Product Description

If you thought the point of war was to win, this book will make you think again.

David Keen questions the model of war as a contest between two sides aiming at political and military victory, and he also rejects the contrasting view that war represents a collapse into anarchy, mindless violence and ethnic hatred. Rather than a contest or a collapse, war is analysed as a system that has significant functions and that yields complex economic, political and psychological benefits. Some may be more interested in prolonging a war than in ending it. War may help elites to derail democracy and suppress dissent; it may be profitable for government and rebel actors; and it may allow armed groups to enjoy a sense of power over unarmed civilians.

This book argues that understanding the complex functions of wars alongside other forms of human disaster, such as famine and ethnic strife, is essential if we are to reduce suffering and move towards lasting peace agreements.

Complex Emergencies will be essential reading for students of development, political economy, political science and international relations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #64568 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 296 pages

Review
"A much more sophisticated contribution than most ... a valuable contribution to the ever–growing literature on conflict and violence."
Times Literary Supplement

"A lucid and highly accessible volume and an essential text for anyone wishing to understand the multifaceted interaction between conflict and its benefactors."
Journal of Peace Research

"The great value of this book is that it enables understanding of the causes of complex emergencies. It provides powerful, detailed analysis of many specific instances from across the globe."
Third Way

"Combining critical theorizing and detailed knowledge of conflict zones around the world, Keen challenges a mountain of received wisdoms, urban myths, and simplified understandings regarding collective violence, aid, reconstruction, and peace–building."
Making Sense of Darfur

"Recommended for scholars of international relations and development studies. It provides an important contribution to the literature by synthesizing existing research about the dilemmas of trying to intervene in complex emergencies that initially may seem irrational to outside observers but ultimately make sense from the perspective of the different interests involved."
Journal of Refugee Studies

"Complex Emergencies is the indispensable text on the topic of internal war and its humanitarian implications. It analyses how conflict functions systemically and the role of psychological factors in extreme violence. Moreover, despite dealing with such a difficult subject, this book is also a delight to read."
Alex de Waal, Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University

"In providing a powerful corrective to the urge to dismiss African wars or terrorism as mindless violence, this book represents David Keen at his incisive best. In this comprehensive and challenging review of complex emergencies, Keen brilliantly shows how factors often dismissed as irrational or unforeseen actually function to constitute the predicament in question. For anyone seriously concerned with what is happening in the world’s disaster zones – whether student, policy–maker or general public – you will not find a better or more illuminating guide."
Mark Duffield, University of Bristol

From the Back Cover
If you thought the point of war was to win, this book will make you think again.

David Keen questions the model of war as a contest between two sides aiming at political and military victory, and he also rejects the contrasting view that war represents a collapse into anarchy, mindless violence and ethnic hatred. Rather than a contest or a collapse, war is analysed as a system that has significant functions and that yields complex economic, political and psychological benefits. Some may be more interested in prolonging a war than in ending it. War may help elites to derail democracy and suppress dissent; it may be profitable for government and rebel actors; and it may allow armed groups to enjoy a sense of power over unarmed civilians.

This book argues that understanding the complex functions of wars alongside other forms of human disaster, such as famine and ethnic strife, is essential if we are to reduce suffering and move towards lasting peace agreements.

Complex Emergencies will be essential reading for students of development, political economy, political science and international relations.

About the Author
David Keen is Reader in Complex Emergencies at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Customer Reviews

Complexities Of War, Enemies, Famines and Aid
David Keen has written an impressive and wide-ranging book on 'complex emergencies' - a somewhat messy shorthand for the interaction of violence (usually war) with humanitarian disasters and, by extension, with policies of intervention, aid and development. Since wars almost always go with humanitarian crisis, and since most contemporary war happens within the 'developing world', this means that complex emergencies include pretty much all 'civil wars' - Rwanda, Darfur, the DRC, Sierra Leone and, to an extent, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Based on his popular lectures at the London School of Economics, Keen's book manages to be both broadly introductory and hugely rich in theory, evidence and thought. Each chapter takes on a particular facet of complex emergencies (war, famine, aid, peace), surveying existing approaches and their weaknesses. Sudan and Sierra Leone, as the sites of Keen's major contributions (in his landmark works 'The Benefits Of Famine' and 'Conflict and Collusion in Sierra Leone') form the basis for most of the in-depth case study work, which is balanced against the frequent use of other examples from the DRC, Vietnam, Guatemala, Rwanda, Nazi Germany and the 'war on terror'. This illustrations are in turn balanced against a modest, but effective, deployment of social theory - Foucault, Baudrillard and Arendt all get a look in.

Given the nature of the book, these motifs can tend to the impressionistic and multiple examples from different contexts sometimes suffer from a lack of deep exposition. Specialist scholars may be frustrated by these relatively broad brushstrokes. Some will pine for more empirics or greater historical depth in the case studies. Others might feel that 'famine' is neglected somewhat. For my part, I would have loved to see more theoretical development of the propositions on emotion, psychology, grievance and extreme violence. But these complaints speak not so much to any failure on Keen's part as to the rich vein of inquiry that he is tapping and the stimulating questions he places in the reader's mind.

Theoretical and empirical development is the task of other works. Indeed, the major strength of 'Complex Emergencies' is precisely that it manages to survey so much terrain in its 200-odd pages. Moreover, Keen side-steps those standard textbook pitfalls - over-definition, neutrality on competing theories and artificial separation of closely inter-related issues for the sake of presentational economy. The problems of generality and scope are almost completely remedied by extensive endnotes and a clear set of central messages: that thinking of war only in terms of 'rebel greed' is deeply unhelpful; that 'greed' and 'grievance' interact with each other; that psychology and emotion are central to understanding these relationships; that we should pay attention to the functions of violence and look beyond apparent 'failure'; and that the language we use is deeply implicated in who gets to speak about war and who gets attention.

In this, as in the persuasiveness and cogency of his analysis, David Keen has achieved a rare and impressive balance. Highly recommended.