Revolutionary and Dissident Movements of the World

This is the fourth edition of Revolutionary and Dissident Movements and the first to appear since 1991. The book's primary focus remains the history and contemporary activities of organizations that seek to challenge by extra-legal means, most commonly violent, the stability of the state. Its coverage includes movements seeking autonomy or secession, groups of the extreme left or right acting outside the constitutional framework, proscribed parties, and governments-in-exile, as well as terrorist organizations with a pan-national agenda.Revolutionary and Dissident Movements includes entries on every independent state in the world, compiled by a team of some 80 specialist contributors. It demonstrates the impact, country by country, of global currents, most notably the rise of Islamist movements and the challenge they pose both to the West and to governments in Islamic states. It also illustrates that, in the world as a whole, by far the greatest toll of human life arises from essentially local conflicts between secessionist movements, often ethnically based, and central authorities, with numerous such movements exercising de facto control over significant territory and populations.This book will be of value to political researchers, diplomats and government officials, journalists, information professionals and others needing digested, accessible and reliable data on this major aspect of the current international scene.