility for security
between business and government is not sustain-
able any more, particularly after 11 September
2001. The prime value of the book lies in collect-
ing insights and views from many quarters on the
various construction sites for new public–private
relations. It also provides some helpful resources
for the further study of a set of topics that are
likely to draw much attention in the coming years.
Michael Brzoska
Bartos, Otomar J. & Paul Wehr, 2002. Using
Conflict Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press. xi + 219 pp. ISBN 0521794463.
The authors provide a comprehensive review of
theories about many aspects and stages of social
conflicts and show how the theories account for
the course of social conflicts. They also use the
theories to suggest how conflicts can be con-
ducted more productively, providing a linkage
that is too often lacking in the literature. This is
a great deal to pack into a short book of 187 pages
of text. To accomplish the task, the authors must
simplify the ideas and the case materials they
present. The simplifications, however, are pre-
sented so that they can serve as a base for elabo-
ration and greater specification. The authors draw
on classical social theorists, such as Karl Marx,
Max Weber, and Georg Simmel, and cite many
contemporary analysts of social conflicts and
conflict resolution. They illustrate the ideas by
noting a variety of conflict events, drawing from
many sources, including their own research.
Three interspersed chapters apply the theories to
three cases: the civil rights struggle in the United
States, a university conflict, and the conflict in
Bosnia. Bringing this wide array of material
together succinctly is difficult, but the authors
succeed. In their synthesis, they provide a
coherent theoretical approach and even many
useful formulations. The book is clearly written
and speaks directly to the reader, offering sugges-
tions about how to pursue conflicts construc-
tively; it should prove accessible to college
students. This is a useful introduction that would
serve as a good text for various courses relating to
social conflicts and which could be comple-
mented by other theoretical work and by detailed
accounts of particular conflicts.
Louis Kriesberg
© 2005 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 42, no. 2, 2005, pp. 237–245
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) www.sagepublications.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343305050695
BOOK
NOTES
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