Research Guides: POLS 334: Politics of Violence (HC): Background Information

Background Reading on War and Conflict

Handbook of Human Rights
Provides overview essays about different aspects of human rights including legal, political, and economic topics.
Handbook of South American Governance
Building from an introduction to key issues defining governance in South America, this Handbook proceeds to examine institutions, actors and practices in governance.
Oxford Handbook of Atrocity Crimes
Editors and researchers provide analytic accounts on key issues involving war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. Published in 2022. Available online.
The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict
Brings together scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to address a range of challenges that arise for women and men during armed conflict. Topics addressed include humanitarian intervention, countering violence and extremism, sexual violence, criminal accountability, autonomous weapons, peacekeeping, and refugee and internally displaced person (IDP) status.
Oxford Handbook of Intergroup Conflict
"Chapters on sources of intergroup conflict examine dynamic processes in intractable conflict, ideological bases of conflict, and processes of delegitimization and moral exclusion. Other chapters on the perpetuation of intergroup conflict highlight processes associated with retribution and revenge, group identities, historical memories, victimization, and divergent perspectives between groups in conflict." Excerpt from publisher's description
Oxford Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect
The Responsibility to Protect (R2P) is intended to provide an effective framework for responding to crimes of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The R2P concept accords to sovereign states and international institutions a responsibility to assist peoples who are at risk - or experiencing - the worst atrocities.
Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace
Covers historical, political, theoretical, and philosophical issues relating to peace and conflict, as well as major figures, events, organizations, and current affairs.

Political Handbook of the World
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This authoritative reference book provides detailed information on the major aspects of each country's government and political parties. Because the handbook is updated regularly it is a good source for information on current events, elections, political history, and more.

Routledge handbook of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency in Africa
Published in 2021
Routledge handbook of democratization in Africa
Published in 2020.
Routledge Handbook of Peacebuilding
This new Routledge Handbook offers a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of the meanings and uses of the term peacebuilding, and presents leading-edge debates on the practices conducted in the name of peacebuilding.

Literature Reviews

Literature reviews are a particularly useful resource when doing research. They address the issues involved in a particular question and the debates among scholars. They map out the intellectual terrain succinctly and give you the major landmarks in terms of key authors and significant titles for greater understanding.

Annual Reviews
Publishes literature reviews by scholars in various fields, including Political Science. They tend to explore a specific topic in depth. Use the search function to find such relevant lit reviews as:
"Centering Survivors in Local Transitional Justice" (2017)
"Complicit States and the Governing Strategy of Privilege Violence: When Weakness Is Not the Problem" (2018)
"Conflict-Related Sexual Violence" (2021)
"Documenting the Effects of Armed Conflict on Population Health" (2016)
"Progovernment Militias" (2017)
"Societal Responses to Terrorist Attacks" (2009) - Focuses on Northern Ireland, the United States and Israel.
"Vicious Circles: Violence, Vulnerability, and Climate Change" (2021) Includes multiple references to Nigeria.
"Violence Against Civilians During Armed Conflict: Moving Beyond the Macro- and Micro-Level Divide" (2021)
"Violence in Latin America: An Overview of Research and Issues" (2020)
"Why We Kill: The Political Science of Political Violence against Civilians" (2014)
"Women's Rights After War: On Gender Interventions and Enduring Hierarchies" (2021)
Oxford Bibliographies Online
Extensive annotated bibliographies on specific topics in many different subject areas including political science, international relations and area studies written by scholars in the field. New essays are added twice a year. Essays of general interest now available include:
"Civil Resistance"
"Conflict Management and Resolution"
"The Post-Civil War State"
"Women and Peacemaking/Peacekeeping"
See essays on specific case studies of political violence below.
"The Arab-Israel Conflict" See also "Hamas"
"Civil-Military Relations in Latin America" Search for material on Brazil and on Chile
"Civil War in Sub-Saharan Africa" See also "Wars and Warlords" for material on Sudan.
"Conflict Formations in Sub-Saharan Africa"
"El Salvador"
"Guerrilla Insurgencies in Latin America"
"Nigeria" See also "Boko Haram"
"Political Extremism in Sub-Saharan Africa" See two citations about ANC's military wing, Umkhonto We Sizwe.
"Political Hinduism"
"Revolution and Reaction in Central America" See the subsection on El Salvador
"Shining Path"
"South American Dirty Wars" See also "Military Government in Latin America, 1959–1990" Both bibliographies have sections about Brazil and Chile.
"20th Century Genocides" Includes material on Armenia.
"Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas"

Dissertations & Theses
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses is a collection of scholarly research in the Humanities and Social Sciences that consists of 2.7 million searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world, and 1.2 million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Coverage is from 1861 to the present day.

Web Resources on Conflict and Civil Wars

Development Experience Clearinghouse (US AID)
The clearinghouse is "the largest online resource for technical and program documentation funded by USAID, with thousands of documents available for electronic download."
Eldis
A directory and gateway to development resources. Search by country for specific reports and research. Maintained by the Institute of Development Studies, the University of Sussex.
International Conflict Resolution: Comparative and Theoretical Studies
This library resource guide from Columbia University lists many relevant websites as well as other kinds of resources.
International Development
A list of major web resources from the WWW Virtual Library
Transparency International: The Global Coalition against Corruption
See research, publications, and corruption by country and topic under the tab "What We Do."
United Nations Development Programme
Note in particular the Human Development Reports and the country profiles.
United Nations Millennium Development Goals
WomanStats Project
"The WomanStats Project is the most comprehensive compilation of information on the status of women in the world. The Project facilitates understanding the linkage between the situation of women and the security of nation-states. We comb the extant literature and conduct expert interviews to find qualitative and quantitative information on over 310 indicators of women's status in 174 countries. Our Database expands daily, and access to it is free of charge." - website description.