Selling War and Peace
Syria and the Anglosphere

Holland analyses foreign policy debates in the Anglosphere (US, UK and Australia) during the Syrian Civil War.

Jack Holland (Author)

9781108489249, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 May 2020

302 pages, 1 table
23.4 x 15.9 x 1.9 cm, 0.54 kg

'If you want to make sense of the West's seemingly heartless and erratic response to the horrors of the Syrian civil war, look no further than this book. The author provides a theoretically sophisticated, empirically meticulous, clear and incisive analysis of this most distressing of contemporary conflicts, and the role of the Anglosphere Coalition in the perpetuation of insecurity in the Middle East. In fact, if you want to understand war and peace in the world today, start here. A brilliant piece of IR scholarship, and a major contribution to critical constructivism.' Richard Jackson, University of Otago

By analysing Anglosphere foreign policy debates during the Syrian Civil War from 2011 to 2019, this book is a significant contribution to the literature in three fields. First, the book analyses the entirety of the Syrian Civil War in an innovative four-phase chronology, as the conflict evolved from calls for democracy, through chemical weapons concerns, to the rise of ISIL and the onset of Great Power proxy war. Second, the book maps and theorises Anglosphere foreign policy, charting the history and future of the US-UK-Australian military alliance during a key period of political uncertainty, defined by Donald Trump's presidency and the UK's Brexit negotiations. Third, the book develops a post-constructivist framework for the analysis of transnational political debates which determine war and peace in Syria and beyond. This framework emphasises the hard nature of soft power and the coercion of political opponents through forceful words.

Introduction
1. The Syrian civil war
2. The Anglosphere
3. Selling war and peace
4. Democracy and human rights
5. Chemical weapons
6. Islamic State
7. Proxy war
Conclusion
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Armed conflict [JPWS], International relations [JPS], Politics & government [JP]