Politicians and Interactive Decision Making: Institutional Spoilsports or Playmakers

In recent years interactive decision making has become quite popular in The Netherlands, especially at the level of local government. It involves new forms of participation of citizens, consumers of public services and interest groups in the process of policy formation. Workshops, panels, internet discussions and a lot of other techniques are used to arrive at innovative and supported solutions for existing problems. The ambitions are high: these new forms of participation should result in better government both in the sense of providing better policies, but also in bridging the democratic gap between local government and citizens. However, these new forms of participation in local government are not without problems. Recent experiences suggest that one of the major problems is the challenge interactive decision making constitutes for the existing practice of representative politics. On the basis of two cases — the decision-making process concerning the expansion of the Rotterdam Harbour and the discussion about a new administrative structure for the Rotterdam region — this article illustrates that one of the barriers that stands in the way of the success of such processes is the ambiguous attitude of elected politicians. Although politicians often initiate interactive decision-making processes, they do not actively support these processes when they are in progress. The outcomes of interactive decision-making progress are often not used in the formal political procedures that follow. Because elected politicians fear that these new forms of participation threaten their political primacy, they find it hard to play a constructive role in these processes.     

自杀性恐怖袭击及其治理

自“9·11事什”发生以来,恐怖主义活动虽然遭到世界各国的联合抵制和打击,但其发展趋势在世界范围内却并没有从根本上得到抑制或扭转,而在某些国家和地区尤呈猖獗之势,其主要表现特征是自杀性恐怖袭击被频频使用,对所在国家乃至整个国际社会的安全与稳定构成严重的威胁与挑战。     

索马里海盗的"恐怖主义化"及对策

随着亚丁湾局势呈现出很大的不确定性,索马里海盗的“恐怖主义化”有发展成为区域性安全核心问题的趋势,严重干扰着国际海上运输秩序的稳定与各国的海上安全利益,并有加剧中东地区局势动荡的可能。如何应对索马里海盗带来的安全挑战,考验着国际社会的智慧。     

Methodological Triangulation in the Analysis of Terrorist Networks

The conceptualization of terrorist groups as networks is increasingly common to terrorism studies, although methods of analysis vary widely. Contrary to common understandings, the integration of computational and qualitative methods is possible even with limited (small-n) data. The triangulation of different methods can produce insights overlooked by the use of any single method and validate findings across methods. This article demonstrates some of the possibilities for integrating qualitative and quantitative methods for network analysis using Raffaello Pantucci's recent article, “The Tottenham Ayatollah and The Hook-Handed Cleric: An Examination of All Their Jihadi Children.”     

Terrorist Organization Typologies and the Probability of a Boomerang Effect

Since the 1970s, many researchers have proposed typologies to sort the phenomenon of terror into different categories and to divide terror organizations into groups based on various characteristics of their activities. These typologies were designed to facilitate understanding of the phenomenon of terror and of terror organizations’ processes, structures and operative methods. They relied on a variety of diagnostic criteria such as: motives for using terror, targets of the attacks, terrorists’ demands, organizational structure; arenas of operation; and more. This article surveys major typologies of terror, notes the differences between them, presents a model to combine the different classifications of the typologies into a single typology, and proposes a new typology that sorts terror organizations by the variables that limit their activities. The proposed typology makes it possible to analyze terror organizations’ behavior and even to forecast their reactions to a situation in which they are attacked by the enemy state—the boomerang effect.     

Terrorist Sanctuaries and Bosnia-Herzegovina: Challenging Conventional Assumptions

This article argues that a model of terrorism and terrorist sanctuaries rooted in post-9/11 strategic thought and the Global War on Terror is inadequate to the study of terrorism in Bosnia and the Balkans. It addresses a series of conventional assumptions regarding Bosnia-Herzegovina's status as a putative terrorist sanctuary, based on a reading of post-war ethnic politics and political architecture. This assessment turns on the basic notion that terrorism in Bosnia is a complex phenomenon linked to multiple domestic and foreign communities, defined along competing national trajectories and intersecting foreign interests, and subject to evolving political circumstances and priorities.     

Al Qaeda,Deterrence, and Weapons of Mass Destruction

This article takes issue with the frequently-made assertion that Al Qaeda cannot be deterred from employing weapons of mass destruction. It argues that Al Qaeda's leadership employs terroristic violence in a manner calculated to achieve a set of political goals. They are, in other words, rational actors who are sensitive to the potential costs and benefits associated with their actions, and thus are to some extent deterrable. The article examines a number of ways in which the lack of discrimination and proportionality associated with weapons of mass destruction might be expected to produce more problems than benefits for Al Qaeda and thus deter their use. It also considers some ways in which the West might seek to bolster these deterrent effects.     

From Promiscuity to Living Together to Making the Decision to Break Up or Make a Lasting Commitment

Abstract

Although public administration was “born” and “reared” as a child of politics and constitutional democracy, the coherence of its central purposes later eroded into disparate fragments in a set of “promiscuous” relationships. But now the field has become accustomed to a casual mode in which a loose collection of sub-fields and competing worldviews “live together.” This invites leaving behind our intellectual origins and easy flirting with passing trends and alternative partners. Even while maintaining multiple external ties, the field should now seek to advance to an “adult” form of lasting commitment to a reaffirmed set of core values.     

Deconstructing Political Orthodoxies on Insurgent and Terrorist Sanctuaries 1

Critics of the War on Terror have pointed to the futility of waging war on a tactic. Its emphasis on denying “sanctuary” and “safe havens” to terrorists, however, has also been informed by a political discourse that privileges the static, physical characteristics of refuge and the significance of state and territory in its provision. Locational issues have been exceptionally problematic, suggesting there is a need for deeper and more textured understanding of terrorist operating environments. This article seeks to widen the debate, encouraging the view that sanctuary is a complex terrain of material, human, and cognitive dimensions.     

The Sources of Terrorist Financing: Theory and Typology

Terrorism costs money. Although the costs of specific operations may be relatively inexpensive, terrorist organizations require much larger budgets in order to function. But how do terrorist groups acquire funding? What explains the variation in the particular sources used by different groups? This article develops a theory of terrorist financing that identifies criteria by which we can evaluate the different sources of terrorist funding, particularly in terms of their advantages and disadvantages to the terrorist group. These criteria are then applied across a typology of four primary types of terrorist financing: state sponsorship, illegal activity, legal activity, and popular support.     

Terrorist Victimization: Prevention,Control, and Recovery

The Muslim Brotherhood poses a unique challenge to efforts to combat Al Qaeda and like-minded groups. It is one of the key sources of Islamist thought and political activism, and plays a significant role in shaping the political and cultural environment in an Islamist direction. At the same time, it opposes Al Qaeda for ideological, organizational, and political reasons and represents one of the major challenges to the salafi-jihadist movement globally. This dual nature of the Muslim Brotherhood has long posed a difficult challenge to efforts to combat violent extremism. Does its non-violent Islamism represent a solution, by capturing Islamists within a relatively moderate organization and stopping their further radicalization (a “firewall”), or is it part of the problem, a “conveyor belt” towards extremism? This article surveys the differences between the two approaches, including their views of an Islamic state, democracy, violence, and takfir, and the significant escalation of those tensions in recent years. It concludes that the MB should be allowed to wage its battles against extremist challengers, but should not be misunderstood as a liberal organization or supported in a short-term convergence of interests.     

Terrorist incident management and jurisdictional issues: A Canadian perspective

This article briefly outlines the organization and procedures that have evolved at the federal level of the government of Canada for the handling and management of crises relating to internal security. Organization of policy formation and organization for crisis management are discussed. Jurisdictional difficulties between the federal and provincial governments are analyzed. The basic policy framework is to deal with terrorist incidents by refusal to yield to the demands of hostage takers, without precluding the granting of minor concessions, limited in scope to the immediate place and time of the incident. Unresolved policy issues are listed.     

ISIL's Execution Videos: Audience Segmentation and Terrorist Communication in the Digital Age

ABSTRACT

This article offers a bottom-up understanding of the media strategy employed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as it relates to the production and dissemination of its hostage execution videos. Through an empirical analysis of sixty-two videos of executions produced by ISIL in the year following its establishment as the “Islamic State” in 2014, this study examines the videos as a major component of ISIL's media strategy. Through these media products, ISIL seeks to spread a political message aimed at both local and global, ingroup and outgroup consumption through audience segmentation, while striving to influence both local and global audiences through the use and production of graphic violence. This article also discusses the strategy governing the production and release of ISIL's execution videos; how it relies on the global media to transmit its intertwined political and religious agenda in the digital media age.     

From Chaos To Patterns Of Understanding: Reflections On The Dynamics Of Effective Government Decision Making

Like other liberal-democratic governments, Australia has been going through a process of dramatic change in political and administrative structures and processes. There has been the well-documented shift from controlling inputs to managing for results which has resulted in the desired enhancement of executive government's responsibility and accountability for outcomes. A clear understanding of the evolving process of cabinet decision making points the way ahead to the next phase of reform. What lies ahead could, indeed, be more revolutionary than what has been achieved to date. Weber's dynamic concept of authority and domination, when understood as Weber himself used it, can tell one much about change and future possible evolution. It helps, heuristically, to indicate that government decision-making processes have already evolved to a sophisticated level. However, there is still much development that should be undertaken to maintain the quality of decision making. For instance, the move to small policy-advising departments and separated administrative programme-delivery agencies could be seen as a natural evolution and quite predictable. Good governance relies much on attaining a balance, in Weber's terms, between the ethics of intention (means) and the ethics of responsibility (ends). Together, they make the 'true man' who can have a 'vocation of politics' says Weber – but the 'true man' is hard to find. What is needed, therefore, are decision-making processes that are good at drawing out this balance. Well-established patterns of social action, encapsulated in Weber's sociology and typographically oriented hermeneutics, can help identify how this could be achieved. For instance, when one understands Weber's ideal types of authority structure as the core of a comprehensive conceptual model with constant interplay and movement over time, one can get a hint of how government decision making could be further enhanced.