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1002. A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools, by Nicole Nguyen
- Author:
- Harry Oppenheimer and Nicole Nguyen
- Publication Date:
- 07-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Fletcher Security Review
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Nicole Nguyen’s A Curriculum of Fear: Homeland Security in U.S. Public Schools presents an ethnography of Milton High School (a pseudonym), which, when presented with dwindling resources, a reputation for disciplinary issues, and poor marks, made a Faustian bargain with the national security apparatus. The book was meticulously researched, with rich detail on social and environmental forces at play in its educational context. However, the author’s own political and normative biases will leave many readers frustrated that the book’s presentation does not live up to its content.
- Topic:
- Security, Education, Homeland Security, Book Review, and Ethnography
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
1003. Human Rights, Democracy, and Ethics at the Forefront of Education of Public Security Forces in the Western Hemisphere: The WHINSEC Experience
- Author:
- Otto H. Van Maerssen
- Publication Date:
- 07-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Fletcher Security Review
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- In a fairly humid, subtropical section of the United States, there is a site where sporadic gunfire sometimes rattles the windows of buildings nearby. At times, plaintive howls can be heard through those windows: the wails of wounded officers lying on neatly trimmed fields under the bright sun, waving their arms desperately to attract the attention of medics converging on a nearby field ambulance. Meanwhile, scores of military officers, civilian officials and law enforcement personnel inside the buildings barely notice, and all resist the presumably well-ingrained temptation to spring into action. Ignoring the noise outside is certainly understandable, for the sounds are from just some of many training exercises on the Army’s sprawling military base at Fort Benning, Georgia. The military officers, civilian officials and law enforcement personnel are students at one of the base’s facilities, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC), and are deadly serious about their studies – on countering transnational threats, UN peacekeeping operations, and intelligence analysis of transnational operations, among other courses offered. But, there is one notable feature that distinguishes the educational exercises at this building from any other, and which unites the students in this particular facility: every student in every course begins studies with classes on human rights and democracy, as delineated by the U.S. experience.
- Topic:
- Security, Education, Government, Human Rights, Regional Cooperation, Military Affairs, and Democracy
- Political Geography:
- South America, North America, and United States of America
1004. Hearts, Minds, and Hydras: Fighting Terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, America, and Beyond — Dilemmas and Lessons, by William Nester
- Author:
- Basem Aly and William Nester
- Publication Date:
- 07-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Fletcher Security Review
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Decision makers and academics have debated for decades the most effective strategies to defeat militant groups. The absence of a clear center of gravity for conventional militaries to target creates hardships in achieving strategic objectives against non-state actors. In a conventional war, the force with a higher capability to destroy these centers of gravity — such as weapons depots and troop deployment locations — will likely win. Yet, when conventional militaries encounter non-state groups, whose centers of gravity may be well hidden or highly dispersed, the results are quite different. The Israeli wars against Hezbollah and the U.S. war in Vietnam exemplify the difficulties related to this traditional dilemma. One counterinsurgency program, suggested by classical theorists such as David Galula, says that success requires focusing on winning the support of local populations by “capturing hearts and minds.” The logic is obvious: locals living in warzones know where militants are hiding their weapons, money, and personnel. Thus, militaries need local support. In his book, Hearts, Minds, and Hydras: Fighting Terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, America, and Beyond — Dilemmas and Lessons, William Nester argues that capturing hearts and minds is not enough. Rather, Nester develops two primary arguments to show that militaries need a multidimensional strategy in order to succeed.
- Topic:
- Military Strategy, Counterinsurgency, Non State Actors, and Book Review
- Political Geography:
- Pakistan, Afghanistan, North America, and United States of America
1005. Below the Threshold: Gray Warfare and the Erosion of U.S. Influence: A Conversation with Hal Brands
- Author:
- Austin Bowman
- Publication Date:
- 07-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Fletcher Security Review
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Hal Brands is a Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). He is also the author and editor of several books, the most recent including Making the Unipolar Moment: U.S. Foreign Policy and the Rise of the Post-Cold War Order (2016) and What Good is Grand Strategy? Power and Purpose in American Statecraft from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush (2014).
- Topic:
- Security, Defense Policy, Alliance, Conflict, and Gray Zone
- Political Geography:
- North America, Global Focus, and United States of America
1006. Waging Insurgent Warfare: Lessons from the Vietcong to the Islamic State, by Seth G. Jones
- Author:
- Seth G. Jones and Polina Beliakova
- Publication Date:
- 07-2017
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Fletcher Security Review
- Institution:
- The Fletcher School, Tufts University
- Abstract:
- Insurgencies are often thought of as domestic conflicts between state and non-state actors seeking to challenge governmental legitimacy, overthrow the government, or take territorial control from the state. However, thinking about insurgency merely in terms of domestic affairs substantially limits our perspective, and might be misleading both in terms of theory and policy. In addition, the tendency of policymakers and scholars to focus their attention on counterinsurgency bears the risk of considering the solution before understanding all nuances of the problem. Seth G. Jones’ Waging Insurgent Warfare is truly a book about insurgency. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, Jones analyzes how insurgencies start, strategies and tactics used by insurgent groups, their organizational structures, and their informational campaigns. The author devotes particular attention to the role of outside support for insurgencies from various types of actors including great power states. Finally, he addresses the issue of how insurgencies end. Only in the concluding chapter does Jones discuss the implications of the key findings of the book for counterinsurgency.
- Topic:
- International Relations, History, Counterinsurgency, Non State Actors, Military Affairs, and Islamic State
- Political Geography:
- Russia, Ukraine, Middle East, Asia, Syria, North America, and United States of America
1007. Partnering for Solutions
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik
- Publication Date:
- 09-2017
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- CCAS, in partnership with the University of Kurdistan, brought together 40+ researchers this spring to discuss durable solutions to forced displacement in Iraq. Iraq has suffered from massive internal displacement for several decades, but with the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) the numbers of those displaced have grown drastically. More than three million Iraqis—or ten percent of the country’s population—currently live as internally displaced persons (IDPs). In an effort to address this crisis, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) and the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown recently joined efforts with the University of Kurdistan, Hawler (UKH) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) to host the conference “Migration and Displacement in Iraq: Working Towards Durable Solutions.”
- Topic:
- Migration, Islamic State, Displacement, Kurds, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Middle East, North America, and Kurdistan
1008. Rapid Response
- Author:
- Azza Altiraifi
- Publication Date:
- 09-2017
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- Following the Trump Administration’s “Muslim Ban,” CCAS hosted rapid response town hall meetings to discuss the impact of the Executive Order.
- Topic:
- Immigration, Refugees, Trump, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Syria, North America, and United States of America
1009. KIDNAPPING OF MIGRANTS IN TRANSIT THROUGH MEXICO AND THE TRANSNATIONAL ADVOCACY NETWORKS FOR THEIR HUMAN RIGHTS: SCOPE AND STRATEGIES
- Author:
- Monica Salmon Gómez
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
- Abstract:
- The human rights crisis in Mexico and particularly the one with migrants in transit through Mexico is not coincidental. The increased securitization of migration has transformed it into a security issue, causing it to be a threat to the national security. The mechanisms and strategies to fight against this crisis has led to terrible consequences to the thousand of migrants that pass through Mexico every year. As stated by David Harvey, the conceptualization of the irregular migration as a threat to the Nation-States has occurred as a consequence of the “global unequal capitalist integration”. This is a structural process that promotes global inequality in a parallel way, creating the undocumented as the others unwanted (Álvarez and Guillot, 2012:24). We then have migration as a phenomenon characterized by the economic globalization and the predominance of the logic of social exclusion, that it reveals itself as a feature for nations and families in their need to seek, among other things, improved living conditions in places that are different from their place of origin
- Topic:
- Security, Human Rights, Migration, United Nations, and Inequality
- Political Geography:
- United States, South America, Latin America, North America, and Mexico
1010. DECOLONIZATION IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM: INDIGENOUS RIGHTS AND LEGAL PLURALISM, A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN BOLIVIA, COLOMBIA, AND ECUADOR
- Author:
- Sergio Miranda Hayes
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
- Abstract:
- In the academic world, scientific literature comes mainly from the western part of the globe. Ramón Grossfoguel believes that knowledge is determined by power relations in the "post-colonial" era (Grossfoguel, 2002: 16). This means that Western powers dominate the academic world. In constitutional law, this is not the exception. However, while we can accept that it is true that many constitutional provisions, doctrine, jurisprudence and theories of Western constitutional law have influenced Latin American countries, most of these countries have also developed their own constitutional systems that have specific and new features, whose unique identity differentiates them from other systems in the world. In this paper, I will try to study the special features that Bolivia, Ecuador, and Colombia have in the recognition of indigenous rights and legal pluralism, whose discursive axis entails a “decolonizing” spirit which is the retrieval of their own institutions against the trends of hegemonic governance of the western culture as I will explain later. Latin America has faced numerous problems concerning social differentiation. In the opinion of one of the most cited authors in Latin American constitutional law, Raquel Yrigoyen, the disadvantaged were left behind from the social, economic and political issues through legal measures created by people of a favored minority, in order to maintain privileges (Yrigoyen, 2011: 139). In the case of Latin America, many of the disadvantaged match to be those survivors of the brutal Spanish conquest; the native Indians. I have chosen these three countries since they have a significant indigenous population; more than 36.6 million indigenous people in the region. In Bolivia, the number rises to 4,115,222 natives, in Ecuador 1018176,and in Colombia 1392623. (World Bank, 2014: 24-25) The Constitutions of Colombia (1991), Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) reflect the new “decolonizing” ideology; Colombia through its jurisprudence, on the one hand, and Bolivia and Ecuador, proclaiming themselves "Plurinational”countries on the other. All made great strides in recognizing indigenous rights and, consequently, in gaining their social inclusion. (Gargarella, 2014: 175) Constitutional systems are a product of history and the struggle of peoples. In these cases, the effort to include indigenous peoples in the economic, political and social spheres resulted in these new constitutional models which can be understood through a comparative study.By understanding this, advantages and disadvantages of each country to improve social inclusion of indigenous peoples in all the mentioned spheres can be found. In the first title, I will talk about the meaning of legal pluralism. In the second, I will discussthe new models of statewhich are conditioned by legal pluralism and indigenous rights. In the third, I will address indigenous autonomies and jurisdictions that are the subject of our study. And in the remaining two titles, I will discuss the most distinctive features, and rights arising from the recognition of this unique legal pluralism. All this with the purpose of exposing the new constitutional spirit of "decolonization" of these countries.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, Post Colonialism, Legal Theory, Colonialism, Decolonization, and Economic Inequality
- Political Geography:
- United States, Colombia, South America, Latin America, North America, Ecuador, and Bolivia