Böcker av Walter C. Soderlund

The Syrian Civil War has created the worst humanitarian disaster since the end of World War II, sending shock waves through Syria, its neighbours, and the European Union. Calls for the international community to intervene in the conflict, in compliance with the UN-sanctioned Responsibility to Protect (R2P), occurred from the outset and became even more pronounced following President Assad's use of chemical weapons against civilians in August 2013. Despite that egregious breach of international convention, no humanitarian intervention was forthcoming, leaving critics to argue that UN inertia early in the conflict contributed to the current crisis Syria, Press Framing, and The Responsibility to Protect examines the role of the media in framing the Syrian conflict, their role in promoting or, on the contrary, discouraging a robust international intervention. The media sources examined are all considered influential with respect to the shaping of elite views, either directly on political leaders or indirectly through their influence on public opinion. The volume provides a review of the arguments concerning appropriate international responses to events in Syria and how they were framed in leading newspapers in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada during the crucial early years of the conflict; considers how such media counsel affected the domestic contexts in which American and British decisions were made not to launch forceful interventions following Assad's use of sarin gas in 2013; and offers reasoned speculation on the relevance of R2P in future humanitarian crises in light of the failure to protect Syrian civilians.

Long-simmering conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur came to a boil in the spring of 2003 and became a focus of American media attention in September 2004. After the genocide in Rwanda the international community developed a new way to deal with genocide-the 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine which legitimized intervention in case of egregious loss of human life. Despite this new doctrine, it took over five years of conflict in Darfur before the U. N. began intervening. The Responsibility to Protect in Darfur: The Role of Mass Media, traces the development of international intervention in domestic conflict, culminating in the concept of 'Responsibility to Protect' in 2001. The authors explain the background and complexity of the crisis besetting Darfur, and document U.S. media coverage of the crisis in terms of framing that would mobilize public opinion behind international intervention. The book traces evolution in international norms regarding state sovereignty and human rights that led to the articulation of 'Responsibility to Protect' and its subsequent adoption by the international community in 2005. It provides an understanding of the complex nature of the Darfur crises, in a way that was seriously lacking in media coverage. The authors also analyze the affects media coverage of the crisis had on the world's reaction, particularly in the U.S. Specifically it looks at television coverage of the crisis, and the newspaper coverage, particularly through The New York Times. Finally, the authors ask if 'Responsibility to Protect' was helpful in Darfur, and if it will be in the future for other countries.

The Responsibility to Protect , the report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), focused on three international responsibilities in the area of human security: the responsibility to prevent, the responsibility to react, and the responsibility to rebuild. The report acknowledged the difficulty of identifying countries likely to experience widespread civil violence and then predicting when this would occur. But the authors of this book submit that if ever a case of a responsibly to prevent was possible to anticipate, South Sudan was it. A Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended the Sudanese second civil war in 2005 with a call for a referendum to be held in South Sudan in 2011 to determine the regions future, In the event, an overwhelming majority voted for independence for the region. The question that motivated this book is whether the CPA would set in motion a process resulting in yet another brutal conflict, and, if that conflict was widely predicted, what should be the response of the international community in terms of responsibility to prevent? Mass media coverage has been identified as an important factor in mobilizing the international community into action in crisis and potential crisis situations; however, the impact of media reporting on actual decision-making is unclear. Thirty-plus years of research has demonstrated consistent agenda-setting effects, while a more recent stream of research has confirmed significant framing effects, the latter most likely to occur in cases where advocacy framing is used. This book examines the way in which the press in Canada and the United States interpreted the potential for violence that accompanied South Sudans independence in 2011, and whether or not their governments had a responsibility to prevent.

This is an empirical examination of US network coverage of seven post-Cold War crises that occured in the Caribbean Basin, ranging from Cuba to Mexico, between 1990 and 1996, to evaluate the framing of these events by the various media covering them.