As a result of a 20-year international military campaign, Afghanistan has been at the centre of global academic and policy debates on intervention and statebuilding. Yet these debates have often been piecemeal, ahistorical and centred in western logics, interests and concerns. This volume provides a new, critical compilation of scholarly contributions from emerging and established Afghan and international scholars that defy these trends.The volume targets a new generation of studen...

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, researchers, policymakers, and the media have failed to consider the long-term implications of the country's post-conflict elections. Based on fieldwork in provinces across the country and interviews with more than seven hundred candidates, officials, community leaders, and voters, this book builds an in-depth portrait of Afghanistan's recent elections as experienced by individuals and communities, while revealing how the elections have in fact ac...

What impact does 40 years of war, violence, and military intervention have on a country and its people? As the "global war on terror" now stretches into the 21st century with no clear end in sight, Identity and Politics in Modern Afghanistan collects the work of interdisciplinary scholars, aid workers, and citizens to assess the impact of this prolonged conflict on Afghanistan. Nearly all of the people in Afghan society have been affected by persistent violent conflict. Identi...

While the outcomes of the tumultuous uprisings that continue to transfix the Arab world remain uncertain, the root causes of rebellion persist. Drawing upon extensive empirical research, Lineages of Revolt tracks the major shifts in the region’s political economy over recent decades. In this illuminating and original work, Adam Hanieh explores the contours of neoliberal policies, dynamics of class and state formation, imperialism and the nature of regional accumulation, the significance of...

The most challenging question today for the citizens of any country in the Gulf region is whether it is heading in the right direction to become a durable, sustainable system, fully supported by its people and capable of being defended from internal and external threats. In The Arab Spring and the Gulf States, Mohamed A. J. Althani, a former minister in the Qatari government, analyses the domestically important areas of demography, security, provision of food and water, and the po...

The war in Afghanistan has been a major policy commitment and central undertaking of the Canadian state since 2001: Canada has been a leading force in the war, and has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on aid and reconstruction. After a decade of conflict, however, there is considerable debate about the efficacy of the mission, as well as calls to reassess Canada’s role in the conflict. An authoritative and strongly analytical work, Empire’s Ally provides a much-needed critica...

In November 2011, an agreement brokered by the GCC brought an end to Yemen's tumultuous uprising. The National Dialogue Conference has opened a window of opportunity for change, bringing Yemen's main political forces together with groups that were politically marginalized. Yet, the risk of collapse is serious, and if Yemen is to remain a viable state, it must address numerous political, social and economic challenges. In this invaluable volume, experts with extensive Yemen experience provi...

International treaties, conventions, and organizations to protect refugees were established in the aftermath of World War II to protect people escaping targeted persecution by their own governments. However, the nature of cross-border displacement has transformed dramatically since then. Such threats as environmental change, food insecurity, and generalized violence force massive numbers of people to flee states that are unable or unwilling to ensure their basic rights, as...

Many have questioned the wisdom of the international intervention in Afghanistan in light of the escalation of violence and instability in the country in the past few years. Particularly uncertain are Canadians, who have been inundated with media coverage of an increasingly dirty war in southern Afghanistan, one in which Canadians are at the frontline and suffering heavy casualties. However, the conflict is only one aspect of Afghanistan’s complicated, and incomplete, political, economic, ...

Economic liberalization has failed in the Arab world. Instead of ushering in economic dynamism and precipitating democratic reform, it has over the last three decades resulted in greater poverty, rising income inequality and sky-rocketing rates of youth unemployment. In How Capitalism Failed the Arab World, Richard Javad Heydarian shows how years of economic mismanagement, political autocracy and corruption have encouraged people to revolt, and how the initial optimism of the uprisings is ...

In the wake of the civil war and Qadhafi's demise, the time is ripe for a new edition of Dirk Vandewalle's classic history of Libya. The book, which was originally published in 2006, traces the country's history back to the 1900s, through the Italian occupation in the early twentieth century, the Sanusi monarchy and, thereafter, to the revolution of 1969 and the accession of Qadhafi. The following chapters analyse the economics and politics of Qadhafi's revolution, offering insights into t...

Is Turkey on the way to meet the economic Copenhagen criteria?The enlargement process that the European Union faced the last decade stirred the debate again about the role Turkey has to play and whether or not Turkey should be part of the European Union. While the enlargement with the Central and East European countries of the former Soviet Union was a logical process, given the strong trade relationships and the political and historical context of these countries, the potential en...