New Book on Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia

Assassinations, riots, state violence—these are some of the topics addressed in a new book, Political Violence in South and Southeast Asia, which features a chapter about Bangladesh by IPI Senior Policy Analyst Naureen Chowdhury Fink.

The book considers and critiques the way political violence is understood and constructed, and the common assumptions that prevail regarding the causes, victims, and perpetrators of this violence.

The authors have intimate knowledge of the politics and society of these regions, and in their analyses examine the significance of geographic borders, external influences and intervention, and patterns of recruitment and rebellion, looking at the sources and manifestations of political violence.

By focusing on the social and political context of these regions, the volume presents a critical understanding of the nature of political violence and provides an alternative narrative to that found in mainstream analysis of terrorism.

The book is edited by Itty Abraham, University of Texas at Austin; Edward Newman, University of Birmingham; and Meredith L. Weiss, the State University of New York.

Table of contents:

• Introduction – The Politics of Violence: Modalities, Frames, and Functions, by Meredith L. Weiss, Edward Newman and Itty Abraham
• Comparative Assassinations: The Changing Moral Economy of Political Killing in South Asia, by Sankaran Krishna
• Forms of Collective and State Violence in South Asia, by Paul R. Brass
• Mass Violence in Southeast Asia, by Geoffrey Robinson
On the Borderlines: Politics, Religion, and Violence in Bangladesh, by Naureen Chowdhury Fink
• External Influences on Political Violence in Southeast Asia, by Natasha Hamilton-Hart
• Recruitment and Attack in Southeast Asian Collective Violence, by Vince Boudreau
• Subversion, Secession, and the State in South Asia: Varieties of Violence, by Varun Sahni and Shamuel Tharu

More about this book from United Nations University Press

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Read more about IPI’s work on terrorism and Asia