Globalization, Social Movements, and Peacebuilding

With neoliberal assumptions dominating much of the academic peacebuilding literature, this volume edited by Smith (sociology, U. of Pittsburgh) and Verdeja (political science and peace studies, U. of Notre Dame) stands as an challenge to most of the rest of the field because of its perspective that neoliberal economic globalization is a major source of the structural violence underlying most contemporary violent conflicts, its insistence on the need to address transnational dimensions of conflict that constrain the peacebuilding abilities of local actors in conflict situations, and its emphasis on the value of engaging in a dialogue with the theoretical literature on social movements. Following a presentation of this general perspective, eight chapters address such specific topics the post-Cold War arms trade, critiques of communal political violence in India, human security and gender justice in Afghanistan and Iraq, piracy and "state failure" in the Gulf of Aden, aid appropriation and patronage in Northern Sierra Leone, peacebuilding as a transformative and deliberative process, and the world social forums as transformative peacebuilding. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Jackie Smith is Associate Professor of Sociology and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame and a senior fellow in the school’s Gender Studies program. She has edited and co-edited a number of works on globalization, including co-editing a volume Transnational Social Movements and Global Politics published by Syracuse UP in 1997. Ernesto Verdeja is Assistant Professor of Political Science and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, a faculty fellow at their Kellogg Institute for International Studies and a faculty fellow at the school’s Nanovic Institute for European Studies. Temple UP published his Reconciliation in the Aftermath of Political Violence in 2009.