Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence
| Author | Jodok Troy |
| DOI | 10.1177/0022343307072428 |
| Published date | 01 January 2007 |
| Date | 01 January 2007 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
123
䊏Castelli, Elizabeth A. & Janet R. Jakobsen,
2004. Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond
to Violence. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 247 pp.
ISBN 140396582X.
There is a long tradition of intellectuals respond-
ing to violence, particularly if there is a provoca-
tion such as the US invasion in Iraq. Castelli and
Jakobsen have edited a book with a wide range of
articles, most of them written from a feminist
point of view. All are in some way related to vio-
lence. Basically, they try to contribute to the
development of new and more comprehensive
vocabularies for analyzing violence and revitalized
strategies for antiviolence activism (p. 2). The
book is divided into four main parts: Terms of
Engagement; Violence and the US Political
Regime; Contexts and Locations of Violence;
and Antiviolence Ethics and Strategies: Coalitions,
Theatres, Interdependencies. The 20 articles
cover many issues from the pre-emption strategy
of the USA to case studies of different countries
and violent conflict situations. The contributions
are completed by a recommended bibliography
dealing especially with gender and violence. The
contributors plead consistently for an extension of
the theoretical concept of violence (p. 29), as well
as for a more detailed research emphasis concern-
ing women in the context of violence. In peace
talks and post-conflict planning, for example,
women are still underestimated (p. 34). For
the peace research community, this book brings
together articles that try to focus on violence from
a feminist or at least from a female point of view.
This is the most relevant and fruitful aspect of the
book.
Jodok Troy
䊏Colaresi, Michael P., 2005. Scare Tactics: The
Politics of International Rivalry. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press. xix + 262pp. ISBN
0815630662.
This is a book about international rivalry, but its
content and theoretical reasoning should be of
interest to everyone interested in international
relations. The author develops a two-level pres-
sure model of rivalry escalation and de-escalation
that interweaves the international and domestic
levels of analysis. The core of this theory is that
state leaders undertake cost–benefit analyses of
the rivalries they are involved in and calculate the
probable outcomes of escalation, de-escalation and
inaction, but they do so within a competitive domes-
tic political environment. When the expected
future costs are high, we can expect to see some
change in rivalry behaviour. Furthermore, the
direction of this change will depend on the
domestic situation within the country. A highly
sceptical and mobilized domestic constituency
makes de-escalation less likely, especially if previ-
ous rivalry interaction has triggered elites to
inflate external threat and outbid each other for
domestic support. The validity of the model is
explored by thorough and systematic case-studies
of the Somalian–Ethiopian, Israeli–Egyptian, and
Sino-American rivalries, as well as a separate large-
N study of all international rivalries between
1959 and 1990. The conclusion is that both inter-
national and domestic processes should be con-
sidered to adequately explain rivalry dynamics.
An important strength of the two-level pressure
model is its complexity, allowing it to explain vari-
ation in interstate interaction that deviates from
predictions foreseen in more parsimonious
models. But the model’s complexity, as well as the
emphasis on concepts that are difficult to
measure, creates a number of difficulties and
potential pitfalls when the model is to be evalu-
ated by empirical observations. However, the
author’s ability to reflect upon and discuss possi-
ble analytical problems lands the analysis safely.
Tove Grete Lie
䊏Conboy, Ken, 2006. The Second Front: Inside
Asia’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Network. Jakarta
& Singapore: Equinox. viii + 238 pp. ISBN
9793780096.
The Second Front is an entertaining analysis of key
people involved in the networks of Islamist ter-
rorism in Asia, especially in Southeast Asia. Like
the author’s books on the Indonesian intelligence
apparatus (INTEL: Inside Indonesia’s Intelligence
Service) and on Indonesia’s Special Forces
(KOPASSUS: Inside Indonesia’s Special Forces), The
© 2007 Journal of Peace Research,
vol. 44, no. 1, 2007, pp. 123–130
Sage Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA
and New Delhi) http://jpr.sagepub.com
DOI 10.1177/0022343307072428
BOOK
NOTES
To continue reading
Request your trial