War, Peace and Progress in the 21st Century ─ Development, Violence and Insecurity

The history of development is one marked by insecurities, violence, and persistent conflict. It is not surprising, therefore, that development is now thought of as one of the central challenges of world politics. However, its complexities are often overlooked in scholarly analysis and among policy practitioners, who tend to adopt a technocratic approach to the crisis of development and violence.

This book brings together a wide range of contributions aimed at investigating different aspects of the history of development and violence, and its implications for contemporary efforts to consolidate the development-security nexus. From environmental concerns, through vigilante citizenship, to the legacies of armed conflicts during and after decolonization, the different chapters reconstruct the contradictory history of development and critically engage contemporary responses and their implications for social and political analyses.

In examining violence and insecurity in relation to core organising principles of world politics the contributors engage the problems associated with the nation state and the inter-state system and underlying assumptions of the promises of progress. The book offers a range of perspectives on the contradictions of development, and on how domination, violence and resistance have been conceived. At the same time it exemplifies the relevance of alternative methodological and conceptual approaches to contemporary challenges of development.

This book was published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Mark T. Berger is Visiting Professor in the Department of Defense Analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA and Adjunct Professor in History/Politics, Irving K Barber School of Arts and Sciences, University of British Columbia (Okanagan). He is the author of The Battle for Asia: From Decolonization to Globalization (2004); editor of From Nation-Building to State-Building (2007); co-editor (with Douglas A. Borer) of The Long War: Insurgency, Counterinsurgency and Collapsing States (2008) and editor of After the Third World? (2008). He is co-author (with Heloise Weber) of Rethinking the Third World: International Development and World Politics (Forthcoming 2011).

Heloise Weber is Lecturer in International Relations and Development Studies at the School of Political Science and International Studies, The University of Queensland. She has published articles in Review of International Political Economy, Review of International Studies, Third World Quarterly and Globalizations. She is co-author (with Mark T. Berger) of Rethinking the Third World: International Development and World Politics (2010). She is also working on a monograph Organizing Poverty: The Global Politics of Microfinance.