London: Pinter, 1996

A multi-dimensional study of responses to the Iraqi wars of 1990-91, or what are more conventionally thought of as the (Persian) Gulf War and its aftermath, the Kurdish refugee crisis, the major precedent for the 'humanitarian intervention' of the 1990s. The responses of 'national' civil society and media. 

Parts of the book will be made available on the global site when time permits

 Part I Concepts and contexts

1 Distance, representation and global civil society. The meaning of distancing and civil society.

2 Violence, genocide and the Iraqi case. Discusses issues of responsibility in the Iraqi wars.

Part II Limits of national civil society

3 Traditional representative institutions. The limitations and strengths in the responses of parties, churches and intellectual elites.

4 A functional institution and representation. Schools' responses to the war's effect on children.

5 New institutions of representation. Humanitarian NGOs and the emerging British Muslim community.

Part III From managed media to active representation

6 Television as managed media. The control of TV during the coalition's campaign against Iraq.

7 Television as active representation. The first detailed content study of the British TV news campaign for the Kurds, a major influence on the Major government's 'U-turn' in favour of 'safe havens' for the Kurds, in turn a crucial transition in post-Cold War world politics. (A related short article on TV and the Kurdish crisis is available to download.)

8 Newspapers, ideology and representation. Detailed comparison of British papers' coverage of the Gulf.

9 Media and representation in global crises. General discussion of the issues raised in this part.

Part IV Public opinion and individual response

10 Deconstructing the representativeness of public opinion. Reports alternative survey research.

11 Media, perceptions and representative attitudes. The influence of media on public opinion.

12 Men and women: self-representation and memory. Individuals' responses, based on study of Gulf War diaries in the Mass-Observation Unit, University of Sussex Library.

Part V Comparisons and perspectives

13 From Kurdistan to Bosnia and Rwanda. A comparative survey of media in post-Cold War wars, to 1996.

14 Civil society, media and public opinion in the new global crises. The debate about their role.

Appendix: the survey research. Bibliography. Index