Anastasia Shesterinina – författare

This book engages in a constructive, practical debate on the nature and effects of uncertainty in global politics. International contributors explore the processes associated with different forms of uncertainty in the context of environmental issues, diplomacy and international negotiations, and conflict and security. From the collapse of the Soviet Union to the 1997 and 2008 financial crises to the Arab Uprisings and the European migrant crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, assessments of many events with lasting consequences on the global order have begun with: “why didn’t we see this coming?” There is much to learn from how phenomena that affect the global order generate uncertainty and what effects such uncertainty has on actors and issues. Presenting perspectives from all corners of the discipline and emerging and established scholars the book provides an up-to-date overview of the state of the literature; a concise yet conceptually rich theoretical framework; a mix of regional and global contemporary issues; process-oriented empirical evidence and methodological tools to assess different forms of uncertainty and propose practical solutions to addressing uncertainty in diverse contexts. The book will be of interest to scholars of global politics, international security, global environmental politics, international organizations and institutions, social movements, and conflict studies.

This book engages in a constructive, practical debate on the nature and effects of uncertainty in global politics. International contributors explore the processes associated with different forms of uncertainty in the context of environmental issues, diplomacy and international negotiations, and conflict and security. From the collapse of the Soviet Union to the 1997 and 2008 financial crises to the Arab Uprisings and the European migrant crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, assessments of many events with lasting consequences on the global order have begun with: “why didn’t we see this coming?” There is much to learn from how phenomena that affect the global order generate uncertainty and what effects such uncertainty has on actors and issues. Presenting perspectives from all corners of the discipline and emerging and established scholars the book provides an up-to-date overview of the state of the literature; a concise yet conceptually rich theoretical framework; a mix of regional and global contemporary issues; process-oriented empirical evidence and methodological tools to assess different forms of uncertainty and propose practical solutions to addressing uncertainty in diverse contexts. The book will be of interest to scholars of global politics, international security, global environmental politics, international organizations and institutions, social movements, and conflict studies.

Winner of the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social StudiesCo-winner of the Charles Taylor Book AwardHow do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Mobilizing in Uncertainty explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Anastasia Shesterinina uncovers that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. People consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened and mobilized to protect. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded. Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

Winner of the Davis Center Book Prize in Political and Social StudiesCo-winner of the Charles Taylor Book AwardHow do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Mobilizing in Uncertainty explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Anastasia Shesterinina uncovers that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. People consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened and mobilized to protect. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded. Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.