New and old wars: organized violence in a global era

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes on contributorMelinda Rankin is a PhD Candidate at La Trobe University and works at the University of Sydney. Parts of this review are extracts from her dissertation, entitled: ‘The Political Life of Mary Kaldor: Civil Society, the State and the Legitimacy of Organised Violence’. Melinda has previously worked at La Trobe University, the University of Melbourne, and Australian National University. Melinda also briefly studied at the University of Tehran.Notes1 ‘Syrian Refugee Crisis Worst since Rwanda: UN’, SBS News Online, July 17, 2013, http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/07/17/syria-refugee-crisis-worst-rwanda-un; Patricia Zengerle, ‘U.S. Senators Push to Admit More Syrian Refugees’, Reuters, January 8, 2014, http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/01/07/syria-crisis-usa-idINDEEA060JH20140107.2 Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Globalized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012).3 Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Globalized Violence in a Global Era (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999).4 For example, see Mats Berdal, ‘How “New” are “New Wars”? Global Economic Change and Study of Civil War’, Global Governance 9 (2003): 477–502; Edward Newman, ‘The “New Wars” Debate: A Historian Perspective is Needed’, Security Dialogue 35, no. 2 (2004): 173–89; Siniša Malešević, ‘The Sociology of New Wars? Assessing the Causes and Objectives of Contemporary Violent Conflicts’, Interventional Political Sociology 2 (2008): 97–112; Erik Melander, Magnus Oberg, and Jonathan Hall, ‘Are “New Wars” More Atrocious? Battle Severity, Civilians Killed and Forced Migration before and After the End of the Cold War’, European Journal of International Relations 15, no. 3 (2009): 505–36; Stathis N. Kalyvas, ‘“New” and “Old” Wars: A Valid Distinction?’, World Politics 54, no. 1 (2001): 99–118; Stephen Reyna, ‘Taking Place: “New Wars” versus Global Wars’, Social Anthropology 17 no. 3 (2009): 293; Michael Brzoska, ‘“New Wars” Discourse in Germany’, Journal of Peace Research 41 (2004): 107–77; Michael S. Drake, ‘Sociology and the New Wars in the Era of Globalisation’, Sociology Compass 1, no. 2 (2007): 637–50.5 Hew Strachan, Interview with author, July 8, 2011.6 For example, see Henfried Münkler, The New Wars (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005); Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of the Development and Security (London: Zed Books, 2001); Martin Shaw, ‘The Contemporary Mode of Warfare? Mary Kaldor's Theory of New Wars’, Review of International Political Economy 7, no. 1 (2000): 171–80. See also Jacob Mundy, ‘Deconstructing Civil Wars: Beyond the New Wars Debate’, Security Dialogue 42 (2011): 279–95.7 Martin Van Creveld, quoted in Kaldor, New and Old Wars, back cover; Martin Van Creveld, Correspondence with author, April 13, 2010.