Violent Globalisms: Conflict in Response to Empire

Since the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, the global threat environment has changed dramatically. Cornelia Beyer's insightful study is a must read for practitioners and scholars seeking to understand and manage the emerging threat. Rohan Gunaratna, International Centre for Polical Violence and Terrorism Research, Singapore The great strength of Violent Globalisms is that it refocuses our attention on the global structural context in which international terrorism occurs. In a sophisticated and wide-ranging analysis, Cornelia Beyer excavates the important intersections between the violent hegemony of the emerging American empire and the violent resistance of sub-state terrorists. In the process, Beyer makes an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the interconnections between structural and political violence in the contemporary international system. Richard Jackson, Editor, Critical Studies on Terrorism and Aberystwyth University, UK Beyer has provided us with an important account of how globalisation and the pursuit of the global interests of the US - the new empire - have structured contemporary political violence - new terrorism. She provides a powerful argument for non-military responses to terrorism. Marie Breen Smyth, Aberystwyth University, UK Current studies of transnational terrorism and the interrelated role of hegemonic power are undertheorized. This book remedies this theoretical neglect and in doing so opens up new modes of thinking about and struggling against global terrorism. Beyer provides a structural explanation for the 'Global War on Terror' in terms of its broader context and causes. During the post-cold war unipolar world, the only superpower encounters an unprecedented challenge: a non-state enemy that is challenging its hegemony and uses violence as a strategic means. Given the international nature of this phenomenon, such a structural explanation requires an added necessity and urgency. This structural approach can provide for both a proper understanding of the phenomenon of international terrorism and for formulating effective policies to counter it. Contents: Introduction; Hegemonic governance; America after 911 - an emerging empire?; Structural violence and the Middle East; International terrorism in response to empire; The United States strategy against terrorism; The United States policy in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; Index. About the Author: Cornelia Beyer is Research Fellow in the Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen, Germany.