Routledge Politics of Civil Wars: Conflict, Intervention & Resolution

Civil war is one of the critical issues of our time. Although intrastate in nature, it has a disproportionate and overwhelming effect on the overall peace and stability of contemporary international society. Organized around the themes of contested nationalism, violence, external intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation and governance, Amalendu Misra investigates why civil wars have become so widespread and how can they be contained? Particularly noteworthy is its focus on the "cycle" of conflict, ranging as it does on the causes, conduct, and end of civil wars as well as on subsequent efforts to return post-conflict society to "normal" politics. Theoretically robust and empirically solid, this book clearly charts the course of contemporary civil wars using case studies from a variety of zones of conflict including Africa, Asia and Latin America to produce the most comprehensive guide to understanding civil wars in an interconnected and interdependent world. Review "Amalendu Misra has produced a fine integrative analysis of the variables that impact on the conflict dynamics of civil war. He goes beyond orthodox views of civil war as purely socially dysfunctional and economically destructive in order to help us understand the political mainsprings of violence and foster nuanced ideas for mitigating conflict." - Michael Pugh, Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Bradford, UK "This book should prove a useful resource for those interested in civil war as there are few single-volume works that cover the range of intrastate war-related issues that this book does. The book’s accessibility to readers is enhanced by the multi-disciplinary approach that the author employs to write about his subject and his lively discussion of a number of civil war cases." - Caroline Hartzell, Associate Professor of Political Science, Gettysburg College, USA About the Author Amalendu Misra is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Lancaster University. He is the author of Afghanistan: The Labyrinth of Violence (Polity) and Identity Religion: Foundations of anti-Islamism in India (Sage).