TOL STORE BY TOPIC "law and order"

Shifting Obsessions: Three Essays on the Politics of Anticorruption

A global anticorruption crusade is underway. "As slavery was once a way of life and now has become obsolete and incomprehensible, so the practice of bribery will become obsolete," a modern-day moralist has said. But how is global consensus on corruption possible? Why are anticorruption campaigns running out of steam, and why are post-communist societies obsessed with corruption? This book is not a study of anti-corruption policies. Instead, it looks at the politics of anti-corruption. Policies are what institutions do. But in analyzing politics, this book seeks to discover why institutions do what they do. The author delves into political motivations at a time when "combating corruption" is the fashion among the academic community.
Krastev argues that anticorruption sentiments are not driven by the actual level of corruption but by general disappointment with liberal reforms that cause rising social inequality. In this collection of essays, the author makes the provocative argument that the current corruption-focused policies are doomed.

Be Not Afraid, for You Have Sons in America: How a Brooklyn Roofer Helped Lure the U.S. into the Kosovo War

The Kosovo Liberation Army was sparked and sustained by a roof contractor in Brooklyn who personally bought and shipped arms, massively fund-raised and provided ideological and tactical support to the fledgling guerrilla force. Sullivan, who covered the Balkans in the '90s for Newsweek, mixes reportage (sometimes reconstructed) of the insurgent group's battles with Milosevic's Serb forces after Yugoslavia's disintegration with the KLA's improbable U.S.-based, backstory, gleaned after the conflict was messily resolved by a U.N.-led coalition (commanded by Wesley Clark). She is terrific in detailing the life of Florin Krasniqi, a Kosovar Albanian who emigrated illegally to the U.S. via Mexico in 1988, and took it upon himself to get the KLA off the ground once Milosevic's intentions (and the inefficacy of nonviolent resistance) became clear to him. Anecdotes of buying assault weapons at gun shows and taking them to Albania on conventional flights, of shopping for Stinger missiles in Pakistan and of the Muslim Krasniqi getting a great price on uniforms from Brooklyn Hasidim are as funny as they are unsettling. Snappily written with a keen eye for telling personal tics and crushing political ironies, Sullivan's book reveals that this crucial, underreported event of the late '90s was more multilateral than anyone imagined.

In May 1992, as Bosnian Serb forces were advancing on Srebrenica, thousands of people fled to the town looking for a safe haven. For many of them, this would prove to be a fatal decision.

Serb forces continued to attack the town, preventing food and supplies from coming in, and killing anyone who tried to get out. As more and more refugees fled to Srebrenica from the surrounding villages in search of safety conditions became unbearable. Life could be bought for a few cigarettes. At night small children followed their parents on treacherous searches for food, and were often maimed or killed in the process. Teachers murdered former students, doctors murdered former patients - the guiding principle was to kill or be killed. Finally, after three years of agony, Srebrenica was destroyed. In July 1995 the town fell and over seven thousand men were massacred in cold blood.

Against all odds, Emir Suljagic survived siege and massacre. He dedicates his moving testimony to the memory of the victims of genocide.

In August 1992 an American journalist uncovered the existence of Serbian nationalist-run internment camps in northeastern Bosnia, near the village of Prijedor. (One photograph taken at Trnopolje then, of an emaciated man behind barbed wire, was circulated globally and became infamous.)

In fact, the entire region had been something of a laboratory of ethnic cleansing, and human-rights violations were rampant; the International Court has already condemned many of the perpetrators, with other cases pending.

Since the end of the war, in December 1995, more than 3,000 people have been declared missing, and more than 10,000 people who fled persecution have returned to resettle in Prijedor.

Isabelle Wesselingh and Arnaud Vaulerin have produced a long and passionate enquiry, which does not merely reconstruct past events but attempts to understand how it is possible for anyone to return under the circumstances. How can the former victims co-exist with those responsible for their suffering, or with those who took advantage of it? What is left to say about the war today, and the crimes that were committed? Which memories ought to be preserved? Has justice been served? What is the role of the international community? Finally, is it possible to conceive of a genuine reconciliation?

What emerges here is a vivid memoir, replete with extraordinary characters and infused with the wish to bring about a durable - but lucid - peace. Blending reportage, investigation and analysis, and containing interviews with refugees, camp survivors, war criminals and international agents, Wesselingh and Vaulerin's book is a tour de force that poses questions essential not only to the future of the former Yugoslavia but to all of Europe.

This book is devoted to the study and analysis of the prospects for democracy among the Muslim ethnicities of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), both those that have acquired full independence and those remaining within the Russian Federation. The nineteen Western academics and scholars from the Muslim countries and regions of the CIS who contribute to this volume view the establishment of democratic institutions in this region in the context of a wide and complex range of influences, above all the Russian/Soviet political legacy; native ethnic political culture and tradition; the Islamic faith; and the growing polarity between Western civilization and the Muslim world.

The trend of democratization is not always linear. Nor can democracy be judged by the same standards in all societies. The new Muslim states of the CIS and the Muslim peoples of the Russian Federation are intent on constructing their societies on the basis of their own traditional culture and customs. The issues involved in seeking democratic models which can be adapted to societies which are Islamic and have significant, even dominant ethnic groups and strong authoritarian legacies are certainly relevant to other regions of the world and have implications for the challenges being faced today in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The essays included in this volume demonstrate that, despite the short-term obstacles on the path of democracy and pluralism and on the establishment of a true market economy and an effective civil society, there are forces at work which might make it possible to forge ahead.

The Myth Of Ethnic War: Serbia And Croatia In The 1990s

"The wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in neighboring Croatia and Kosovo grabbed the attention of the western world not only because of their ferocity and their geographic location, but also because of their timing. This violence erupted at the exact moment when the cold war confrontation was drawing to a close, when westerners were claiming their liberal values as triumphant, in a country that had only a few years earlier been seen as very well placed to join the west. In trying to account for this outburst, most western journalists, academics, and policymakers have resorted to the language of the premodern: tribalism, ethnic hatreds, cultural inadequacy, irrationality; in short, the Balkans as the antithesis of the modern west. Yet one of the most striking aspects of the wars in Yugoslavia is the extent to which the images purveyed in the western press and in much of the academic literature are so at odds with evidence from on the ground."—from Chapter 1
V. P. Gagnon Jr. believes that the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s were reactionary moves designed to thwart populations that were threatening the existing structures of political and economic power. He begins with facts at odds with the essentialist view of ethnic identity, such as high intermarriage rates and the very high percentage of draft-resisters. These statistics do not comport comfortably with the notion that these wars were the result of ancient blood hatreds or of nationalist leaders using ethnicity to mobilize people into conflict.

Yugoslavia in the late 1980s was, in Gagnon’s view, on the verge of large-scale sociopolitical and economic change. He shows that political and economic elites in Belgrade and Zagreb first created and then manipulated violent conflict along ethnic lines as a way to short-circuit the dynamics of political change. This strategy of violence was thus a means for these threatened elites to demobilize the population. Gagnon’s noteworthy and rather controversial argument provides us with a substantially new way of understanding the politics of ethnicity.

The Lone Wolf And the Bear: Three Centuries of Chechen Defiance of Russian Power

The Lone Wolf and the Bear examines the Russo-Chechen conflict, from early Russian expansion into the Caucasus in the sixteenth century to the current war between Russia and Chechnya. Moshe Gammer offers a comprehensive study of modern Chechen history, its people and cultures, and the factors of Russo/Soviet influence and modernization that have molded Chechen self-perception and enflamed the passions of separatism. Perhaps the most ethnically diverse region in the world, Chechnya claims over seventy native groups, yet it is unified in its opposition to Russian control and the quest for nationhood.

Through difficult research (many historic documents on Chechnya have been destroyed by Russian authorities, and Chechen documentation is scarce), Gammer assembles the stories of a fiercely independent people and their three-hundred-year struggle against domination by the world power of Russia, a conflict that continues today.

In the original euphoria that attended the virtually simultaneous demise of so many dictatorships in the late 1980s and early 90s, there was a widespread belief that problems of 'transition' basically involved shedding a known past, and replacing it with an also-known future. This volume surveys and contributes to the prolific debates that occurred in the years between the collapse of communism and the enlargement of the European Union regarding the issues of constitutionalism, dealing with the past, and the rule of law in the post-communist world. Eminent scholars explore the issue of transitional justice, highlighting the distinct roles of legal and constitutional bodies in the post-transition period. The introduction seeks to frame the work as an intervention in the discussion of communism and transition-two stable and separate points-while emphasizing the instability of the post-transition moment.

An essential guide for lawmakers, scholars, and students of law, this work takes on the formidable task of providing a detailed overview of the harmonization of law in the European Union. Skillfully researched, the authors seek to approach this topic with an eye to the recent enlargement process.

In highlighting the most recent actions of the European Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, the book seeks to analyze the future strengths and pitfalls of EU Common Law. Court rulings are quoted at length, and work in conjunction with text inserts in providing a format that breaks down complex information. This open style of the book gives researchers the ability to quickly locate useful information and cite statements from EU institutions.

In outlining the sources and institutions of Community Law, and the challenges in harmonizing national and supra-national law-books, A Common Law for Europe has done a tremendous service for academics and future leaders of the European Union.

The "Europeanization" of European private law has recently received much scrutiny and attention. Harmonizing European systems of law represents one of the greatest challenges of the 21st century. In effect, it is the adaptation of national laws into a new supra-national law, a process that signifies the beginning of a new age in Europe. This volume seeks to frame the creation of a new European Common Law in the context of recent events in European integration.

Engaged in timely and cutting edge research, the authors cast into fine relief the building of a European Common Law. The work is envisioned as a guide and written in a research friendly style that includes text inserts and an extensive bibliography. In particular, this book seeks to orient lawmakers, as well as those individuals interested in EU law, in the intricacies of consumer protection, contractual law, timesharing, and other important aspects in the harmonization of domestic and EU law books. The detailed analysis and research this volume accomplishes is invaluable to those scholars and lawmakers who are the next generation of European leaders.

The Shadow of Death: The Holocaust in Lithuania

Holocaust survivor Harry Gordon recalls in brutal detail the anguished years of his youth, a youth spent struggling to survive in a Lithuanian concentration camp. A memoir about hope and resilience, The Shadow of Death describes the invasion of Kovno by the Red Army and the impact of Soviet occupation from the perspective of the ghetto’s weakest and poorest class. It also serves as a reminder that the Germans were not alone responsible for the persecution and extermination of Jews.

Harry Gordon emigrated to the United States in 1949 and now lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Security Sector Reform in Transforming Societies: Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro

This book is about the relationship between societies and their security forces in the aftermath of conflict and authoritarianism. It uses the experiences of Croatia and Serbia-Montenegro to examine the control, management and reform of armed forces, police and intelligence agencies in the aftermath of conflict and authoritarianism. In this context, the book assesses the theory and practice of security sector reform programmes in the context of Europe and the Western Balkans, the relationship between security sector reform and normative international policy more generally, and the broader dynamics of post-authoritarian and post-conflict transformation. In so doing it addresses two underlying and interrelated questions. Firs, how and in what ways does reform in the security sector inter-relate with processes of political and societal transformation, particularly democratization efforts. Second, how and in what ways do these processes relate and respond to internationally driven efforts to promote a particular type of security sector reform as part of their wider peace-building and democratization strategies.

Timothy Edmunds is Senior Lecture in the Department of Politics and the University of Bristol.

Chechnya: The Case for Independence

An eloquent case for independence for Europe's forgotten colony.

Since the end of the Cold War, Chechnya has suffered two full-scale Russian military assaults, and is now in the seventh year of a brutal occupation. The casualties remain largely uncounted, and the fundamental issues at stake are routinely sidestepped in Russia and in the West. In this powerful argument for Chechen self-determination, Tony Wood considers Russo-Chechen relations over the past century and a half, as well as the fate of the region since the fall of the Soviet Union. Chechnya: The Case for Independence sharply criticizes the role of Western nations in their struggle, and lays bare the weakness—and shamefulness—of the arguments used to deny the Chechens' right to sovereignty.

The Ethics of Researching War: Looking for Bosnia

Developed through a series of encounters with a Bosnian Serb soldier, Looking for Bosnia is a meditation on the possibilities and limitations of responding to the extreme violence of the Bosnian war. The book explores the ethics of confronting the war criminal and investigates the possibility of responsibility not just to victims of war and war crimes, but also to the perpetrators of violence. As such, Looking for Bosnia is a consideration of the human encounter, exploring the political and scholarly strategies through which the "human" is often dismissed as "inhuman". The book exposes the complexity of the categories of good and evil.

Russian Peasants Go to Court: Legal Culture in the Countryside, 1905-1917

Russian Peasants Go to Court brings into focus the legal practice of Russian peasants in the township courts of the Russian empire from 1905 through 1917. Contrary to prevailing conceptions of peasants as backward, drunken, and ignorant, and as mistrustful of the state, Jane Burbank's study of court records reveals engaged rural citizens who valued order in their communities and made use of state courts to seek justice and to enforce and protect order. Through narrative studies of individual cases and statistical analysis of a large body of court records, Burbank demonstrates that Russian peasants made effective use of legal opportunities to settle disputes over economic resources, to assert personal dignity, and to address the bane of small crimes in their communities. The text is enhanced by contemporary photographs and lively accounts of individual court cases.