Samuel M. Makinda

Global Perspectives in Policing and Law Enforcement provides an exposition of policing and law enforcement practices, challenges, and opportunities in twenty different countries that were carefully selected to represent diverse geographic regions of the world. Each chapter presents policing from a different cultural background with diverse historical law enforcement experiences, varied social and demographic characteristics, and wide-ranging approaches to political leadership. By examining critical data and highlighting cracks within law enforcement across multiple countries, the contributors to this volume have created a framework of policing as it transitions into a modern outfit. Divided into parts, the book focuses on a large sample of countries from Africa, Europe, Asia, and Latin and Central America, North America and the Caribbean, as well as Australia and New Zealand. Such a broad coverage makes this book a critical reference point for those interested in criminal justice, criminology, political science, anthropology, and many others.

Fully revised and updated, the second edition of The African Union continues to offer the most comprehensive overview of the work of the African Union (AU), with special emphasis on its capacity to meet the challenges of building and sustaining governance institutions and security mechanisms.

This new edition:
• Re-examines the AU at the historic moment of the golden jubilee of the OAU (Organization of African Unity), its predecessor. It examines the AU’s efforts in its first decade, points out some of the organization’s weaknesses, and posits options for addressing more effectively the challenges of peace, security, and governance in coming years.

• Critically reviews several arrangements and initiatives, including the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM).

• Analyzes performance of key institutions and programs of the AU, including the Commission, the Executive Council, the Assembly, and the Pan-African Parliament (PAP) as well as the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD).

• Discusses how far instability and insecurity on the continent are consequences of bad governance and the lack of strategic leadership.

• Considers how the absence of a clearly articulated ideology may undermine the implementation of the AU agenda.

In addition to offering revised and updated chapters throughout, this edition includes one new chapter, which critically discusses the AU’s new international partnerships. With an emphasis on the current work of the AU and a view to the future of the organization, this book is essential reading for students and scholars researching African Politics and international organizations.

UNESCO has been, and still is, an important part of the global environment. The Organisation was established in 1946 to foster intellectual cooperation at an international level and work for the development of the sciences, arts, education, culture and communications. Through these areas of activity UNESCO has come to play a significant role in international politics. In recent years Western critics have accused this UN agency of, among other things, extraneous politicisation, but it was Western countries that politicised UNESCO in the 1940s and 1950s. From the 1960s, UNESCO, like similar UN agencies, has been influenced substantially by Third World countries, which have also attempted to use their numerical preponderance to re-define certain concepts and norms of international behaviour. In spite of UNESCO's recent problems, the Organisation will continue to play an important role in world politics.