New Books in National Security

• Nina Wilén, "Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences" (Oxford UP, 2025)

  The Sahel has become a focal point of international security interventions, with external actors providing extensive security force assistance (SFA) to local military, police, and paramilitary forces. Securitizing the Sahel: Analyzing External Interventions and Their Consequences (Oxford UP, 2025) by Dr. Nina Wilen critically examines the rationale, implementation, and consequences of these efforts (2012-2024). With unique access to both military operations and strategy-making in European capitals, the author provides an innovative methodological approach, exclusive material, and a comprehensive perspective. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, including participant observation of military operations and over 100 interviews with policymakers, military personnel, and security practitioners across the Sahel and Europe,this book offers an unprecedented analysis of how SFA has shaped local security dynamics and broader geopolitical competition. The book argues that SFA in the Sahel is driven not just by regional security threats, such as insurgency, violent extremism, and transnational crime, but also by external actors' strategic interests. Through a comparative analysis of bilateral (France, U.S.) and multilateral (EU, UN) initiatives, it demonstrates how SFA has been framed as the primary policy tool to manage instability. Securitizing the Sahel offers both theoretical and empirical contributions to understanding SFA in fragile states. It challenges prevailing frameworks, provides critical insights for policymakers, and highlights the unintended consequences of militarized external assistance in the Sahel and beyond. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

  --------  

  52:01

  --------

  52:01
• Radio ReOrient 13.5: “What Is Wrong with Countering Violent Extremism?,” with John Holmwood, hosted by Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan

  In this episode, Claudia Radiven and Saeed Khan spoke with Professor John Holmwood about the UK’s Prevent policy, part of the Counter Terror Strategy concerned with radicalisation. We discussed the trajectory of Prevent from its beginnings where it focussed on community cohesion, to changes between 2011 and 2015 after the Trojan Horse Scandal in Birmingham, to the recent review by William Shawcross in 2023. Professor Holmwood is an emeritus professor of Sociology at the University of Nottingham, whose work has focussed on colonialism, modern social theory, religion and schooling. With Therese O’Toole he wrote the book ‘Countering Extremism in British Schools? The Truth about the Birmingham Trojan Horse Affair’ and he has worked with the organisation Prevent Watch, a community initiative supporting those affected by Prevent. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

  --------  

  1:05:39

  --------

  1:05:39
• John Jackson, "Special Advocates in the Adversarial System" (Routledge, 2020)

  Special Advocates in the Adversarial System (Routledge, 2020) uncovers the little known phenomenon of Special Advocates who represent the best interests of an excluded party in closed trials. Professor John Jackson's empirical analysis draws into question the commitment of legal-systems to long-held principles of adversarial justice, due process and even human rights protections in trials that relate to immigration, national security, civil and criminal proceedings. In its comparative approach, the book tackles issues of accountability and the ethical concerns surrounding the appointment and prevalence of the special advocate system. This book will shock lawyers and scholars alike and is an important contribution to considerations of the administration of justice.  Professor John Jackson is an Emeritus Professor of Comparative Criminal Law and Procedure at The University of Nottingham.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

  --------  

  1:13:25

  --------

  1:13:25
• Martin Moore and Thomas Colley, "Dictating Reality: The Global Battle to Control the News" (Columbia UP, 2025)

  From the United States to China and from Brazil to India, an authoritarian approach to news is spreading across the world. Increasingly, the media is no longer a check on power or a source of objective information but a means by which governments and leaders can propagate their versions of reality, however biased or false. In Dictating Reality: The Global Battle to Control the News (Columbia UP, 2025), Dr. Martin Moore and Dr. Thomas Colley show how states are battling to control and shape the news in order to entrench their power, evade scrutiny, and ensure that their political narratives are accepted. Combining in-depth analyses of seven countries with a compelling range of stories and characters from around the world, they demonstrate the unprecedented scale and scope of governments’ efforts to take control of the media. Dictating Reality details how Xi’s China, Putin’s Russia, Modi’s India, AMLO’s Mexico, Bolsonaro’s Brazil, and Orban’s Hungary have all sought, in their different ways, to exploit news to manufacture alternative realities—and how their methods have taken hold in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other democracies. Combining keen analysis of contemporary world events with years of original research, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how authoritarian leaders use the media, why more and more people are living in different realities, and the ways democracy is under threat. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

  --------  

  1:00:44

  --------

  1:00:44
• Kate Epstein on How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

  In this episode I sit down with Kate Epstein, an associate professor of history at Rutgers University-Camden, as she details her research on the intersection of defense contracting, intellectual property, and government secrecy in Great Britain and the United States. We talk about her process in researching and writing her latest book Analog Superpowers: How Twentieth-Century Technology Theft Built the National-Security State and how breaking the law, historically speaking, has been important for the emergence of new technologies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/national-security

  --------  

  1:33:30

  --------

  1:33:30

Más podcasts de Ciencias

Podcasts a la moda de Ciencias

Acerca de New Books in National Security

New Books in National Security: Podcasts del grupo