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Drawing on more than 150 interviews with former IRA, INLA, UVF and UFF prisoners, this book is a major analysis of why Northern Ireland has seen a transition from war to peace. Most accounts of the peace process are ‘top-down’, relying upon the views of political elites. This book is ‘bottom-up’, analysing the voices of those who actually ‘fought the war’. What made them fight, why did they stop and what are the lessons for other conflict zones? Using unrivalled access to members of the armed groups, the book offers a critical appraisal of one-dimensional accounts of the onset of peace, grounded in ‘mutually hurting stalemate’ and ‘ripeness’, which downgrade the political and economic aspects of conflict. Military stalemate had been evident since the early 1970s and offers little in explaining the timing of the peace process. Moreover, republicans and loyalists based their ceasefires upon very different perceptions of transformation or victory. Based on a Leverhulme Trust project, the book offers an analysis based on subtle interplays of military, political, economic and personal changes and experiences. Combined, these allowed combatants to move from violence to peace whilst retaining core ideological beliefs and maintaining long-term constitutional visions. Former prisoners now act as ambassadors for peace in Northern Ireland. Knowledge of why and how combatants switched to peaceful methodologies amid widespread skepticism over prospects for peace is essential to our understanding of the management of global peace processes.

The absurdity of bureaucracy offers an ethnographic portrayal of an attempt to make and implement evidence-based policy set in the Danish labour market system in 2009. It departs from the author’s puzzlement that the civil servants she met during her research would maintain a double stance towards their work; they were convinced they were in the process of constantly improving the welfare system while at the same time they found the outcome of their decisions and the system they constructed in the process deeply absurd. The main protagonist of the book is the randomized controlled trial Active – Back Sooner which was a central component of the Danish Government’s Action Plan on Sickness Benefit meant to reduce to the cost of sickness benefit and to secure the ‘active labour force’. It is the continuous planning and disintegration of this effort and the myriad of decisions made in relation to it that is the primary object of empirical portraiture and theoretical discussion. Based on 12 months of participant observation and ethnographic interviewing in the Danish Ministry of Employment and one of the implementing municipalities the book documents how rejected reasons and alleyways of action return to haunt the decision-makers (be they caseworkers, the government administration, or politicians) creating an absurd world of contradictions and dilemmas. The book documents how ‘going wrong’ is built into the very nature of decision-making and suggests that the analysis of absurdity is central to any understanding of how policy develops and how implementation works.

This book illuminates the links between the currently dominant transnational discourse on what constitutes ‘modern’ social policy and contemporary concepts and practices of citizenship. Throughout Europe, we are witnessing a large-scale reshuffling of welfare economies based on the guiding principles of ‘activation’ and an ‘activating welfare state’. Moreover, the European Union has become a major driving force behind this transformation. What are the consequences of this fundamental reorientation for citizenship? How does it relate to patterns of exclusion and inequality inherent in each historical citizenship formation? What exactly is the EU’s role in this context? The book examines how such a powerful conceptual debate intervenes in the conditions of political membership in terms of rights and duties, participation, and access to societal resources. The detailed qualitative study focuses on the European Employment Strategy (EES) – and in particular its gender equality dimension – as a central process where the activation agenda is constructed and equipped with meanings. It traces how this European debate has unfolded, how it has been received and translated into shifting practices of citizenship in three EU member states – Germany, the UK, and Hungary. The book provides instructive insights in how the activation discourse reshapes the conceptual foundations of citizenship. Despite their indirect and intellectual nature, these changes significantly intervene in the contested development and the exclusionary elements of citizenship.

This book considers the ways that representations of Africa have contributed to the changing nature of British national identity. It does so by developing the concept of the African presence: the ways that references to Africa have become part of discussions within British political culture about the place of Britain in the world. Using interviews, photo archives, media coverage, advertisements, and web material, the book focuses on major Africa campaigns: the abolition of slavery, anti-apartheid, drop the debt, and Make Poverty History. Using a hybrid theoretical framework based mainly around framing, the book argues that the representation of Africa has been mainly about imagining virtuous Britishness rather than generating detailed understandings of Africa. The book develops this argument through a historical review of 200 years of Africa campaigning. It also looks more closely at recent and contemporary campaigning, opening up new issues and possibilities for campaigning: the increasing use of consumer identities, electronic media, and aspects of globalization. This book will be of interest to anyone interested in postcolonial politics, relations between Britain and Africa, and development studies.

This study investigates internationalism through the prism of a small European country. It explores an age in which many groups and communities – from socialists to scientists – organised themselves across national borders. Belgium was a major hub for transnational movements. By taking this small and yet significant European country as a focal point, the book critically examines major historical issues, including nationalism, colonial expansion, political activism and international relations. A main aim is to reveal the multifarious and sometimes contradictory nature of internationalism. The Belgian case shows how within one particular country, different forms of internationalism sometimes clashed and sometimes converged. The book is organised around political movements and intellectual currents that had a strong presence in Belgium. Each of the main chapters is dedicated to a key theme in European history: nationhood, empire, the relationship between church and state, political and social equality, peace, and universalism. The timeframe ranges from the fin de siècle to the interwar years. It thus covers the rise of international associations before the First World War, the impact of the conflagration of 1914, and the emergence of new actors such as the League of Nations. With its discussion of campaigns and activities that ranged beyond the nation-state, this study is instructive for anyone interested in transnational approaches to history.

Drawing on collaborative research from a team at Harvard and Manchester universities, this book asks how two very different societies are responding to the tide of diversity that is being felt around the rich world. Injustice, it turns out, still blights the lives of many UK and US minorities – particularly African Americans – and there are signs that the new diversity strains community life. Yet in both countries, public opinion is running irreversibly in favour of tolerance. That augurs well for the future – and suggests that a British Obama cannot be ruled out.

A history of the US nuclear presence in Britain from its origins in 1946 through to the run-down of strategic forces following the Cuba crisis and the coming of the missile age. The book deals with the initial negotiations over base rights, giving a detailed treatment of the informal and secret arrangements to establish an atomic strike capability on British soil. The subsequent build-up is described, with the development of an extensive base network and the introduction of new and more advanced types of bomber aircraft. Relations with the British during these developments are a central focus but tensions within the USAF are also dealt with. The book recounts the emergence of the UK as a nuclear power through prolonged negotiations with the US authorities. It deals in detail with the arrangements for RAF aircraft to carry US nuclear weapons, and the development of joint strike planning. A concluding chapter provides a critical assessment of the UK role in the Anglo-American nuclear alliance.

This book brings together international relations scholars, political theorists, and historians to reflect on the intellectual history of American foreign policy since the late nineteenth century. It offers a nuanced and multifaceted collection of essays covering a wide range of concerns, concepts, presidential doctrines, and rationalities of government thought to have marked America’s engagement with the world during this period: nation-building, exceptionalism, isolationism, modernisation, race, utopia, technology, war, values, the ‘clash of civilisations’ and many more.

Speaking at West Point in 1962, Dean Acheson observed that Britain had lost an empire and had still to find a new role. This book explains why, as Britain's Labour government contemplated withdrawal from east of Suez, ministers came to see that Britain's future role would be as a force within Europe and that, to this end, and to gain entry into the European Economic Community, a close relationship with the Federal Republic of Germany would be essential. This account of Anglo-German relations during the 1960s reveals insights into how both governments reacted to a series of complex issues and why, despite differences that might have led to strains, a good understanding was maintained. Its approach brings together material covering NATO strategy, détente and European integration. The main argument of the book is reinforced by material drawn from British and German primary sources covering the period as a whole, from interviews with some of Harold Wilson's key advisers and from newspaper reports, as well as from a wide range of secondary publications. The introduction of material from German sources adds to its authenticity. The book contributes to what we know about Cold War history, and should help to redefine some of the views about the relationship between Britain and Germany during the 1960s.