Publications

Some of the books authored or co-authored  by the Department's staff in areas such as African studies, global security, history, international relations, politics, and sociology.

African studies 

Bruce Baker

Multi-choice Policing in Africa – Nordic African Institute, 2007.

Policing is crucial to how Africans experience the freedoms of democracy and determines to a large degree the levels of economic investment they will enjoy. Yet it is a neglected area of study.

Based on field research, this book reveals the surprising variety of people involved in policing besides the state police.

Alex Thomson with Tunde Zack-Williams and Diane Frost, eds.

Africa in Crisis: New Challenges and Possibilities – London: University of Michigan Press, 2002.

This collection provides an overview of Africa at the millennium. It explores important new social, political and economic trends that are emerging in the wake of post-colonial development.

Political monopolies of one-party states are being challenged, while economies are undergoing major structural changes as a result of internal and external pressures. This volume analyses these changes and makes predictions for the future.

Global security

Neil Renwick

Northeast Asian Critical Security: Essays in Non-Traditional Security  – Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

This book focuses upon the apprehension of insecurity derived from demographic pressures, resource limitations, ecological degradation, food politics, identificatory challenges, health threats, and political change. The study seeks to assess existing approaches to such threats and to propose alternatives that stress the importance of transnational cooperation as the principal means of tackling contemporary societal insecurities in Northeast Asia/

History

Alexander Chubarov

Russia's Bitter Path to Modernity: A History of the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras – New York, London: Continuum, 2001.

This study seeks to provide a framework for the understanding of Russian history and politics over the past hundred years or so and presents the Russian development as a fitful but ineluctable advance towards modern ideological, political, social, and economic patterns. It concludes with an overview of Russia's recent democratic and market-oriented reforms tackling such questions as: what orientation will Russia take in its political, socio-economic, and cultural development? Will it follow the model of the Western capitalist democracies or choose its own distinct path of development?

Alexander Chubarov

The Fragile Empire: A History of Imperial Russia – New York, London: Continuum, 1999.

This history of Russia ranges from the reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725) to the 1917 revolution, providing summaries of six tsars and of the major social trends that affected their reigns. The author contrasts the communal lives of the peasants with the strongman leadership tradition of the aristocracy and eventually of the revolutionary groups. Throughout the entire period, Russia was attempting to play catch-up with Western Europe in such areas as the Enlightenment, industrialisation, and social reform. But these ideas were distorted and only partially adopted, making no change in the essential relationship between the rulers and the ruled.

International relations

Alex Thomson

U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Apartheid South Africa, 1948-1994: Conflict of Interests – New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009.

The book provides a full account of the development of U.S. foreign policy towards South Africa from apartheid’s inception in 1948 right through to the fall of white minority rule in 1994. Drawing upon documents sourced in key archives, the twists and turns of this policy are pieced together starting with Washington D.C.’s first expressions of concern over apartheid under the Truman Administration, via Kennedy’s arms embargo and Kissinger’s ‘Communication’ strategy, and ends with the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 and the birth of the ‘new’ South Africa in the early 1990s.

Alex Thomson

Incomplete Engagement: U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Republic of South Africa, 1981-1988  – Aldershot: Avebury, 1996.

This text provides an analysis of the Reagan administration's South African policy. Using both official sources and interviews with those decision-makers closest to this controversial policy, the book aims to get to the roots of what exactly "Constructive Engagement" was trying to achieve and how this strategy was implemented. Providing a case study of the wider US foreign policy issues, the book should appeal to those who wish to learn more about what happened during the 1980s debate, and what the results of this policy fight were.

Politics

Tudor Jones

Modern Political Thinkers and Ideas: An Historical Introduction  – Routledge, 2001.

This book provides an accessible introduction to some of the key areas of modern political thought, combining historical and philosophical approaches to the subject. It also describes the writings and ideas of the most influential thinkers of the modern era. The plan of the book is centred around five main themes: sovereignty, political obligation, liberty, rights, and equality.

There are short biographical compendia on the main thinkers, suggestions for further reading, and a classified bibliography.

Alex Thomson

A Glossary of US Politics and Government  – Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007.

This Glossary explains the key concepts, institutions, personalities and events most commonly referred to in the teaching of US politics and government.  The emphasis is on accessibility in order to provide students with a ready source of knowledge which can supplement core reading.

The book will help students to address any gaps they may have in their understanding of US politics, which, in turn, will make studying this fascinating subject all the more rewarding and enjoyable.

Sociology

James D. Marlow

Questioning the Postwar Consensus Thesis: Towards an Alternative Account – Dartmouth Publishing Group, 1996.

The idea of a pre-Thatcherite ‘postwar consensus’, between the Labour and Conservative parties, has become a commonplace in the academic literature of political science – a familiar and largely accepted point of reference. This work offers a critique and counter arguments to that notion, giving instead, some sense of the multiformity of the middle-of-the-road politicking of that era.