Rita Abrahamsen – författare

The contemporary radical Right is not merely a series of nationalist projects but a global phenomenon. This book shows how radical conservative thinkers have developed long-term counter-hegemonic strategies that challenge prevailing social and political orders both nationally and internationally. At the heart of this ideological project is a critique of liberal globalisation that seeks to mobilise transversal alliances against a common enemy: the 'New Class' of global managerial elites who are accused of undermining national sovereignty, traditional values, and cultures. 'World of the Right' argues that while the radical Right is far from a unified political movement, its calls for sovereignty, civilisational orders, and multipolarity enable complex, strategic convergences with illiberal states such as China and Russia, as well as states and people in the Global South. The potential consequences for the future of the liberal world order are profound and wide-ranging.

Vad är utveckling? Samhällets syn på utveckling förändras. Under senare år har bistånds- och utvecklingspolitiken alltmer kommit att präglas av marknadslösningar. Samtidigt ifrågasätts den dominerande uppfattningen om vad utveckling syftar till. I skuggan av klimatkrisen menar många att den ständiga jakten på ekonomisk tillväxt är långsiktigt ohållbar. Den postkoloniala kritiken pekar på dominansförhållanden som fortfarande präglar förhållandet mellan den rika och den fattiga världen. I Fronesis nr 38–39 undersöks utvecklingstankens idéhistoriska bakgrund, dagspolitiska bärkraft och utsikter inför framtiden. Vad skapar utveckling? Vad beror skillnader i utvecklingsnivå på? Vilka kommer utvecklingen till del? Och vem bestämmer över dess former? Några av numrets texter belyser bistånds- och utvecklingspolitikens förändringar både i Sverige och i den rika världen överlag. I en text av utvecklingsforskaren Mark Duffield diskuteras hur den rika världens säkerhet inte bara kommit att bli det övergripande målet för handels- och migrationspolitiken, utan även för biståndspolitiken. Ekonomen Omar Dahi menar i sin text att »den arabiska våren« inte bara var en protest mot regionens diktatorer, utan även mot det marknadsinriktade utvecklingsparadigm som globala institutioner pådyvlat länderna. Nationalekonomen Serge Latouche diskuterar begreppet »nedväxt« (på franska décroissance, på engelska degrowth) och menar att vi måste överge ekonomisk tillväxt som självklar och legitim politisk målsättning för att i stället finna andra måttstockar för välfärd och välbefinnande. Innehåll i Fronesis nr 38-39 (244 sidor) Redaktionen: Den ifrågasatta utvecklingen Hans Abrahamsson och Ann-Marie Ekengren: Svensk politik för global utveckling Hans Abrahamsson: Utvecklingsbegreppet inför sin pånyttfödelse Sofie Tornhill: Tid och otid Walter D. Mignolo och Madina Tlostanova: Kolonialitetens logik och postkolonialitetens gränser Manuela Boatca: De många icke-väst Sara Kalm: Liberala utvecklingspraktiker Rita Abrahamsen: Partnerskap och makt i den globala styrningen Mark Duffield: Globalt inbördeskrig Christine Keating, Claire Rasmussen och Pooja Rishi: Egenmaktens rationalitet Roger Hildingsson och Rickard Andersson: En (annan) hållbar utveckling Serge Latouche: Nedväxt Arturo Escobar: Hållbarhet Sam Carlshamre: Utveckling och islamism Omar Dahi: Den arabiska vårens politiska ekonomi

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of current research on private security and military companies, comprising essays by leading scholars from around the world.The increasing privatization of security across the globe has been the subject of much debate and controversy, inciting fears of private warfare and even the collapse of the state. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the range of issues raised by contemporary security privatization, offering both a survey of the numerous roles performed by private actors and an analysis of their implications and effects. Ranging from the mundane to the spectacular, from secretive intelligence gathering and neighbourhood surveillance to piracy control and warfare, this Handbook shows how private actors are involved in both domestic and international security provision and governance. It places this involvement in historical perspective, and demonstrates how the impact of security privatization goes well beyond the security field to influence diverse social, economic and political relationships and institutions. Finally, this volume analyses the evolving regulation of the global private security sector. Seeking to overcome the disciplinary boundaries that have plagued the study of private security, the Handbook promotes an interdisciplinary approach and contains contributions from a range of disciplines, including international relations, politics, criminology, law, sociology, geography and anthropology.This book will be of much interest to students of private security companies, global governance, military studies, security studies and IR in general.

Across the globe, from mega-cities to isolated resource enclaves, the provision and governance of security takes place within assemblages that are de-territorialized in terms of actors, technologies, norms and discourses. They are embedded in a complex transnational architecture, defying conventional distinctions between public and private, global and local. Drawing on theories of globalization and late modernity, along with insights from criminology, political science and sociology, Security Beyond the State maps the emergence of the global private security sector and develops a novel analytical framework for understanding these global security assemblages. Through in-depth examinations of four African countries - Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa - it demonstrates how global security assemblages affect the distribution of social power, the dynamics of state stability, and the operations of the international political economy, with significant implications for who gets secured and how in a global era.

Across the globe, from mega-cities to isolated resource enclaves, the provision and governance of security takes place within assemblages that are de-territorialized in terms of actors, technologies, norms and discourses. They are embedded in a complex transnational architecture, defying conventional distinctions between public and private, global and local. Drawing on theories of globalization and late modernity, along with insights from criminology, political science and sociology, Security Beyond the State maps the emergence of the global private security sector and develops a novel analytical framework for understanding these global security assemblages. Through in-depth examinations of four African countries - Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and South Africa - it demonstrates how global security assemblages affect the distribution of social power, the dynamics of state stability, and the operations of the international political economy, with significant implications for who gets secured and how in a global era.

This new Handbook offers a comprehensive overview of current research on private security and military companies, comprising essays by leading scholars from around the world.The increasing privatization of security across the globe has been the subject of much debate and controversy, inciting fears of private warfare and even the collapse of the state. This volume provides the first comprehensive overview of the range of issues raised by contemporary security privatization, offering both a survey of the numerous roles performed by private actors and an analysis of their implications and effects. Ranging from the mundane to the spectacular, from secretive intelligence gathering and neighbourhood surveillance to piracy control and warfare, this Handbook shows how private actors are involved in both domestic and international security provision and governance. It places this involvement in historical perspective, and demonstrates how the impact of security privatization goes well beyond the security field to influence diverse social, economic and political relationships and institutions. Finally, this volume analyses the evolving regulation of the global private security sector. Seeking to overcome the disciplinary boundaries that have plagued the study of private security, the Handbook promotes an interdisciplinary approach and contains contributions from a range of disciplines, including international relations, politics, criminology, law, sociology, geography and anthropology.This book will be of much interest to students of private security companies, global governance, military studies, security studies and IR in general.

The contemporary radical Right is not merely a series of nationalist projects but a global phenomenon. This book shows how radical conservative thinkers have developed long-term counter-hegemonic strategies that challenge prevailing social and political orders both nationally and internationally. At the heart of this ideological project is a critique of liberal globalisation that seeks to mobilise transversal alliances against a common enemy: the 'New Class' of global managerial elites who are accused of undermining national sovereignty, traditional values, and cultures. 'World of the Right' argues that while the radical Right is far from a unified political movement, its calls for sovereignty, civilisational orders, and multipolarity enable complex, strategic convergences with illiberal states such as China and Russia, as well as states and people in the Global South. The potential consequences for the future of the liberal world order are profound and wide-ranging.

At a time of multiple challenges to the liberal international order, development has become one of the most contentious areas of world politics. Dominant powers have reduced their assistance and overtly fused development with national and security interests, while rising powers like China have become major donors promoting new models and norms. Advancing an innovative Bourdieusian-inspired analysis of global politics as interaction between transnational fields, this book places development in the context of contemporary transformations in world order. It traces the history of development as a field of struggle from 1945 to the present, and argues that development is central to the emergence, maintenance, and transformation of world order. The authors show how the global field of development is characterized by a specific form of interest – an interest in disinterest – that performs the social alchemy of converting economic and military power into the symbolic power that is crucial for international hegemony. In the current geopolitical context, the ability of development to produce this symbolic power is dissolving and transforming, making the field one of the crucial sites where attempts to build an alternative global order are emerging and will be historically tested.

At a time of multiple challenges to the liberal international order, development has become one of the most contentious areas of world politics. Dominant powers have reduced their assistance and overtly fused development with national and security interests, while rising powers like China have become major donors promoting new models and norms. Advancing an innovative Bourdieusian-inspired analysis of global politics as interaction between transnational fields, this book places development in the context of contemporary transformations in world order. It traces the history of development as a field of struggle from 1945 to the present, and argues that development is central to the emergence, maintenance, and transformation of world order. The authors show how the global field of development is characterized by a specific form of interest – an interest in disinterest – that performs the social alchemy of converting economic and military power into the symbolic power that is crucial for international hegemony. In the current geopolitical context, the ability of development to produce this symbolic power is dissolving and transforming, making the field one of the crucial sites where attempts to build an alternative global order are emerging and will be historically tested.

Spanning the period from the cold war to the 'war on terror', examines the political economy dynamics of security and insecurity on the continent, as well as its implications for political actions.More than any other part of the globe, Africa has become associated with conflict, insecurity and human rights atrocities. In the popular imagination and the media, overpopulation, environmental degradation and ethnic hatred dominate accounts of African violence, while in academic and policy-making circles, conflict and insecurity have also come to occupy centre stage, with resource-hungry warlords and notions of 'greed' and 'grievance' playing key explanatory roles. Since the attacks of 9/11, there has also been mounting concern that the continent's so-called 'ungoverned spaces' will provide safe havens for terrorists intent on destroying Western civilization. The Review of African Political Economy has engaged extensively with issues of conflict and security, both analysing on-going conflicts and often challenging predominant modes of explanation and interpretation. This Review of African Political Economy Reader provides a timely, comprehensive and critical contribution to contemporary debates about conflict and security on the continent. The first section, covers some of the continent's main post-Cold War conflicts and demonstrates their global connections. The articles also discuss the so-called 'resource curse', as well as the global arms trade, and reveal the complexities of the relationship between the economic and the political. The second section focuses on security as part of post-Cold War global governance, and discusses the effects of liberal peace-building as well as the link between development assistance and the 'war on terror'. The final section examines life as it continues in conditions of war and shows how insecurity reconfigures urban space, transforms social order, identities and authority.Rita Abrahamsen is Professor in the Graduate School of Publicand International Affairs, University of Ottawa, CanadaPublished in association with ROAPEROAPE African ReadersSeries Editors: Tunde Zack-Williams & Ray Bush