A rich and accessible examination of military intervention on the African continent, from both foreign and African military actors.

This book explores France’s African intervention policy and related legitimation strategies through the United Nations, the European Union, and various ad hoc multilateral frameworks. France’s enduring ability to project military power on the African continent and influence political events there has been central to its self-perception as a major power. However, since the end of the cold war, France’s paternalistic interference has been increasingly questioned, not least by African audiences. This has produced a gradual and somewhat reluctant turn to multilateralism on the part of French leaders. Drawing on in-depth case studies of recent French intervention policy, this edited volume critically assesses France’s efforts to reassure critics by securing multilateral endorsements; share burdens and liabilities through collective implementation; and re-affirm its status as a major power by spearheading complex missions. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Strategic Studies.

This book analyses regional interventions in African conflict spaces by engaging with political discourse theory. Interventions are a performance of agency, but what happens if interventions are performed by forces that scholars have hardly ever considered as relevant agents in this regard? Based on a study of regional politics towards the crises in Burundi and Zimbabwe, the book analyses how these interventions shaped and changed the emerging regional interveners. The book engages political discourse theory, proposing an understanding of intervention as a field, in which multiple and heterogeneous interpretations of the violence, the crisis, and the future post-conflict order ‘meet'. It is not hard to imagine that this encounter is not harmonious per se but full of frictions. By making use of political discourse theory as a grammar for studying the complexity of an intervention, the focus is directed to the emerging subjectivities of regional interveners. This enables a view of regional interventions that neither reduces their subjectivity to universalist categories associated with 'liberal peace' nor overenthusiastically embraces them as the solution to all problems. This book will be of interest to students of international intervention, discourse theory, African politics, war and conflict studies, security studies and IR.

The history of humanitarian intervention has often overlooked Africa. This book brings together perspectives from history, cultural studies, international relations, policy, and non-governmental organizations to analyze the themes, continuities and discontinuities in Western humanitarian engagement with Africa.

Taking the empirical case of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), this volume locates the peacekeeping operations of ECOWAS within an expanded post-Cold War conceptualization of humanitarian intervention. It examines the organization's capacity to protect civilians at risk in civil conflicts and to facilitate the processes of peacemaking and post-war peace-building.

Plagued by bloody wars and armed conflicts, political instability, communal violence and displaced persons, and at the mercy of natural catastrophes such as drought and famine, it is not surprising that the Western press has long dismissed Africa as the 'hopeless continent'. In the face of these challenges, Africa today is faced with a stark choice: either unite or perish. The debate on why and how the continent should unite in terms of co-operative peace, security and development is more urgent than at any other time in Africa's post-colonial history. Moving forward from the failure of the earlier, typically idealistic Africa unity project, David Francis demonstrates how peace and security challenges have created the imperative for change. He argues that a series of regional peace and security systems are emerging, and that states that have participated in practical experiments in regional peacekeeping, peace support operations, conflict stabilization/management and preventive diplomacy are building de facto systems of peace and security that could be institutionalized and extended.

This Definitive Text covers all aspects of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, from basic science to medicine, sociology, economics and politics. It has been written by a highly respected team of South African HIV/AIDS experts and provides a thoroughly researched account of the epidemic in the region. The book comprises seven sections, the first of which describes the evolving epidemic, presents the numbers behind the epidemic, and captures its nature in one of the worst affected parts of the world. This is followed by a section on the science of the virus, covering its structure and its diagnosis. HIV risk factors and prevention strategies, focal population groups and the impact of HIV/AIDS in all aspects of South African life are discussed in the next four sections. The final sections look at the treatment of HIV/AIDS, the politics of HIV/AIDS treatment, mathematical modelling to extrapolate the potential impact of treatment and finally a discussion of the future of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. This text has been written at an accessible level for the general reader, undergraduate and postgraduate students, health care providers, researchers and policymakers in this field as well as international scholars studying HIV/AIDS in Africa. Book jacket.

This title was first published in 2002: Examining the recent phenomenon in conflicts in Africa, this text addresses situations where African states and African military intervene in conflicts either in neighbouring states or beyond. While this trend has been widely observed, this is the first in-depth research that deals with such issues. It breaks new ground in identifying the key issues, actors and actions, and includes analysis of military capacities of African states and the way in which armies are used, including the increasing role of private security companies and mercenaries. The changing attitudes among members of the OAU are examined, in particular the increasing acceptance of interventionism and the blurring of boundaries. The most significant cases of intervention are examined together with less well-documented examples such as Lesotho and Guinea Bissau. This engaging account makes for a compelling resource for academics and practitioners alike.

Using a unique application of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), this book provides a critical, interdisciplinary, examination of the contemporary practice of UN peacekeeping. Is peacekeeping intervention? Since its conception in the mid-1950s, peacekeeping has significantly evolved from traditional, lightly armed, passive operations to robust, multi-dimensional stabilisation peacekeeping operations. This raises questions as to whether this is simply a natural evolution of peacekeeping or whether it marks an expansion of the concept beyond its boundaries, pushing it into the realm of peace enforcement or intervention. In response, this book examines the frameworks which govern UN peacekeeping and seeks to understand the relationship between peacekeeping and the principle of non-intervention. Providing practical examples from the United Nations’ operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and drawing upon interviews with key international actors including UN personnel, the book explores the boundaries of peacekeeping, contending that peacekeeping, at times, becomes a form of intervention. This, the book argues, is detrimental both to the concept of peacekeeping and to the host state, and it concludes by offering a series of recommendations to re-affirm peacekeeping’s boundaries and amplify the effectiveness of contemporary peacekeeping. This book will be of interest to scholars and students in international law, international relations, politics, history and criminology.

Why is it so difficult to provide quality mental health care for multicultural populations? How can quality care be achieved? Understanding Cultural Identity in Intervention and Assessment centers on this dilemma. This text for multicultural courses in counseling, psychotherapy, clinical psychology and social work begins with a description of the existing societal context for mental health services in the United States and the limitations of available services for multicultural populations. It documents the cultural competence a practitioner needs to provide adequate, credible, and potentially beneficial services to diverse clientele. It presents a model for effective culture-specific services that emphasizes the description and understanding of cultural/racial identity and the use of this information to develop cultural formulations to increase the accuracy of diagnoses. To provide examples of this model, the author devotes four chapters to a discussion of mental health services for a variety of domestic groups: African Americans, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, and Hispanic Americans. A valuable supplement to a variety of courses, Understanding Cultural Identity in Intervention and Assessment will enhance studentsÆ understanding of multicultural mental health issues in fields such as clinical/counseling psychology, multicultural psychology, educational psychology, social work, health services, and ethnic studies.