Judging under Constraint: The Politics of Deference by International Courts. Theresa Squatrito. Cambridge University Press. 2025.

The concept of judicial deference is sometimes misrepresented as a black-and-white issue: a court decision is classified as either deferential or not. The term “deference” involves the principle that the courts will decline to make their own independent judgment on a particular issue. It differs from non-justiciability, where the latter applies to cases where an issue was said to be inherently unsuitable for judicial determination by reason only of its subject matter. Deference, on the other hand can be a matter of degree rather than a blanket rule entirely preventing judicial scrutiny.

Judicial deference in the Global South

Until now, judicial deference, activism and restraint have been considered almost exclusively in the context of Western international courts, While the instruments of deference of the European Court of Human Rights and the Court of Justice of the European Union have been subject to in-depth examination. Meanwhile, international courts in the Global South are usually relegated to the background, as if their geographical location and more recent establishment rendered them indifferent to judicial deference or incapable of exercising it. Very few books deal with this subject in international jurisdictions – Johannes Hendrik Fahner’s Judicial Deference in International Adjudication (2022) and Deference in International Courts and Tribunals edited by Lukasz Gruszczynski and Wouter Werner (2014) are two notable examples.

Theresa Squatrito, a specialist in international jurisdictions, examines these rarely studied courts after brilliantly tackling, among other things, the performance of international courts and tribunals in previous books. She examines the occurrence of deference in three international courts: your three case studies, the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), and the African Court of Human and People’s Rights (ACtHPR) Beyond being underexamined, these courts are also interesting because of their more recent creation compared to courts in the Global North. The ACtHPR was established in 2004, while the other two were both established in 2001.

Neither the EACJ, CCJ nor the ACtHPR simply refrain from issuing judgments or actively endorsing a state’s decision.

The specific challenges faced by countries in the Global South – including political and economic instability, limited state authority, and issues of social integration – have shaped the form and function of courts therein. The effectiveness of these courts varies, and they operate according to different criteria than those in the Global North. The courts reflect the political systems within which they operate, revealing the conflicts, priorities and norms of the individuals and institutions that seek to instrumentalise them to achieve their objectives.

Courts’ independence and convergence

The author’s meticulous analysis demonstrates that neither the EACJ, CCJ nor the ACtHPR simply refrain from issuing judgments or actively endorsing a state’s decision. Their role goes far beyond that. Everything hinges on strategic manoeuvres and the two elements that stem from them: the degree of independence (the ability of courts to make decisions free from outside pressure) and convergence (when two courts seized of the same or similar matter, issue convergent judgments). The greater the divergences, the more difficult it will be for these states to disregard the Court’s decision. The more states have the opportunity to act in accordance with the Court’s rules, the more vulnerable the Court becomes, which can limit its strategic room for manoeuvre.

But in reality, judicial deference occurs is influenced by many interrelated factors and manifests itself along a continuous spectrum. The author brilliantly demonstrates the unique nature of the constrained judgments of these jurisdictions, which operate within a complex context where each evolves in its own way. In the first chapter, the author clarifies the central phenomenon of the work: deference, by proposing an operationalisation of deference based on three characteristics of judicial decisions: the outcome of the case, legal interpretation and reasoning, and reparations.

The impact of a court’s strategic space

The objective is to explain the variations in judicial deference while situating judicial decision-making within the strategic space of international jurisdictions (55). This strategic space derives from its competing incentives, which it has by virtue of being a court. This corresponds to the scope of this space. In this first chapter, by proposing an operationalisation of deference based on the outcome of the case (33), interpretation, legal reasoning, and reparations (32), the author argues that the key factors shaping a jurisdiction’s strategic space are the rules guaranteeing judicial independence and the degree of political fragmentation (23).

Like the other two courts, the ACtHPR’s colonial past has led to its oscillating between political independence and non-interference on the one hand, and regional cooperation and human rights on the other.

More precisely, its weak formal independence undermines its legitimacy. Analysing the ACtHPR, the author observes that, like the other two courts, its colonial past has led to its oscillating between political independence and non-interference on the one hand, and regional cooperation and human rights on the other. This phenomenon, exacerbated by complex legal pluralism (206) which refers to the co-existence of different legal systems within a society or geographical area, judicial insecurity, and distrust of the state legal order, explains its reluctance to refrain from exercising its authority (214), precisely because of its significant formal independence.

According to the author, while the EACJ has the smallest strategic space due to its low formal independence and low to medium political fragmentation, the CCJ has the second largest strategic space, resulting from strong formal independence and homogeneous preferences among CARICOM member states. On the other hand, the ACtHPR shows both relatively political fragmentation and high formal independence and therefore possesses the largest strategic space.

Trends across the three courts

The author presents overall trends in deference of each court (chapters four to six) and reveals that the EACJ decisions demonstrate greater deference than those of the other two courts. While the EACJ adopts restrictive interpretations and applies limited scrutiny when examining the actions or decisions of states, in the other two, restrictive interpretations and limited review tend to be the exception.

Squatrito suggests that non-deference is more pronounced when a decision combines several remedies, as opposed to a single remedy (chapter two). For example, if a tribunal orders both restitution and compensation, it demonstrates less deference than if it only ordered compensation. Of the three measures of deference, the ACtHPR demonstrates the greatest deference, followed by the CCJ and the EACJ. Over time, international communities can exert their influence over their strategic space by adopting practices that help enhance their legitimacy while reducing the plausibility of state resistance through persuasive fragmentation and public legitimation.

In terms of a court’s citation practices – which she believes can also reveal the strength of its arguments – the EACJ cites external case law more frequently than the CCJ and the ACtHPR. In this regard, she argues that, while all courts cite authoritative sources to support their judgments, a court’s strategic leeway determines the type of sources that strengthen its legitimacy and mitigate resistance from states.

The book sheds light on how courts in developing countries defer in their own way to states, as well as their relationships with issues of judicial independence, political fragmentation, and legitimacy.

Balanced in its approach, the book does not claim to demonstrate how the courts should have acted, nor how they should have proceeded. No chapter seeks to prove that the courts failed in their duty. Nor does Squatrito try to answer the question of why excessive deference – and not a certain or even undue amount of judicial restraint – can become very problematic within the jurisdictions studied. She leaves the reader to form their own opinion.

Overall, this illuminating, well-written volume is grounded in rich academic scholarship and will be an excellent resource to those interested in the workings of international courts in the Global South. It should be read carefully and thoughtfully. It sheds light, effectively and in depth, how courts in developing countries defer in their own way to states, as well as issues of judicial independence, political fragmentation, and legitimacy.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

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The New Censorship: How the War on the Media is Taking Us Down. Ayala Panievsky. Footnote. 2025.

New censorship under new authoritarianism

The term “New Censorship” is not, in fact, new, This is something Ayala Panievsky acknowledges in her recent book bearing the phrase with the subheading, How the War on the media is Taking Us Down (2025). While it is hard to date it with any certainty, “New Censorship” seems to have originated in 2004-2005 to describe the role that Institutional Review Boards in American universities had in supressing academic freedom. The term then became popularised in 2015 with the publication of journalist (and then-president of the Committee to Protect Journalists)’s Joel Simon’s The New Censorship: Inside the Global Battle for Media Freedom (2015). Simon’s use of the term highlights how governments around the world have curtailed the freedom of the press by using digital technology to supress, survey, and intimidate journalists.

Panievsky’s use of the term shares a lot with Simon’s, but also attends to developments that have emerged in our current populist era. It builds on ideas that have been developed by such prominent figures as Chinese artist and anti-censorship activist Ai Weiwei, who recently released a book on censorship, and American journalist Sharyl Attkisson, whose 2021 book Slanted focuses on the media’s role in obfuscating facts to sell a particular narrative.

Our “right-to-know” under threat

According to Panievsky, New Censorship now describes a fully-fledged assault, carried out by pseudo-authoritarians, on the general public’s “right-to-know,”  which holds that citizens have “the right to know what the government is doing on its behalf”. This assault is fuelled and justified by a populist narrative that journalists are part of an “elite” that seeks to mislead the “real” people of a nation. Its most common form is that of a multi-pronged assault that includes (but is not limited to): the changing of legislation to weaken public media; purchasing (and therefore controlling) national media organisations; creating parallel news agencies that recount a government-sanctioned version of the “truth”; mobilising campaigns of hate against dissident journalists.

These methods of attack come back to the original aim-come-justification: of creating a national sentiment against independent journalists that paints them as traitors against ordinary citizens. Panievsky notes that this form of attack is prevalent worldwide, having been pioneered by reactionary forces in Israel and spread across the globe, from Argentina to the United States, and from Europe to India.

While many journalists (such as Raviv Drucker), academics (countless academics worldwide, including in Hungary and the United States), and everyday citizens (like Abboud Battah) have noted, documented, and indeed experienced the hostile environment created by this populist New Censorship, there are two elements of Panievsky’s chronicle that make this book the definitive starting point for any future discussions on the subject. These are Panievsky’s positioning within the debate, and her proposals for fighting back.

Panievsky paints a convincing picture of Netanyahu’s Israel as a key originator of not only the methods, but also the rhetoric behind populist New Censorship.

The Netanyahu model of censorship

At the time of publication, Panievsky was working as an academic at the University of London, a position she earned following the completion of a highly regarded doctoral thesis at the University of Cambridge. Perhaps a large part of Panievsky’s academic success stemmed from her frontline work within Israeli media and politics, both as a journalist holding power to account and as a member of the political establishment (albeit briefly).

Her journalistic experience is what gives her account of New Censorship its biggest boost. She employs it to paint a convincing picture of Netanyahu’s Israel as a key originator of not only the methods, but also the rhetoric behind populist New Censorship. Indeed, Panievsky frames Netanyahu as a point of inspiration for those who admire his building of an “illiberal democracy”, with his particular brand of attacking, discrediting, and attempting to isolate those that threaten his increasingly brazen attempts at solidifying power around himself being justified as “fighting back” against “traitors” to the nation and as those working to mislead ‘normal’ people. Notable alumni of his methods include Viktor Orban, Narendra Modi, Donald Trump, and (though not in power) Nigel Farage.

The book is grounded in this lived experience, as well as dozens of interviews with affected journalists, and carefully researched observations of populist attacks on the very foundations of journalism.

The book is grounded in this lived experience, as well as dozens of interviews with affected journalists, and carefully researched observations of populist attacks on the very foundations of journalism. This work is presented as a series of arguments and demonstrations that do not aim to establish a chronological history of the New Censorship, but rather to highlight and expose the various forms that it takes. This format is arguably a disadvantage, especially for future rather than contemporary readers. It does not provide its audience with enough background information to establish the necessary context behind, and the wide reach of, the New Censorship.

Active resistance to right-wing populism and censorship

The book presents a rather grim state of affairs, with pseudo-authoritarians solidifying control over liberal-democratic politics, bullying and successfully repressing journalists and other challengers of their power. Panievsky deems it too late to stop the rise of such trends – they are already here. But that doesn’t mean that this New Censorship cannot be challenged. The concluding chapter presents a series of “action points” that everyone, from journalists to everyday citizens can take to secure our collective “right-to-know”. These actions include, but are not limited to: campaigning for journalistic freedom, finding new ways of “belonging” that are not limited to nationality; financially or vocally supporting independent media; and challenging blatant misinformation.

This conclusion is the book’s greatest strength: its absolute rejection of defeatism, a sentiment that is sorely needed amongst liberals and leftists alike in our current age of rising right-wing populism

This conclusion is the book’s greatest strength: its absolute rejection of defeatism, a sentiment that is sorely needed amongst liberals and leftists alike in our current age of rising right-wing populism. This section transforms the book from a compelling read into an essential handbook for all those concerned over the rise of authoritarian politics, no matter where they sit on the political spectrum.

Panievsky’s clear-sightedness and drive to resist those forces that seek to restrict our collective “right-to-know” is admirable – so much so that it has motivated me into taking action myself, in ways where I can meaningfully have an impact. This includes getting more active in reporting and challenging misinformation when and where I see it, both online and offline. I am also trying my hand at citizen-journalism: essentially – using my academic credentials to challenge government over-reach into our private lives, and the lives of the most vulnerable among us. I also intend to pay for all the news that I read or watch when I can afford to, to help sustain the independent news outlets I rely on. These may seem like small steps, but the more people that take such measures to resist the New Censorship and the rise of authoritarianism, the better we can protect our right-to-know from those who are keen to keep us isolated and ignorant.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

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Reconstruction as Violence in Assad’s Syria. Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp (editors). The American University in Cairo Press. 2025. 

Does reconstruction translate to liberation? 

Reconstruction as Violence in Assad’s Syria edited by Nasser Rabbat and Deen Sharp, offers a critical and thought-provoking examination of post-war reconstruction in Syria under the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The editors frame reconstruction (the rebuilding of urban landscapes, infrastructures, legal and bureaucratic frameworks relating to housing and land) not as a neutral process restoring function and stability, but as a continuation of violence through political, economic, and social mechanisms. The editors and authors demonstrate how the Syrian government used reconstruction policies to consolidate authoritarian power, reward loyalists, punish opposition communities, and reshape Syrian society after years of civil war.  

The destruction caused by war created opportunities for the regime to redesign cities, confiscate property, alter demographics, and strengthen networks of political and economic loyalty.

Previous studies of reconstruction policies, like the work of Eric Foner and Olivia Mahoney have focused on the US. But Rabbat and Sharp, who both have backgrounds in Islamic architecture focus on Middle Eastern politics, urban transformation, and humanitarian governance, specifically in Syria. In this volume, they bring together architects, urbanists, geographers, and historians to mount a multidisciplinary challenge to the common assumption that reconstruction naturally leads to peace and recovery. Instead, the authors contend, it can be (and has been) deployed as a strategic tool of domination and exclusion.  

Their focus is the Syrian reconstruction process following the devastating civil war that began in 2011. The authors in this volume argue that the Assad regime transformed reconstruction into a political weapon. The destruction caused by war created opportunities for the regime to redesign cities, confiscate property, alter demographics, and strengthen networks of political and economic loyalty. Across ten multidisciplinary chapters, the book argues that efforts directed towards a just peace and liberation must entail real community building, and decolonisation. 

Urban planning and authoritarian control 

One of the central themes of the book is the relationship between urban planning and authoritarian control. Deen Sharp in Chapter Five discuss several laws and policies introduced by the Syrian government, particularly those related to land ownership and redevelopment. These laws enabled the state to seize property from displaced citizens, especially in areas associated with opposition movements. As millions of Syrians became refugees or internally displaced persons, many lost their legal rights to homes and land because they could not provide official ownership documents within the limited timeframes. 

The book highlights the role of crony capitalism in reconstruction. Wealthy businessmen connected to the regime received privileged access to reconstruction contracts and investment opportunities. Reconstruction therefore became not only a political project but also an economic system benefiting regime allies. Instead of addressing the needs of ordinary Syrians, reconstruction primarily served elite interests. It supports the shift toward a political economy that privileges clusters of business elites and regime interest-holders, most of whom are invulnerable to democratic oversight and largely immune to traditional sanctioning by the international community.  

Another important aspect discussed is demographic engineering. In the Chapter Three “Rethinking Reconstruction Through Informal Settlements”, Valérie Clerc argues that reconstruction policies intentionally reshape the social composition of Syrian cities. Areas previously considered centres of resistance were targeted for redevelopment, often preventing former residents from returning. In this sense, rebuilding becomes a method of permanently altering the political landscape. The book further critiques the international community’s involvement in Syria. It questions whether foreign governments and humanitarian organisations unintentionally legitimise authoritarian practices when participating in reconstruction efforts without demanding political reform or accountability. 

Reconstruction as violence 

A great strength of the volume is its innovative conceptual framework. The phrase “reconstruction as violence” captures the idea that violence does not end when armed conflict declines. Instead, violence may continue through bureaucratic systems, economic exclusion, forced displacement, and state-controlled urban planning. This perspective broadens traditional understandings of post-conflict recovery. Also impressive is the author’s interdisciplinary approach is also impressive. By combining political analysis, urban studies, legal examination, and social theory, the book provides a comprehensive understanding of the Syrian situation. The use of case studies and policy analysis strengthens the argument and demonstrates how reconstruction policies operate in practice. Another strength lies in the book’s moral and political critique. It challenges optimistic narratives promoted by governments and international actors regarding post-war rebuilding. Reconstruction is never politically neutral, we are reminded. Decisions about who rebuilds, who returns, who benefits, and who is excluded are deeply connected to power relations. 

Reconstruction is never politically neutral, we are reminded. Decisions about who rebuilds, who returns, who benefits, and who is excluded are deeply connected to power relations. 

However, the book may face criticism from readers seeking a more balanced presentation of the Syrian government’s perspective. While the authors convincingly document authoritarian practices, the book gives more limited attention to the practical challenges faced by a state attempting to rebuild after massive destruction and international sanctions. Because the editors and authors take strong political positions, some may disagree with their arguments. Additionally, the book is academically dense in some sections, especially when discussing legal frameworks and urban governance theories. Readers unfamiliar with Syrian politics or critical theory may find certain chapters difficult 

 Nevertheless, the overall argument remains clear and compelling. It demonstrates that rebuilding processes can reproduce inequality, deepen repression, and institutionalise wartime power structures. The Syrian case becomes an example of how states may weaponise reconstruction for political survival. The work is especially valuable for students and researchers in Middle Eastern Studies, Political Science, Urban Studies, and International Relations. It also provides useful insights for policymakers, humanitarian organisations, and human rights advocates concerned with ethical reconstruction practices in conflict zones. More broadly, the book raises universal questions about justice, memory, displacement, and state power in post-war societies. Although focused on Syria, its arguments may apply to other countries where reconstruction becomes intertwined with political control. 

The book successfully challenges conventional understandings of reconstruction by showing that rebuilding efforts may reinforce political domination, economic inequality, and social exclusion. Through detailed analysis of Syrian policies, urban transformation, and regime strategies, the volume reveals how reconstruction serves as both a political and economic instrument of power. Illuminating the complexities and power dynamics of post-conflict governance. it is an essential resource in both the Syrian context and beyond. 

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science. 

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The Sage Handbook of Decolonial Theory. Jairo I. Funez-Flores, Ana Carolina Diaz Beltran, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sandeep Bakshi, Agustin Lao-Montes and Flavia Rios (editors). Sage. 2025.

Decolonisation and deflection

“Decolonisation” has entrenched itself firmly on the psyche of academics and practitioners since Tuck and Yang’s seminal 2012 article, “Decolonization is not a Metaphor”. In the article, they argue that the “language of decolonization has been superficially adopted into education and other social sciences, supplanting prior ways of talking about social justice, critical methodologies, or approaches which decentre settler perspectives”. But Tuck and Yang’s call for re-centring decolonisation into its original context of resistance against violent oppression remains unheeded in the context of Eurocentric discourse on colonialism and its remnants across the world. As I have also argued, decolonisation stems from actual acts of violent resistance, or in the words of Frantz Fanon, “evokes for us the searing bullets and bloodstained knives which emanate from it.” There is a danger that the word can be used to deflect. Safe in academia, it can abstract the violent colonisation and oppression that continues today in the form of illegal wars, ethnic cleansing and lack of Indigenous reconciliation.

This handbook consciously attempts to de-link decolonial theory from its origins in the Frankfurt School and other conventional academic perspectives.

The Sage Handbook of Decolonial Theory, edited by Jairo I. Funez-Flores, Ana Carolina Diaz Beltran, Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Sandeep Bakshi, Agustin Lao-Montes and Flavia Rios, is an attempt to contradict this deflection. Its approach to this is to disrupt “conventional understandings of “society” by showing how entangled structures of power cannot be sufficiently examined by ignoring the global linkages established by racial capitalism, colonialism and heteropatriarchy.” It does so using a multidisciplinary – or, moving beyond academia, a multi-sectoral – approach to addressing issues of oppression, occupation, racism and capitalism. It simultaneously examines contemporary events that illustrate these issues and challenges existing decolonial theoretical frameworks.

A bottom-up perspective

Previous literature on decolonial theory has usually adopted the frameworks and methodologies of the Eurocentric (and often defended) Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, or other conventional academic perspectives. This handbook consciously attempts to de-link decolonial theory from these origins. It instead imagines new ways of situating decoloniality to address struggles of resistance against violence and oppression. In essence, it establishes a new form of scholarship that looks at decolonial practice from a bottom-up perspective of the subjugated subaltern rather than a top-down perspective of the Eurocentric oppressor.

This enormous volume – comprising 42 chapters written by scholars, practitioners and social activists from or of the Global South – brings into focus various geographies where colonialism, illegal occupation, racial capitalism, genocide, Indigenous practices among other social injustices, has been rife. Palestine, the Indigenous Peoples of the Abya Yala (North America), decolonial feminists, queer Muslims (yes, Muslims!) are just some of the subjects the Handbook spotlights. In so doing, it departs from Eurocentric knowledge, as the editors call on new ways to interpret the praxis between decolonial theory and decolonial practice. The co-editors and contributors themselves all bring a rich background of lived experience in decolonial struggles – Indigenous activism, Black antiracism, feminist activism, journalism, abolitionism, and Palestinian liberation, and of course, academia.

The book’s themes place decolonial thought and theory across three streams of thought and practice: the Palestinian struggle for liberation; Indigenous knowledge and resistance in North America (Abya Yala); and queer sexualities and liberation.

It does this by structuring its contributions by 46 contributors around five key themes; key debates in decolonial history; geopolitics and geographies, transdisciplinarity, feminisms, genders and sexuality and racial capitalism. The book’s themes place decolonial thought and theory across three streams of thought and practice: the Palestinian struggle for liberation; Indigenous knowledge and resistance in North America (Abya Yala); and queer sexualities and liberation. Black liberation and diasporic identity have the possibility of forming a fourth stream, while cutting across the first three. Each of these sections forms a sizable work in its own right.

A selective framework on decoloniality

These cases and contexts explored in the chapters raise some questions: what about other geographies of decolonial resistance? For instance, a chapter on Hindu Nationalism and Indigeneity introduces a lesser-known influence on decolonial thought, but what of the Dalit resistance (one of the contributors is Dalit and Queer), or the recent ethnic violence in the north-east Indian state of Manipur, that effortlessly fall under the decolonial struggles the book details? Similarly, a chapter on Decolonial Islamophobia Studies argues for the need for anti-Muslim racism or Islamophobia to be understood and studied from a decolonial lens, incorporating solidarity with others affected by power and coloniality. But is it also worthwhile to try to understand the growing hyper-religious sentiment within many Muslim nations that could lead to repressive societal changes such as denying women’s, trans and queer rights among Muslims? The latter issue of queer representation and positionality is raised exceptionally well in chapters on caste and South Asian Queer diaspora and Islam and Queer life, respectively.

Likewise, while the volume includes individual contributions on decolonial perceptions of slavery, climate, fascism and economic disempowerment, it could have been worthwhile to develop a framework of how decoloniality can use these as legitimate forms of liberation from the oppressive structures they represent. For instance, how can decolonial thinking draw on the history of transatlantic slavery to dismantle the structures of modern slavery now implicated in climate disasters, corporate power and rising authoritarianism? Is this even possible?  

Inviting further work on decoloniality

None of these observations supposes that the contributions in this volume should or can be exhaustive. Instead, the wide range of issues it covers are only a part of what must be a wider debate on decolonial thought. Beyond this volume, we must find other ways, subjects and lenses through which to examine the impacts of different forms of resistance. And rather than examine them in isolation from each other, we should explore how one connects to another. While the book reflects many of these practices of resistance in India, Jamaica, Mexico, and Ghana, it also creates room for future scholarly exploration of how decolonial theory feeds into praxis across various geographies, religions and cultures.

Arguably the book’s most important contribution is how forcefully and unapologetically it resists both the Eurocentric delegitimisation of whole communities and the limitations of decolonial theory as a paradigm.

But the editors also rightly recognise that “departing from the Eurocentric knowledge production does not suggest that the Global South has a privileged epistemic viewpoint”. They contend that “Questioning power is not a result of one’s geopolitical location of sociocultural identity, but of one’s praxis, understood here as collective action informed by thought and reflection”. While it is not possible to comment on each chapter of this expansive handbook, arguably the book’s most important contribution is how forcefully and unapologetically it resists both the Eurocentric delegitimisation of whole communities (the Indigenous peoples of the Abya Yala, Palestine or now, Iran) and the limitations of decolonial theory as a paradigm. Emphasising this dehumanisation and the struggles against it, the book is dedicated to the Palestinian Resistance, before and after the events of October 7^th 2023. In its framework and the contributions of individual chapters,

The Sage Handbook of Decolonial Theory is an urgent, important contribution to scholarship and other types of work that illuminates and drives struggle against oppression in old and new forms. It will be an excellent resource for understanding historical and contemporary struggles of liberation and resistance. It will appeal to scholars, practitioners, activists and anyone interested in furthering those struggles and participating in the real, and often challenging work, of decolonisation.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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Children’s Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Kenya: Going Beyond Multi-dimensionality. Elizabeth Ngutuku. Routledge. 2025.

The crisis of child poverty extends far beyond a simple lack of household income. It is a fundamental violation of human rights and a “denial of choices and opportunities” stunting a child’s physical, mental and social development. Poverty in childhood can have irreversible effects, as even short periods of deprivation can cause irreversible damage to a child’s long-term growth and potential. Child poverty must be understood, therefore, as a multidimensional phenomenon. Traditional poverty measures often focus on a “dollar-a-day” income threshold, but this approach ignores household resource distribution and the importance of non-market-based goods like public infrastructure and protection.

Intervening into this discourse Elizabeth Ngutuku’s Children’s Lived Experience of Poverty and Vulnerability in Kenya: Going Beyond Multidimensionality is a critical ethnographic account of children’s lived experiences in Siaya, Kenya, drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2016 and 2017. While examining dominant policy and academic narratives related to child vulnerability, the study makes a paradigm shift from abstract categorisations to the everyday realities through which children navigate poverty, loss and institutional constraints. Rather than treating vulnerability as a fixed condition measurable through standardised indicators of “well-being,” the author focuses on how children actively live with, interpret, and respond to precarious circumstances.

Biometrics, bureaucracy and exclusion

A key empirical contribution is the book’s analysis of welfare access mediated through biometric systems. The registration of beneficiaries through mothers creates a structural fragility: when mothers die, children are rendered ineligible due to failed verification processes. This exposes a critical disjuncture between technology-based governance and social realities. The system, ostensibly designed to enhance efficiency and accountability, produces exclusion, revealing how administrative infrastructures can inadvertently accentuate vulnerability.

The book challenges the prevailing “lack of well-being” framework, which reduces children’s conditions to numerical indicators, and provides a more nuanced understanding of how children experience and negotiate day-to-day hardships. Categories such as the orphaned, fostered, sick, or outsider child are shown to be fluid and overlapping, with no neat classification. In contexts heavily affected by HIV/AIDS, where many children find themselves orphaned, the analysis highlights the social-relational dimensions of vulnerability, including social stigma, marginalisation and shifting household roles. At the same time, Ngtuku highlights children’s emergent agency and challenges their portrayal as passive victims.

Historical production of vulnerability

The issue of child vulnerability in Kenya is not merely a contemporary crisis, the book argues; it is rooted in colonial and early postcolonial governance. For instance, during the Mau Mau emergency (1952–1960), policy interventions including detention, villagisation and Operation Anvil disrupted family structures and livelihoods, resulting in long-term deprivation. Framed as protective measures, these functioned as mechanisms of surveillance and control. By situating present-day vulnerability within this political-historical continuum, the author introduces the concept of “vulnerabilization” as part of describing how state power systematically constructs, sustains and manages marginality.

By centring children’s visual storytelling, the author challenges extractive research practices and reorients interpretation towards participants’ perspectives.

The analysis of the Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) framework provides an important critique of global development discourse. Following the HIV/AIDS narratives, the OVC category mobilised international attention and funding but also narrowed the definition of vulnerability. The emphasis on crisis narratives shifted the responsibility from the State to communities, promoting localised care models, while diluting State accountability. Despite significant policy activity, implementation remains uneven with many vulnerable children falling outside the framework’s scope. The critique underscores the limitations of donor-driven approaches that prioritise visibility and measurability over contextual responsiveness.

Participatory research and household vulnerabilities

Methodologically, the book offers a compelling insight into participatory research through photo narratives. By centring children’s visual storytelling, the author challenges extractive research practices and reorients interpretation towards participants’ perspectives. The discussion of “prosthetic visuality” (storytelling through photographs) is particularly insightful, illustrating how visual methods extend understanding beyond verbal accounts. This approach enriches not only empirical insights but also foregrounds children’s agency, their aspirations and interpretive authority. The ethnography also provides detailed accounts of how vulnerability is lived and managed at the household level. Issues such as food insecurity, unstable income and caregiving strain are embedded within informal and precarious economic arrangements. One narrative of Pius and his mother illustrates the intergenerational transmission of insecurity, as both are drawn into increasingly unstable forms of labour. The shift from petty trade to subsistence exchange reflects the fragility of local economies and the constant negotiation required for survival.

The book also addresses sensitive dimensions of vulnerability, including the risk of sexual abuse. Practices such as separate sleeping arrangements for prepubescent children at households with the presence of sexually active adults reveal how risk is managed within constrained environments. These insights highlight the intersection of material deprivation and concerns of safety and bodily integrity.

Socialisation into scarcity

A striking contribution is the analysis of how caregivers normalise and communicate scarcity. Children are often made aware of household limitations as part of a broader moral pedagogy that emphasises resilience, responsibility and survival. While this transparency may foster adaptive capacities, it raises critical questions over the emotional and developmental consequences of an early exposure to deprivation. The ethnography effectively shows how structural poverty is internalised and reproduced through everyday practices of care.

“Free” primary education does not eliminate barriers, as hidden costs – described by children as “small things here and there” – continue to exclude the poorest.

Another significant theoretical intervention is how the book conceptualises schooling as an “assemblage”, drawing on Deleuzo-Guattarian thought. Here, assemblage refers to a dynamic and non-linear configuration of heterogeneous elements – such as education policy, material conditions, institutional practices, and children’s own agency – whose contingent interactions collectively shape schooling experiences. Moving beyond linear explanations of educational access and performance, this alternative framework emphasises the interplay between these factors as mutually constitutive rather than discrete. The analysis reveals how “free” primary education does not eliminate barriers, as hidden costs – described by children as “small things here and there” – continue to exclude the poorest.

Ethnographic details illustrate how uniforms, informal levies, and disciplinary practices, such as sending children home during exams, reproduce exclusion within ostensibly inclusive systems. The discussion on children’s labour further complicates notions of agency, showing how schooling is shaped by children’s engagement in work – whether through the opportunity costs of attending school, irregular attendance due to income-generating activities, or the ways children negotiate between educational participation and household survival needs. Attention to gender adds further depth. Girls’ schooling is mediated not only by institutional factors such as the availability of female teachers or separate toilets, but also by intra-household dynamics, including birth order and caregiving responsibilities, which structure their access to and continuity in education beyond static categorizations.

Rethinking agency in institutional contexts

The book offers a sophisticated reconceptualisation of children’s agency within support programs. Rejecting binary distinctions between compliance and resistance, it presents agency as relational and emergent within unequal institutional settings. Acts of disobedience are interpreted not as failures, but as analytically productive moments, that reveal structural contradictions within NGO interventions. This perspective shifts the evaluative focus from individual behaviour to systemic design, opening new avenues for rethinking program effectiveness and responsiveness.

Ngutuku’s ethnographic enquiry uncovers critical non-material dimensions like relational poverty, defined by shame, stigma, and the corrosive impact of parental stress on family relationships, which standard quantitative indicators frequently overlook

The book illustrates why understanding child poverty from an ethnographic perspective is an essential corrective to adult-centric, household-based measures which often obscure children’s unique, socially situated knowledge. Embracing a “child standpoint” facilitates “epistemic inclusivity,” acknowledging children as legitimate authorities on their own experiences of deprivation. Ngutuku’s ethnographic enquiry uncovers critical non-material dimensions like “relational poverty“, defined by shame, stigma, and the corrosive impact of parental stress on family relationships, which standard quantitative indicators frequently overlook. Prioritising children’s voices is revealed as vital for shifting policy towards holistic, child-centred responses that address the visceral, multi-dimensional reality of poverty.

Ngutuku’s book provides a substantial contribution to poverty studies, African studies and childhood studies. It convincingly argues that child poverty cannot be addressed through standardised policy “blueprints.” Instead, it calls for a citizenship-based approach, that recognises children as active claim-makers embedded within complex social, historical, and institutional contexts. By conceptualising poverty as an entanglement of material, discursive and relational dimensions, the book provides a nuanced and ethically grounded framework for understanding childhood in the Global South.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: Andrzej Kubik on Shutterstock.

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The Bonds of Freedom: Liberated Africans and the End of the Slave Trade. Jake Subryan Richards. 2025.

On March 25, 2026, the United Nations declared the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity in world history. This followed a motion introduced by Ghana, acknowledging the continuing impact of the slave trade on Africa and its global legacy. The slave trade significantly fuelled the economic development of Europe and the Americas at Africa’s expense, in clear violation of John Stuart Mill’s harm principle, which holds that the pursuit of individual happiness must not come at the cost of harm to others. The Bonds of Freedom: Liberated Africans and the End of the Slave Trade by Jake Subryan Richards arrives at a critical moment and offers an important intervention in the historiography of abolition and its aftermath.

Richards’ work forms part of a growing body of scholarship that re-centres liberated Africans within the history of abolition, alongside Ford and Parkinson’s Legislating Liberty: Liberated Africans and the Abolition Act, 1806–1824, as well as the edited volume by Anderson and Lovejoy, Liberated Africans and the Abolishing of the Slave Trade, 1807–1896. These works signal a broader historiographical shift toward examining the legal, social, and political lives of liberated Africans and their central role in shaping the end of the slave trade.

Reframing abolition and its aftermath

After more than three centuries of forced transportation of Africans across the Atlantic, the slave trade was formally abolished in the early 19th century. Plantation owners, however, received substantial compensation, which many reinvested in other economic ventures. Meanwhile, illegal slave trading persisted, prompting the deployment of naval squadrons tasked with intercepting slave ships. Many such vessels were captured and enslaved people “liberated.” Richards refers to these individuals as “liberated Africans.” Yet, an essential question remains: what did “freedom” actually mean for those who were liberated? The Bonds of Freedom provides compelling and unsettling answers.

The book examines the lives of Africans freed from intercepted slave ships after the 1807 abolition, demonstrating how ‘freedom’ often translated into new forms of coercion.

The book examines the lives of Africans freed from intercepted slave ships after the 1807 abolition, demonstrating how “freedom” often translated into new forms of coercion. Liberated Africans – men, women and children – were absorbed into controlled labour systems such as bonded labour, indentured servitude, and apprenticeships that could last over fourteen years. This outcome was hardly surprising given the powerful coalition opposed to abolition, comprising the plantation owners, financial institutions in London that underwrote slave voyages, and influential commercial interests in cities like Bristol, Glasgow, and Liverpool. Despite the efforts of anti-slavery patrols, slave trading continued into the late 19th century, particularly to Cuba and Brazil. Within this context, Richards argues that “liberation” frequently reproduced servitude through the actions of courts, state agents, and plantation economies. As he notes, the 1807 abolition “neither ended the slave trade nor guaranteed the security of liberated Africans” (10).

While the slave trade underdeveloped Africa, Richards further demonstrates that it simultaneously enriched Europe and the Americas. Enslaved labourers endured extreme exploitation – working up to twenty hours a day – and produced a significant share of global commodities, including on fifth of the world’s sugar in Cuba and half of the world’s coffee in Brazil (138). These examples reinforce the logic of racial capitalism and challenge Adam Smith’s assertion that slavery was an inefficient system for enslavers.

“Freedom” as reconstituted bondage

Under systems of apprenticeship and bonded labour, liberated Africans continued to endure severe exploitation, particularly on plantations in Brazil, Cuba, and across the Caribbean. They were alienated from their families, denied freedom of movement, inadequately fed, excluded from citizenship, and subjected to physical and sexual abuse, thus denied the rights later enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Couples were often separated, and punishment could be brutal – sometimes resulting in miscarriage or death (100-101). Their labour remained indispensable, contributing to major infrastructural projects, including prisons, railways, and agricultural enterprises. Richards observes, “… throughout the Atlantic world, the liberated Africans built the state” (109).

Individual cases illustrate these abuses vividly. A woman named Adenon reported severe beatings, noting that another woman was “beaten so badly that her clothing looked like a sieve” (109). On the slave ship Santa Cruz, captives were flogged and several died (160). Richards also recounts the story of Librada, who, despite being “rescued,” was forced into compulsory labour by Spanish colonial authorities and separated from her young child of seven years old (23). Such cases reveal a troubling paradox: those presented as liberators often became new agents of oppression. It is therefore unsurprising that these “liberated Africans” were sometimes described as “recaptured Africans,” (6) compelled to struggle for the real freedom.

Liberated Africans were not passive victims. They actively resisted and negotiated their circumstances through a variety of strategies.

Legal institutions such as the Vice Admiralty Courts (operating under prize law) and the Courts of Mixed Commission (under treaty law) failed to guarantee genuine freedom. Instead, they often facilitated the transformation of illegally trafficked Africans into legally controlled labourers. Enslavers exploited legal ambiguities to legitimise their claims, while the law remained silent on the long-term status of liberated Africans after apprenticeship – particularly regarding residency, property rights, and the fate of their children (201). In some cases, employers re-enslaved apprentices through fraudulent means, including falsified death certificates – a practice Richards terms the “mortuary economy” (74).

Resistance and solidarity

Despite these oppressive conditions, liberated Africans were not passive victims. They actively resisted and negotiated their circumstances through a variety of strategies. They demanded reforms to apprenticeship systems and ultimately sought full freedom, including adequate food, housing, rest days, and wages. Their capacity for collective action was strengthened by common linguistic or regional identities, and shared experiences which resulted to shipmate bonds during the Middle Passage; what social psychologists might describe as in-group solidarity. As a result, they organised petitions, riots, insurrections, mutual aid systems, and legal challenges to defend their rights and support one another.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its extensive use of diverse archival sources spanning South Africa, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Cuba and the United States.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its extensive use of diverse archival sources spanning South Africa, Sierra Leone, Brazil, Cuba and the United States. This breadth of evidence underscores its originality and scholarly rigor. Detailed accounts of slave ships such as Emila, Amila, Nancy, Amedie, Progreso, Santa Cruz, and Ysavel further enrich the narrative, offering case studies that challenge the notion of genuine emancipation.

Although Richards notes that apprentices were trained in trades such as tanning, cobbling, bookbinding, and agriculture – while women were largely assigned domestic labour – the book does not fully explore the outcomes of this “training”. Such outcomes are significant, especially given the arguments that many Africans already possessed sophisticated skills prior to enslavement, including expertise in iron working, agriculture, medicine, construction, and long-distance trade. Indeed, some scholars argue that enslaved Africans transferred valuable knowledge to the Americas, such as wet rice cultivation techniques in South Carolina and Georgia. This perspective complicates the narrative of “training” apprentices and highlights Africans as active agents in their history.

Overall, The Bonds of Freedom makes an important contribution to legal and Atlantic history by tracing the evolution and implications of numerous legal instruments, including the Slave Trade Act (1794), Foreign Slave Trade Act (1806), Abolition Act (1807), Slavery Abolition Act (1833), and subsequent 19th-century legislation. Crucially, Richards demonstrates how these laws functioned not simply as tools of emancipation but also as mechanisms for regulating and, at times, perpetuating coerced labour. The book will appeal to scholars of history, law, international relations, sociology, political science and development studies as well as for general readers interested in human rights and global justice.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: Studio Portrait of Woman Wearing Head Scarf, Shawl, and Plaid Skirt, Brazil (1861–62)
artist unknown. Open access courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, via The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2018.

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How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare. Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez. Stanford University Press. 2024.

The ongoing war between the United States, Israel, and Iran has brought several critical questions to the fore: What lies at the root of the grievances that triggered a protest movement in Iran earlier this year, exploited by the US and Israel? How widespread are the sentiments of resentment towards the regime among the Iranian population? How did Iranian society not collapse, and what prevented the sanctions from incapacitating the Iranian economy, thereby preserving Tehran’s ability to resist today?

How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare effectively answers these questions from different angles. It is written by Narges Bajoghli – an anthropologist with expertise in media, power, and military dynamics, Vali Nasr – a political scientist, specialising in international relations, Middle Eastern politics, and Islamic political movements, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani – an economist with interests in demographic and energy economics, with a focus on Iran and the Middle East, and Ali Vaez – a policy analyst that helped bridge gaps during Iran-P5+1 nuclear negotiations. What sets this book apart from other approaches is its balanced take on the subject, enabling readers to form their own opinions. Their multifaceted methodological approach, combining inputs from dozens of leading scholars, discourse analysis, interviews with Iranians, and quantitative analysis based on surveys and official economic data, lends further credence to their work.

Sanctions against Iran predate the expansion of Tehran’s nuclear program, initially imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis the same year. Over the decades, the sanctions regime became increasingly comprehensive.

Sanctions against Iran predate the expansion of Tehran’s nuclear program, initially imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the hostage crisis the same year. Over the decades, the sanctions regime became increasingly comprehensive: “no country in the world has been the target of this array of sanctions to the extent experienced by Iran over the past four decades (56).” Beyond the explicit restrictions on Iranian banks, oil revenues, and access to the global financial system also lies an unspoken component of the sanctions regime. The vagueness of the sanctions regulations, particularly in their language, coupled with Iran’s portrayal as a ‘pariah’ state, leads to their overinterpretation, effectively deterring the Western scientific, literary, and academic communities from interacting with their counterparts in Iran.

Impacts of sanctions on the public

On the impact of sanctions on the economy, the book offers compelling evidence.  Beginning in 2018, sanctions became increasingly harsh; between 2018 and 2021, healthcare costs in Iran rose by 125 per cent, and food prices increased by a staggering 186 per cent. The resultant hardships inevitably generated frustration among the public and, among some, resentment towards the regime. However, the expression of this resentment was not widespread enough to trigger regime change, one of the sanctions’ key goals. In fact, authors hold that sanctions weakened the middle class and strengthened the regime by increasing the population’s dependency on the state.

To highlight societal resilience, the authors include first-hand accounts of Iranians living through sanctions. Some respondents highlighted coping strategies that included detachment from the capitalist struggle for money and material desires, and finding refuge in nature, music, and art. For instance, Kaveh, an architect in his late thirties recounted, “I quit my job. I began to play music again. I hike and cook and document it all on my Instagram. I’ve found so many others my age who are doing the same thing… We’ve literally downsized our lives to two backpacks. We’ve given up the race of being ‘successful’ and instead have decided to connect with nature and music and art and each other” (26-27).

Businesses formed economic links with non-Western partners and learning from how sanctioned nations, such as Cuba, developed their domestic industries despite external embargoes.

The authors also show that, while the socioeconomic impacts were challenging, they did not become entirely dismal for most Iranians. Unemployment remained contained, as nearly half of all Iranian workers were self-employed, the country’s labour laws discouraged employers from laying off workers, and a large informal economy accommodated the unemployed. Meanwhile, the government’s decision to allow the currency to depreciate, along with the associated rise in the cost of imported goods, enabled domestic businesses to capture a larger market share and grow. Besides government cash transfers, mutual aid networks, run mostly by women, and formal impacts were charities helped the population in dealing with everyday hardships.

How sanctions drove innovation and complicated diplomacy

As with society, so did the economy adapt in meaningful ways, as sanctions forced Iran to innovate. In 2010, the then Iranian Supreme Leader, the martyred Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, formulated the notion of a “resistance economy’” (eghtesad-e moqavemat), calling on economists, scholars, and businessmen to propose and pursue policies to diversify markets and revenue sources. By providing testimonies from Iranian businesspeople, the authors show that businesses actively rallied behind these calls, forming economic links with non-Western partners and learning from how sanctioned nations, such as Cuba, developed their domestic industries despite external embargoes. More importantly, sanctions encouraged Tehran, alongside international actors such as China and Russia, to explore alternatives to the dollar-based cross-border payment system. These adaptations could not fully offset the impact of sanctions, given their scope and magnitude, but they kept Iran from collapsing under pressure.

But while the authors mention the role of “workarounds” in alleviating sanctions-related pressures, at times, readers are left seeking deeper explanations in some cases. For instance, What role did the Iranian shadow fleet of tankers play, and to what extent did it help mitigate the impact of sanctions on oil revenues? What role did barter trade play? Beyond this, an analysis of the role Iran’s high literacy rate, and the employment opportunities this affords, played in helping the country endure sanctions could have enriched the discussion.

The authors contend that sanctions complicated diplomacy, as they were easier to impose than to remove. Congress and domestic politics strongly supported Iranian sanctions, making it difficult for US leaders to lift them even when negotiations required it. However, neither could the sanctions trigger a regime change, nor did they lead Iran to abandon its nuclear program. Instead, while sanctions may have been effective in the short run in bringing Iran to the negotiating table, culminating in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), in the long run, they led Iran to accelerate its nuclear program and pursue a more assertive regional policy.

A partial view of Iran’s nuclear program

One shortcoming of the book is that while the authors treat the acceleration of the Iranian nuclear program as a reactive response to the hardline approach by the West, they do not probe the veracity of dubious claims made about it. It is unknown which direction the Iranian nuclear program will take after the current war ends. At the time of the book’s writing, sufficient evidence suggested that assumptions surrounding the program may have been grossly exaggerated, even if Iran was expanding its uranium enrichment program. For instance, multiple Western intelligence assessments concluded that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, while an International Atomic Energy Agency report found no conclusive evidence linking Iran’s undeclared nuclear activities, even prior to 2003, to a weapons program. (The report was published during the tenure of Mohamed ElBaradei, who was widely regarded for his impartiality.)

By incorporating local testimonies and vivid descriptions of Iranian streets and social spaces into the research, the book allows readers to picture everyday life in Iran under sanctions,

While the discussion briefly acknowledges Washington’s lack of sustained commitment to diplomacy in compelling Tehran to accelerate its nuclear program, it places an outsized emphasis on the role of sanctions, without adequately exploring other factors. For instance, in 2021, former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani linked Iran’s decision to produce 60 per cent enriched uranium to a suspected Israeli attack on a nuclear site. The limited consideration of other factors results in a somewhat reductionist conclusion.

These limitations aside, the book is a comprehensive and insightful account of Iran’s survival and resilience under sanctions. By incorporating local testimonies and vivid descriptions of Iranian streets and social spaces into the research, the book allows readers to picture everyday life in Iran under sanctions, where hope and vibrancy still existed – characteristics that remain evident even amidst the new war. Despite being a compilation of contributions from four authors, the book maintains coherence and consistency in style throughout. It is a worthwhile read for current and future policymakers, effectively demonstrating why maximum pressure strategies fail to achieve their intended results.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: Seree Tansrisawat on Shutterstock.

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Islam: A New History from Muhammad to The Present. John Tolan. Princeton University Press. 2025.

Islam’s beginnings and evolution 

What are the roots of Islam, and how has it been interpreted and practiced in different ways across time and place since its inception? Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present by John Tolan, surveys a wide range of defining historical episodes and movements from the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the 6^th century through to today. Tolan’s historicising approach focuses not only on events, but highlights the diverse contributions of caliphs, travellers, Sufi saints, merchants, and Islamic reformers in shaping Islamic societies across regions and eras.  

From the spiritual legacy of Rabia al-Adawiyya, the 8th-century Muslim saint, to contemporary interpretations of Islam, the tradition has continually transformed, adapted, and evolved since its inception. During the life of the Prophet Muhammad, Islam remained unified under his direct guidance and the presence of his companions. However, the significant doctrinal and political developments emerged following his death in 632 CE. The first caliph was chosen by Abu Bakr al-Siddiq (632-634) and unifying the Arabian Peninsula and combating early waves of apostasy. The question of succession – specifically who would lead the Ummah (believers of Islam) – marked a decisive moment in Islamic history and led to the emergence of sectarianism such as Sunni and Shi’a. 

Tolan reveals how early political rivalries were transformed into lasting sectarian cleavages within the Islamic tradition.

Tolan draws attention to Nana Asmau, Uthman ibn Fodio’s daughter, a distinguished scholar, poet, Sufi, and reformer, who exercised significant intellectual and political influence during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In the modern period, figures such as African American Imam Amina Wadud – who converted from Christianity to Islam – have continued this tradition of reinterpretation. In her work Qur’an and Woman (1999), Wadud argues that each generation of Muslims must retain the freedom to reread and reinterpret the Quran, underscoring Islam’s dynamic and evolving engagement with history, and society. Further, Tolan highlights how Muslim scholars, organisations, and leaders have politically mobilised Muslim communities across the world and their contribution of proliferations of Islam especially in the Middle East, the USA and Europe. He discusses figures from an Egyptian author Gamal al-Banna to the brother of Hassan al-Banna and from Malcolm X to Mahmud Muhammad Taha and Bilali Muhammad.  

The Quran and sectarianism

Tolan  episodic historical approach zones in on key events in Islam, particularly those surrounding the compilation of the Quran and the struggle for political authority after the Prophet Muhammad’s death. The Quran was first full text compiled in written form during the caliph of Uthman ibn Affan, a process that later became a source of sectarian controversy. Certain Shi’a scholars such as Ibn Abil Hadid and Yasir al-Habib have argued that portions of the original revelation were concealed, alleging that Ali ibn Abi Talib as the rightful successor were omitted, and that some Quranic materials were destroyed during the standardisation of the text. 

Tolan further situates these theological disputes within the larger political conflicts between emerging Sunni authorities and Shi’a factions during the Umayyad period, followed by the Abbasid era, when competing claims to the caliphate continued to shape Islamic governance. He demonstrates how the institution of the caliphate became a source of deep and enduring division within Islam. For instance, Tolan discusses accusations directed at Ali in relation to the assassination of Caliph Umar, including claims that Ali protected and facilitated the escape of the assassin, Piruz Nahavandi – a Persian captive taken during the Battle of Al-Qadisiyya (25). Through these episodes, Tolan reveals how early political rivalries were transformed into lasting sectarian cleavages within the Islamic tradition. 

Islam’s spread and divisions 

Initially, Islam expanded its dominance from Damascus (634 CE) to Antioch (637 CE) and Jerusalem (638 CE). By the time of Caliph Umar’s death in 644 CE, the Islamic empire spanned from Libya to Afghanistan and from Azerbaijan to Yemen. Later, Tolan briefly discusses the rise of Islam most continents of the world through battles, merchants, and Sufi’s spirituality. Tolan notes that how the first Fitna or civil war stated in the 7^th century in Islam which gave to rise new sectarian divisions such as Sunnis, Shi’a, and Kharijites. These sects started to practice Islam in their own ways. For instance, Shi’a believed that Ali was first Caliph of Umma and Sunnis believed Abu-Bakr, and some Muslim rulers imposed a Jizya (tax) on Christians, Jews, Jains, Buddhists and Hindus. 

Movements including Deobandi, Wahhabi, Ahmadiyya and Faraizi emerged that created identity-based segregation and emphasised strict adherence to the Quran and Hadith, rejecting some traditional practices among Muslims

Tolan highlights the significance of Ibn Battuta’s Rihla (1959) in understanding the global spread and lived diversity of Islam. Battuta’s travels from Mecca to Mali, India, Mauritius, and China – illustrate how Islam adapted cultures across regions. Serving as a qadi (a Muslim judge) in India under Muhammad bin Tughlaq and later as an envoy to China, Battuta offers detailed observations on governance, economy, and international relations. His vivid, experiential narrative enriches Islamic history, particularly through contributions such as his writing of hadith (corpus of sayings or traditions of the Prophet Muhammad) in Arabic at the request of Muhammad ben Aydin, Sultan of Birki (Birkin) (125). 

Colonial influence and modern Islam 

In the chapter “Colonization and Its Discontents, 1798-1918,” Tolan traces the history of European colonisation in Muslim societies from the late 18th to the early 20th century. He examines how India came under the control of European powers such as the East India Company, the Portuguese, and the Dutch, who established colonial regimes across different regions. Tolan highlights how the Dutch East India Company (DEIC) employed Muslims to codify Islamic law in matters of inheritance, marriage, and divorce, at Masulipatnam (Andhra Pradesh), Malabar Coast (Kerala) Gujarat, and some part of Bengal, while the British East India Company similarly institutionalised Islamic (Sharia) law for Muslims in Bengal, Madras, Bombay presidencies and later all over India as part of its colonial governance strategy (168).  

Movements including Deobandi, Wahhabi, Ahmadiyya and Faraizi emerged that created identity-based segregation and emphasised strict adherence to the Quran and Hadith, rejecting some traditional practices among Muslims. For instance, the Deobandi Movement founded in 1866, went against modern western education and promoted traditional studies (Quran, Hadith, Fiqh). Contrastingly, Sir Syed Ahmad founded Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875, to modernise education with Islamic values. Later, these movements spread not only across the Indian subcontinent but also to the Middle East, South Asia and Europe.   

Overall, Tolan’s book is a comprehensive account of key Islamic events and historical developments; however, some of his arguments are insufficiently substantiated. For instance, the claim that Shi’a Muslims believed that Ayesha (wife of Muhammad) concealed Quranic verses proving Ali’s rightful succession is presented with limited evidentiary support. The book also overlooks the significant role of Sufi traditions in the spread of Islam in the Indian subcontinent, particularly the contributions of key figures. Nonetheless, Tolan’s work offers a broad historical perspective on Islam’s evolution, transformation, and the emergence of diverse sects across regions. The book focuses primarily on political events in Islamic history and their role in the making and unmaking of Islam. In so doing, it makes a meaningful contribution for Islamic scholars, academicians and individuals to understand the evolution of Islam from Muhammad to present.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The Revolutionists: The Story of the Extremists Who Hijacked the 1970s. Jason Burke. The Bodley Head. 2025.

Anna D’Alton (AD): In your book, The Revolutionists, you focus on a period of political violence between 1967 and ‘83, wherein a new transnational terrorism emerged. What did that involve, and what factors created it?

Jason Burke (JB): I look at a wave of violence in the 1970s which saw extremists using transnational terrorist violence as a weapon in a new way. There had been transnational attacks before, but this was quantitatively and qualitatively different: there were many more attacks involving a much wider range of both targets and perpetrators than ever before. These were designed to be spectacular or attention-grabbing in a way that struck me as new, too. A high-profile example I look at in the book is the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

One cause of this wave of violence is the emergence of new media technology that its perpetrators wanted to exploit to raise the profile of their various grievances. Another factor is the new strategic terrain of contemporary aviation and its infrastructure which enabled numerous airplane hijackings. And you also have a very important moment of global agitation and protest in the late 1960s in support of so-called revolutionary causes. It’s this that generates the political energy that underlies the violence of the ‘70s and a very internationalised vision of revolutionary activism.

The book is about individuals, and what brings a person to use (often lethal) violence, their motivations and the circumstances that might direct them towards that kind of activity

But at around the same time in the Middle East, you have the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War in 1967 and the broad changes geopolitically, socially and politically that followed it. Israel’s victory and its repercussions pushed Palestinian armed groups towards a new strategy. All of this comes together and generates the wave of transnational political violence that you see from the late ‘60s through to the mid ‘70s.

AD: Why do you think it’s worthwhile to understand not just the attacks, which encompass hijackings and bombings and other types of violence, but the people behind them and their motivations? I’m interested as well in your use of the term “revolutionists”.

JB: The term “revolutionist”, popularised in the 19th century, refers to people whose profession is effectively attempting to foment a revolution. Importantly, it is neither “revolutionaries” nor “terrorists”, both of which wouldn’t have been acceptable as a title of the book. To use either would be to take an immediate political stance, which I did not think would be helpful.

The book is about individuals, and what brings a person to use (often lethal) violence, their motivations and the circumstances that might direct them towards that kind of activity, and the personal consequences, positive and negative, that follow. More broadly, it’s about how political and religious movements looking to effect change generate extremist fringes that see violence as the only useful tactic, and how that can play out historically.

The characters are also fascinating in their own right. They’re complex individuals who act out of multiple motives. I in no way sympathise with them, but I have attempted to render them as human beings with the complexity we all have. I think that approach makes it much easier to understand what happened in specific events, and to understand the events of that period more broadly.

AD: You look at the solidarity that was built internationally across different causes, from the liberation of Palestine to Vietnam’s struggle against the US, and multiple anti-imperialist causes. Did they manage to build solidarity?

JB: There was plenty of rhetorical and aspirational solidarity. There was a strong sense of solidarity between Western European leftists and the Viet Cong, or earlier with the Algerians and their fight against the French, or later, with those fighting on the ground against the Apartheid regime in South Africa, and of course, with the Palestinians. European radicals genuinely believed that they could help bring about a global revolution that would end the twin scourges of imperialism and capitalism through their support of causes in the Global South.

One of the reasons I wrote the book was to consider the trajectories of the leftist radical movement alongside that of the Islamist movement in the same period.

In practical terms, it was difficult to instrumentalise that solidarity. You had organisations with divergent agendas, ways of working and cultural approaches, which led to misunderstandings, arguments and few examples of successful collaboration.

AD: In the second half of the book, you look at the rise of Islamic extremism, and you argue there was a failure in the revolutionary leftist movement, a vacuum that Islamism stepped into.

JB: One of the reasons I wrote the book was to consider the trajectories of the leftist radical movement alongside that of the Islamist movement in the same period. The ‘70s saw the resurgence of faith-based political ideologies across the Islamic world. The key moments for modern political Islamism and its extremist variants, I argue, are in the mid- to late 60s, which aligns with that moment of global revolutionary mobilisation, activism and protest.

By the mid-70s in the West, that wave of mobilisation had receded. Some people were repelled by some of the violence that it entailed, others had just moved on or redirected their political energies into other, narrower, identity-based causes such as environmentalism or the anti-nuclear movement. Also, in the West, you’d had a lot of reform. The movement of the late ‘60s had achieved many of its aims, at least in social and cultural terms. It had gained better reproductive rights for women, lowered voting ages, secured better funding for universities and successfully challenged post-war political hierarchies. There was much less reason to protest by the end of the decade.

Iran is back in the news these days. People forget that the Left in Iran was a real force for a long time before it was crushed by Iranian authorities.

But in the Middle East, there were no such gains. Any left-wing radicalism was ruthlessly repressed. The material circumstances that so many people wanted to change remained the same. So, there was inevitably a vacuum, and that meant a different revolutionary programme – with different ideas and vocabulary – that diverged from the Left in some areas. But it was still, at heart, a programme of transformation of society, culture and much else towards an imagined utopia.

Iran is back in the news these days. People forget that the Left in Iran was a real force for a long time before it was crushed by Iranian authorities. In the ‘70s, the main armed violent opposition groups that targeted the Shah’s regime were on the Left. By 1980, they were all in prison or exiled or dead, leaving a massive vacuum that greatly aided the radical clerics to take power.

AD: That example of Iran and Shah Khomeini coming to power, and many of the events you explore in the book are seismic moments, and it feels like we’re still seeing the effects of them play out today. You see it in counterterror policy and US relations with so many Arab countries.

JB: As I researched, I was astonished by how much of the politics we see today has its roots in this period in the ‘70s. You see it the current situation in Iran, and in Sunni jihadi activism – Bin Laden was a child of the 70s. He was 13 in 1970, his formative experiences were during that decade. You see it in the role of states like Syria in the region, or indeed Israel, and the rise of the Right there during that period.

The events of the ‘70s and early ‘80s fomented a new understanding of terrorism. Rejecting that which had been prevalent earlier in the decade which described terrorism as a criminal activity, effectively, with social and political and other root causes, this new framing which saw terrorism as a cancer that could be cut out. And it viewed terrorists as mad, bad or misled, but certainly not acting out of an authentic desire to change their and other people’s circumstances.

AD: It’s interesting to consider that reframing in light of the recent decision from the UK’s High Court to overturn the Government’s proscription (in 2025) of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Yes it is. The definition of terrorism and application of the noun “terrorists” – which I don’t use at any point in the book, deliberately – is hugely politicised. You very rapidly run out of fingers if you want to start counting governments, democratically elected or otherwise, that have described their enemies as terrorists.

There are technical definitions of terrorism, including under UK law. In the case of Palestine Action, it seems very difficult to argue that their actions, their activities meet the standard or broadly accepted definitions of terrorism. And it seems to me to be highly politicised and counterproductive to characterise them in that way.

Note: This interview gives the views of the person interviewed and the interviewer, not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

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The post Jason Burke – “Much of the politics we see today has its roots in the 1970s” first appeared on LSE Review of Books.

Worlding Home: An Urban Ethnography of Peacekeeping Camps in Goma, DRC. Maren Larsen. Indiana University Press. 2025.

Peacekeeping camps as active processes

Looking behind the walls of a peacekeeping camp – breaking down the physical and conceptual barriers and tracing the many flows and leakages between the camp and the city – is profoundly revealing. In Worlding Home, Maren Larsen offers an intimate and sharply observed account of the embeddedness of United Nations’ peacekeeping camps within both the urban fabric of Goma and the wider global network of humanitarian and military intervention. Peacekeeping camps are the sites where the personnel of a UN mission live and work while stationed in a conflict zone. Focused on the military branch of UN peace operations, Larsen’s ethnography demonstrates that such camp is never a sealed island; rather, it is a porous, eventful, and continuously transforming – improved and “beautified” – space within the city.

The book elegantly weaves together three interconnected geographies: the peacekeeping camp itself, the peacekeepers’ place(s) of origin, and the city of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, where peacekeepers are stationed as part of the UN mission. By moving between these sites, with a focus on the camp, Larsen shows how spatial practices, routine actions and moments, inside and outside the camp co-constitute an urbanism shaped by the logics of “camping”. The camp emerges not as static or exceptional, but as a multi-layered process: the camp keeps changing. Through fine-grained analysis, the book provides the reader with insights into how peacekeepers dwell, how they become embedded in local rhythms while maintaining deep connections to places elsewhere, and how their presence reshapes the urban life they are part of.

An interdisciplinary lens on peacekeeping 

Traditionally, peacekeeping has been the subject of political sciences and international relations, mostly focused on questions of effectiveness and driven by a security lens. Running parallel to this scholarship is a vibrant body of anthropological, sociological, and urban scholarship that interrogates humanitarianism, the international aid industry and infrastructure, and everyday practices of interveners. Within this interdisciplinary landscape, studies of camps – refugee and IDP camps, transit sites, or labour compounds, have been central in illuminating the spatial politics and materiality of encampment. Larsen draws from and contributes to this rich lineage. At the same time, Worlding Home builds upon a long-standing, rich body of research on Goma, a city shaped by decades of humanitarian presence, conflict, and displacement. The book, in line with prior literature, acknowledges Goma as both a humanitarian hub and an epicentre of emergencies that have generated successive layers of encampment, from colonial camps to the massive influx of refugees in the 1990s to the contemporary UN bases. 

Peacekeeping camps constitute active, evolving processes that blur boundaries between dwelling and mobility, as well as between ‘here’ and ‘there’

Mindful of this urban palimpsest of camping, Larsen situates the peacekeeping camp as part of a longer historical and spatial continuum in Goma. From a recent vantage point, she guides the reader through different moves, from outside the camp, to the camp’s fringes and through the gates, inside the camp, to everyday routines and practices, and beyond into global circuits of mobility of people, practices, flavours, and music. Through these movements, Larsen demonstrates that UN camps are neither isolated enclaves nor entirely exceptional spaces. Instead, building on scholarship that conceptualises camps as dynamic social formations, she argues that peacekeeping camps constitute active, evolving processes that blur boundaries between dwelling and mobility, as well as between “here” and “there.” 

A further strength of Worlding Home is its vivid portrayal of the interactions that produce hybrid forms of urbanity. Military peacekeepers in Goma (from places as far away as India, Bangladesh, South Africa, or Uruguay) and Congolese civilians (including children, contractors, or local friends and intimate partners) form both deep and fleeting connections. Larsen details the festivities, the importance of food and eating, the linguistic abilities of kids lingering around the camps (some learn to speak the language of the resident military contingent), and the routines of military culture, both inside the camp and their interaction with the world outside the camp. These scenes illustrate how camps function both as global nodes of UN intervention and as everyday domestic spaces. Indeed, “camping” as practice involves varied interactions that reshape socio-spatial relations, offering new understandings of home-making, global mobility, and urban development under conditions of humanitarian intervention. 

Dilemmas of peace operations 

The book also addresses some of the most pressing dilemmas facing contemporary peace operations: sustainability, blurred lines between humanitarian and military roles, civil-military tensions, and instances of abuse of power. Larsen engages these issues not abstractly but through grounded, often moving ethnographic vignettes. These moments remind the reader that peacekeeping is lived and experienced by individuals navigating complex moral terrains. 

The reader comes away understanding the peacekeepers’ camp as deeply entangled in the life of Goma: a space of global circulation, local negotiation, and everyday improvisation.

Larsen’s focus on the military branch of peace operations is justified and analytically productive, but this choice does narrow the aperture of inquiry. Civilian staff, local NGOs, and the city’s broader population play crucial roles in shaping the social and spatial dynamics of UN bases. Those actors live with chronic insecurity and multi-faceted urban violence. Urban dwellers’ perspectives and place-making in, and with, the camp(s) occasionally appear but are not explored with the same depth as those of uniformed peacekeepers. How, for example, do the many contractors, visitors, camps’ neighbours, and informal workers, shape the camp, and what is their share in “camping”? As a result, the portrayal of Goma sometimes leans more toward an ethnography of camps in a city rather than an ethnography of the city with camps, including its long-term urban, environmental, social, cultural, and economic consequences. Readers may find themselves wanting more sustained engagement with the urban residents whose daily lives intersect with, support, challenge, or adapt to the presence of peacekeeping infrastructures. 

Peacekeeping camps’ place in the world 

This desire for more in no way diminishes the book’s accomplishment. Worlding Home offers an invaluable perspective on what peacekeeping camps are and what they do in the world. It shows that the peacekeeping camp is not merely a site but a process – what Larsen aptly calls “eventful happenings” – embedded within urban space. The book illuminates these processes with nuance, empathy, and theoretical sophistication. 

In the end, the reader comes away understanding the peacekeepers’ camp as deeply entangled in the life of Goma: a space of global circulation, local negotiation, and everyday improvisation. Worlding Home stands as a perceptive and timely contribution to the study of peace operations in an urban context and the anthropology of encampment. It invites us to rethink what it means to make a home – however temporary – amid intervention, and what it means for a city to continually absorb, reshape, and respond to the demands of those who camp within it.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Main image: Ben Houdijk on Shutterstock.

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The post How UN peacekeeping camps coexist with urban life first appeared on LSE Review of Books.