Mary Kaldor

Mary Henrietta Kaldor CBE^[1] (born 16 March 1946)^[2] is a British academic, currently Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, where she is also the Director of the Civil Society and Human Security Research Unit.^[3] She has been a key figure in the development of cosmopolitan democracy. She writes on globalisation, international relations and humanitarian intervention, global civil society and global governance, as well as what she calls New Wars.

Career

Before the LSE, Kaldor worked at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and now serves on its governing board.^[4] She also worked at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex,^[5] where she worked closely with the English economist Christopher Freeman. She was a founding member of European Nuclear Disarmament, editing its European Nuclear Disarmament Journal (1983–88). She was the founder and Co-Chair of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly,^[5] and a founding member of the European Council on Foreign Relations.^[6] She also writes for OpenDemocracy.net,^[7] belongs to the Board of Trustees of the Hertie School of Governance, and is on the Editorial Board of Stability: International Journal of Security and Development. She is known to admire the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.

In a 2008 interview Kaldor said "The international community makes a terrible mess wherever it goes":

It is hard to find a single example of humanitarian intervention during the 1990s that can be unequivocally declared a success. Especially after Kosovo, the debate about whether human rights can be enforced through military means is ever more intense. Moreover, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have been justified in humanitarian terms, have further called into question the case for intervention.^[8]

Family

She is the daughter of the economist Nicholas Kaldor^[8] and Clarissa Goldschmidt, a history graduate from Somerville College, Oxford. She is also the sister of Frances Stewart, Professor at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID), University of Oxford. The family moved to west Cambridge in 1950.^[9] Kaldor began her career with a B.A. in philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) from Oxford University.^[7]

Selected bibliography

Books

• Kaldor, Mary (1978). The disintegrating West. New York: Hill and Wang. ISBN 9780809039043. 
• Kaldor, Mary (1990). The imaginary war: understanding the East-West conflict. Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell. ISBN 9781557861801. 
• Kaldor, Mary (2003). Global civil society: an answer to war. Cambridge, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press. ISBN 9780745627588. 
• Kaldor, Mary (2007). Human security: reflections on globalization and intervention. Cambridge, UK Malden, Massachusetts: Polity Press. ISBN 9780745638546. 
• Kaldor, Mary (2012). New & old wars: organized violence in a global era (3rd ed.). Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804785495. 

Second edition, ISBN 9780745638638

First edition, ISBN 9780804737227

Chapters in books

• Kaldor, Mary (2009), "Protective security or protection rackets? War and sovereignty", in Kanbur, Ravi; Basu, Kaushik, Arguments for a better world: essays in honor of Amartya Sen | Volume II: Society, institutions and development, Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 470–487, ISBN 9780199239979. 

Journal articles

• Kaldor, Mary (2013). "In defence of new wars". Stability: International Journal of Security and Development. Ubiquity Press. 2 (1): 4. doi:10.5334/sta.at. 

References