International Conflict Management - Tapa dura

'Its textbook style makes it accessible and it succeeds in its aim of providing a conceptual inventory of the four key techniques upon which it concentrates: peacekeeping, mediation, peace enforcement, and adjudication... The book is very useful in illustrating the constraints of orthodox conflict management. As a state-of-the-art summary, it is to be recommended to students.' - International Peacekeeping

'...this book would serve as an excellent companion to a survey course on conflict management at the upper undergraduate or graduate level. .. a superb introductory guide to techniques, trends, and applications of external conflict management in contemporary politics.' - International Studies Review

This new textbook provides students with an accessible overview of the logic, evolution, application and outcomes of the five major approaches of the growing field of international conflict management:

• traditional peacekeeping
• peace enforcement and support operations
• negotiation and bargaining
• mediation
• adjudication.

The book aims to provide the student with a fuller understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these five techniques within the dynamic context of the contemporary security environment, especially in relation to recent and ongoing case studies of inter-state and intra-state conflict. To demonstrate the changing nature of security in the post-Cold War world, the text contrasts this with competing visions of security during the Cold War and earlier periods, and provides numerous points of comparison with the dominant causes, types, strategy, and prosecution of warfare in other eras.

International Conflict Management will be essential reading for all students of conflict management, mediation, peacekeeping, peace and conflict studies, and international security in general.

Michael J. Butler is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Government and International Relations at Clark University (USA).