Politics of Civil Wars ─ Conflict, Intervention and Resolution

Civil war is one of the critical issues of our time. Although intrastate in nature, it has a disproportionate and overwhelming effect on the overall peace and stability of contemporary international society.

Organized around the themes of contested nationalism, violence, external intervention, post-conflict reconstruction, reconciliation and governance, Amalendu Misra investigates why civil wars have become so widespread and how can they be contained? Particularly noteworthy is its focus on the "cycle" of conflict, ranging as it does on the causes, conduct, and end of civil wars as well as on subsequent efforts to return post-conflict society to "normal" politics.

Theoretically robust and empirically solid, this book clearly charts the course of contemporary civil wars using case studies from a variety of zones of conflict including Africa, Asia and Latin America to produce the most comprehensive guide to understanding civil wars in an interconnected and interdependent world.

Amalendu Misra is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Lancaster University. He is the author of Afghanistan: The Labyrinth of Violence (Polity) and Identity Religion: Foundations of anti-Islamism in India (Sage).

Introduction 1. Theorising Civil War 2. Poverty of Nationalism 3. Erotics of Violence 4. Impasse in Intervention 5. Responsibility to Rebuild - Tasks for Sisyphus 6. Governing the Ungovernable 7. Realms of Reconciliation 8. Closing the Conflict Cycle. Conclusion. Bibliography