Settler Colonialism and (re)Conciliation: Frontier Violence,Affective Performances,and Imaginative Refoundings

Settler Colonialism and (re)Conciliation: Frontier Violence, Affective Performances, and Imaginative Refoundings . By Penelope Edmunds (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), pp.xvi + 253, US$95.00.     

Conflict Management and Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: The Importance of Capturing the "right Moment"

Professor Jacob Bercovitch of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, and S. Ayse Kadayifci from the American University in Washington D.C., argue that the current conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians can be best understood as an example of a complex intractable conflict. Such conflicts are usually managed through the intervention of mediators at the "right moment," otherwise they risk failure and further conflict escalation. In contrast to the literature on "ripe moments," the authors argue that it is possible to have more then one right moment in the life cycle of a conflict, which can even be created by mediators. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there was such a moment in 1993, which was subsequently lost. In the following article, the authors analyze the Oslo Process from this "ripe moment" perspective, and suggest an integrated third party approach to create a perception amongst the parties involved that a moment of opportunity is at hand.     

Violence,the Subject,and the Beyond: Achille Mbembe and Violence in International Relations Theory

A double-barrelled question underpins this special edition: can International Relations (IR) be decolonised? If so, how? I argue that IR's insistence on more-or-less concretised subjects, which engage in dialectical relations of struggle, renders the discipline (and the practice it engenders) constitutionally blind to the origins of colonial violence. Traditional theory necessarily elides the violence which forges legible concrete actors and which culminates in colonialism and slavery. I offer a critique of this theoretical structure through Achille Mbembe's reading of Bataille, Fanon, Hegel, and Kojève, and I close by touching on the decolonising potential of Édouard Glissant's work for academic IR. I conclude that IR can indeed be decolonised, but it must become something quite unrecognisable if it is to do so.     

Introduction: Conflict in Cambodia, 1945-2002

Since the advent of Deng Xiaoping's policies of reform and opening in the late 1970s, most observers have agreed that China is likely to recover its rightful place in the world as a great power in the twenty-first century. Disagreements have arisen principally over whether China will join the world as a normal nation state or will instead seek to restore its traditional hegemony in East Asia and even attempt to extend that predominance to the entire world. This article challenges both of these positions by examining the uses of history –and the way in which the past uses those who use it – in several Chinese books published at the turn of the century and in a set of essays critiquing those books. The authors argue that China is likely to eschew both the national imperialism characteristic of Western superpowers and Japan and the over-expansion attempted by earlier Chinese states such as the Qin and the Yuan. Instead China is likely to pursue the minimal goal of avoiding political disunion and cultural crisis similar to its policies in earlier ages and the maximal goal of restoring political unity and cultural centrality associated with such earlier polities as the Zhou, Han, Tang, Ming, and Qing.     

Drugs, Violence, and Development in Colombia: A Department-Level Analysis

Observers say that drug production fuels violence in Colombia, but does coca production explain different levels of violence? This article examines the relationship between coca production and guerrilla violence by reviewing national‐level data over time and studying Colombia by department, exploring the interactions among guerrilla violence, exports, development, and displacement. It uses historical analysis, cartographic visualization, and analysis of the trends in four high coca‐producing and four violent Colombian departments, along with a department‐level fixed effects model. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the department‐level analysis suggests that coca production is not the driving force of contemporary Colombian guerrilla violence. Instead, economic factors and coca eradication emerge as prominent explanatory factors.     

Drugs,Violence, and Corruption: Perspectives from Mexico and Central America

Robert J. Bunker, ed., Criminal Insurgencies in Mexico and the Americas: The Gangs and Cartels Wage War. New York: Routledge, 2013. Tables, figures, index, 210 pp.; hardcover $160, paperback $56.95. Robert J. Bunker and John P. Sullivan, Studies in Gangs and Cartels. New York: Routledge, 2014. Tables, figures, index, 232 pp.; hardcover $168, paperback $54.95. Michael Deibert, In the Shadow of Saint Death: The Gulf Cartel and the Price of America's Drug War in Mexico. Guilford: Lyons Press, 2014. Map, bibliography, index, 336 pp.; hardcover $24.95, paperback $16.95. Alfredo Nateras Domínguez, Vivo por mi madre y muero por mi barrio. Significados de la violencia y la muerte en el Barrio 18 y la Mara Salvatrucha. Mexico City: Instituto Mexicano de la Juventud (IMJUVE)/Secretaría de Desarrollo Social (SEDESOL), 2014. Figures, bibliography, 493 pp.; paperback. Sala Negra de El Faro, eds., Crónicas negras desde una región que no cuenta. Mexico City: Aguilar, 2014. 350 pp.; paperback $17. Héctor Silva Ávalos, Infiltrados: crónica de la corrupción en la PNC (1992–2013). San Salvador: UCA Ediciones, 2014. 312 pp.; paperback $10.     

重建学术理想国--评《历史的真相》

自 2 0世纪六七十年代以来 ,美国历史学遭到来自两方面的挑战 :一是主张“自下向上看”的新社会史异军突起 ,挖掘出了与正统美国史 ② 众多相冲突的主题 ,使美国史呈现出支离破碎的状态 ;二是历史学的两大根基———科学性和现代性———受到后现代主义思潮的冲击 ,历史学的求真功能受到质疑。这两方面的挑战几乎同时发生 ,又具有一定的关联。于是 ,美国历史学处在了危机之中。由美国三位女历史学家合写的《历史的真相》一书针对史学界的这一危机做出了反思 ,并在此基础上提出了重建学术理想国的具体设想。一　对美国历史学发展的反思面对 2…