UNREST MAGAZINE

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Welcome to Issue Six of Unrest Magazine.

In our brief existence as a publication, we’ve been amazed to witness how quickly the world can change.  From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street there is a renewed interest in mass movements and large scale social protest.  Marx and Marcuse are back on reading lists and course syllabi.  Liberal frameworks of intervention, democratization, and post-conflict peacebuilding are increasingly coming under scrutiny for their failure to address the contradictions inherent under global capitalism.  Afghanistan and Iraq remain tragically mired in violence as a result.  It is of little wonder that we find ourselves at this present juncture again confronted with the challenge of addressing what C. Wright Mills (1959) described in the Sociological Imagination as the intersection of biography and history, the collision of our private lives with social forces that appear beyond our control.

In September 2010, I summarized the existence and development of Unrest Magazine as:

[T]he product of certain historical conditions and institutional constraints. The project began in October of 2009 as a reaction to what was perceived as a lack of attention to critical theory in the field of peace and conflict studies. We felt a proper critique of capitalist society was necessary to understand contemporary conflict and the field needed a venue for this discussion to take place. While Unrest is unique in its birth at ICAR, the magazine is part of a rich tradition of philosophical questioning and praxis aimed at liberation. The magazine envisions itself as a vehicle for reestablishing the radical foundations of the conflict resolution project through the use of critical conflict analysis and critical conflict engagement. – ICAR Newsletter, November 2010

Now, more than ever, a radical re-imagining of the conflict resolution project is necessary.  Unrest Magazine will continue to offer itself as a venue for important and critical conversations about the present and future of conflict engagement.  We thank you dear reader for your continued interest and participation in this project.  As always, we would encourage those interested in working with or publishing in Unrest to visit our Collaboration page for more details.

The arrival of Issue Six six signals some significant changes in the Unrest operation.

First, we are deeply indebted to our good friends at Armadillo Studios for creating this fantastic new website.   We hope you enjoy it and would appreciate any feedback you have to offer.  We also would encourage you to contact Armadillo Studios for any of your web or app based needs.  All content from our previous website is migrating over to this new platform and should hopefully be available in full by the end of March.  All links to the previous site content will no longer work and should be updated.

Second, Unrest Magazine is changing our approach to publishing.  Recent events have demonstrated how limiting the print issue model is for a publication that lives primarily on the web and aims to provide insight on current events.  The delay between actual events and our publishing deadlines consistently meant that our content arrived months after it was most relevant. To address this problem Unrest will be publishing content as soon as it is approved by the Editorial Cell.  We believe this will allow us to become a leading spot for those seeking insights on new and innovative approaches to policy and current events from a peace and conflict perspective.  Additionally, Unrest will reserve publishing actual issues to twice yearly (Spring and Fall).  Our issues will focus more on the presentation of scholarly pieces from our Discourse section, which is dedicated to showcasing more academic style articles.  Issues will also contain pieces taken from the best of our web articles published during that period.  We hope to secure funding to do a high quality print version for the Fall 2012 issue.

The articles from Issue Six of Unrest Magazine will be published over the course of March and April.  Frequent updates are shared via Facebook and Twitter.  Please direct all questions and comments to the editor at unrestmag (at) gmail.com.  We are still in the process of updating our website, which should be fully functional by April 1st.

Michael D. English on behalf of the Unrest Editorial Cell

March 2012

 Unrest Magazine – Issue Six – Table of Contents

Features

Carolina Reynoso - The International Donor Systems: Uncovering Structural Flaws

Derek Sweetman – Occupy and the Absence of Systemic Conflict Resolution

Fringe

Michael Loadenthal – Capitalism, Illegality and Subversion: The Prefigurative Politics of the 2-hour Work Day

Discourse

Charles Reitz and Stephen Spartan – Work, Wealth, and War: Recalling Herbert Marcuse’s Critical Pedagogy

Banter

Ali E. Erol – Erdoğan the Saint, Erdoğan the Sinner: Quo Vadis Turkey?

Georgi Engelbrecht – The Foresight Zone

Bill Goldberg – Nonviolent Social Movements and Community Organizing 101

Right Hemisphere

Michael D. English – Decay + DC