Colby college conference report

In March 1995 the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo conducted a well-timed and coordinated nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. This represented the first use of such a weapon by a nonstate group and sent shock waves around the world. The shock came not least because the attack had been completely unexpected despite years of theorizing and literature discussing just such a possibility. The purpose of this article is to address the broad issue of terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction as it applies to Aum Shinrikyo, and within this context to critically analyze the three books listed above. Each offers a different look at Aum in terms of the group itself and of what lessons might be drawn from this new and frightening development in "terrorist" violence.     

Catastrophic New Age Groups and Public Order

This article examines the recent emergence of separatist, countercultural groups observing a disaster-prone view of the future shaped by variations of New Age religion. While these groups have not uniformly adopted violent strategies against outsiders, the 1995 Aum Shinrikyo case should alert authorities to the potential for violent activism that exists in some New Age collectivities during periods when the group is experiencing an episode of stress. Particular attention is given here to the psychodynamic shift which took place in a Montana-based New Age religious movement as its visions of a forthcoming earthly disaster mobilized the membership to prepare for a cataclysmic event. It is likely that law enforcement agencies will encounter more cases of millennial excitement in catastrophic New Age groups in the near-term future as the approach of the year 2000 stimulates the apocalyptic imaginations of these countercultural movements.     

The mexican financial crisis

In the period 1990-93 Mexico's economy experienced expansion and structural change. This was associated with economic opening, market deregulation, and large inflows of foreign capital. Mexico had dealt with the external debt problem through a Brady debt restructuring. This restructuring lowered the financial requirements of the public sector, improved market expectations, and set the stage for a decline in domestic interest rates.

In the early 1990s Mexico attracted fully one-fifth of all capital flows directed into developing countries. These inflows more than financed the current account deficit, and permitted Mexico to expand its official reserve holdings. The portfolio capital inflow bolstered the stock market, which appreciated in value. Mexico's entry into NAFTA provided another reason to be optimistic concerning economic and business prospects.

However, Mexico's external payments position was falling deeper into deficit. By mid-1994 it was possible to observe that the current account in Mexico's balance of payments had shifted further into deficit, and that the high unsustainable level of capital inflow was diminishing. Political violence and assassinations in 1994 caused foreign investors to look more carefully at investment prospects, and steadily rising interest rates in the United States created incentives favoring dollar rather than peso financial instruments. As peso interest rates began to rise, the Mexican government and commercial banks turned to dollar-indexed or outright dollar borrowing. By December 1994 this increased dollar liability position together with a runoff in foreign exchange reserves left Mexico in a difficult liquidity position. The December 20, 1994 devaluation failed to renew confidence in the viability of Mexico's payments position, and two days later the peso was floated. In the early weeks of 1995 a massive Mexican financial assistance package was provided by the United States, the International Monetary Fund, and others.

An analysis of the components of Mexico's GDP and balance of payments suggests that the financial disequilibrium was clearly evident by mid- 1994. Over the period 1993-94 domestic absorption had increased beyond the ability of the economy to sustain it. Parallel to this, the current account deficit had increased beyond the ability of foreign exchange resources to support this deficit. Failure by the government and central bank to take action in the third quarter of 1994 resulted in a runoff of foreign exchange reserves, speculative trading in the financial markets, growing skepticism concerning the viability of existing arrangements. Fiscal and monetary tightening early in 1995 produced an improved financial equilibrium, suggesting that similar action at mid-1994 might have avoided the near debt crisis that manifested itself in December 1994 jand the following weeks.     

The Real Mexican Terrorists: A Group Profile of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR)

Although the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR) has committed more terrorist attacks than the Zapatista National Revolutionary Army (EZLN), it has typically not received the media attention that the EZLN attracts. With the exception of their violent uprising in 1994, the EZLN has focused more on political dialogue, whereas the Marxist inspired EPR has primarily relied on terrorism to highlight social inequities in the state of Guerrero. The EZLN is older and larger, but unlike the EPR, it has refrained from conducting terrorist attacks since its initial uprising.     

The impact of suicide prevention centers on the suicide rate in the Canadian provinces

A study by Leenaars and Lester (1995) found that suicide prevention centers in the provinces of Canada in 1985 had a preventive, but nonsignificant, impact on the suicide rates of the provinces. The present study replicated that study for 1994-1998 and found a similar preventive impact, although weak, of suicide prevention centers on the provincial suicide rates.     

A Palestinian Woman's Place in Terrorism: Organized Perpetrators or Individual Actors?

This article analyzes a novel comprehensive database of attacks by Palestinian women between 1965 and 1995. During this period, women's participation in terrorism evolved and their participation can be divided into two distinct eras, before and after 1986. The article argues that the entrance of religious terrorist organizations into politics and the First Intifada changed Palestinian terrorism. While more attacks by women occurred after 1986, they were mostly low intensity attacks, aimed at military targets, with low success rates. Despite women's participation, the patriarchal structure of society is also reflected in Palestinian terrorist organizations. However, as women's roles in society expanded, so too did their roles within terrorist organizations.     

India 2014: Facebook ‘Like’ as a Predictor of Election Outcomes

Michael Hill and Lian Kwen Fee The Politics of Nation Building and Citizenship in Singapore (London and New York: Routledge, 1995) 285 pp.

Junko Kato, The Problem of Bureaucratic Rationality: Tax Politics In Japan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

Joachim Glaubitz, Between Tokyo and Moscow: The History of an Uneasy Relationship, 1972 to the 1990s. (London: Hurst and Company, 1995), pp. XII, 308.

A. Jeyaratnam Wilson, S.J.V. Chelvanayagam and the Crisis of Sri Lankan Tamil Nationalism, 1947–1977 (London: Hurst and Company, 1994).

James Manor (ed.), Nehru to the Nineties : The Changing Office of Prime Minister in India (London : Hurst and Company, 1994), pp. 261.

Shimon Peres, The New Middle East. (Longmead: Element Books Limited, 1993), pp. 224.

R.B. Jain and Heinz Bongartz (eds.), Structural Adjustment, Public Policy and Bureaucracy in Developing Societies. (New Delhi: Har‐Anand Publications, 1994), pp. xvi, 424.

Hendri Supriyatmono, Nasution: Dwifungsi ABRI dan Kontribusi Ke Arah Reformasi Politik (Surakarta: Sebelas Maret University Press, 1994), 190 pp.     

Forward to the Past? Loyalist Paramilitarism in Northern Ireland Since 1994

This article considers in detail loyalist paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland since the paramilitary cease-fires of 1994. The continuing nature of contemporary loyalist violence is documented with reference to sectarian attacks against members of the “Other”/Catholic community and associated symbols of that community, violence directed at other loyalists, and the potential for future violence given constitutional uncertainty regarding Northern Ireland's position within the United Kingdom. The article also challenges assumptions within the broader literature of an inability within loyalist paramilitary groups to move beyond violence in the post-cease-fire period with particular reference to their conflict transformation efforts.     

Two strategies in Serbian politics in Croatia and Hungary before the first world war*

Ritchie Robertson and Edward Timms, eds, The Habsburg Legacy: National Identity in Historical Perspective. [Austrian Studies V] Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994.

Richard B. Spence and Linda L. Nelson, eds, Scholar, Patriot, Mentor: Historical Essays in Honor of Dimitrije Djordjevic. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1992.

David M. Crowe, A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994, xvii, 317 pp. + map, bibliography, and index.

Paul Hockenos, Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post Communist Eastern Europe. New York: Routledge, 1993/1994, 330 pp. $35.00 cloth; $17.95 paper.

Adrian Hyde‐Price, The International Politics of East Central Europe. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996, xviii, 300 pp. + maps, index.

Gordon Skilling, T. G. Masaryk: Against the Current, 1882–1914. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, xv, 248 pp.

David Kelly, The Czech Fascist Movement 1922–1942. Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1995, 236 pp. + index.

Stanislav J. Kirschbaum, A History of Slovakia: The Struggle for Survival. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995, xvi, 350 pp. + maps, index.

Francine Friedman, The Bosnian Muslims: Denial of a Nation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, xvii, 275 pp. + bibliography, index.

Levon Chorbajian, Patrick Donabedian and Claude Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geopolitics of Nagorno‐Karabagh. London: Zed Books, 1994, xx, 173 pp., appendices and index.

Manoug J. Somakian, Empires in Conflict: Armenia and the Great Powers 1895–1920. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995, xi, 276 pp. + maps, index.

Vahak N. Dadrian, German Responsibility in the Armenian Genocide: A Review of the Historical Evidence of German Complicity. Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1996, xvi + 271, illustrations, bibliography, index.

Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863–1914. Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996, xiii, 297 pp. + maps, bibliography, index.

John L. H. Keep, Last of The Empires: A History of the Soviet Union, 1945–1991. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, xiii, 477 pp.

Brian McNair, Glasnost, Perestroika, and the Soviet Media. New York and London: Routledge, 1991, xii, 231 pp., $49.95.

Don C. Rawson, Russian Rightists and the Revolution of 1905. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, xvi, 283 pp. + maps, illustrations, tables, bibliography, index.

Anna Geifman, Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia, 1894–1917. Princeton: Princeton University, 1993, xii, 365 pp. + photographs, index.

Robert W. Thurston, Life and Terror in Stalin's Russia, 1934–1941. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996, xxi, 295 pp.

Vitaly V. Naumkin, ed., Central Asia and Transcaucasia. Ethnicity and Conflict. Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press, 1994, xiii, 242 pp.

D. A. Amanzholova, Kazakhskii Avtonomizm i Rossiia: Istoriia dvizheniia Alash (Kazak Autonomy and Russia: The History of the Alash Movement). Moscow: Rossiia Molodiia, 1994, 216 pp.

Boris Rumer, ed., Central Asia in Transition: Dilemmas of Political and Economic Development. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xx, 280 pp. + index.

Martha Brill Olcott, The Kazakhs, 2nd edn. Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1995, 388 pp.

Stephen Kotkin and David Wolff, Rediscovering Russia in Asia. Siberia and the Russian Far East. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995, xxiii, 356 pp. + maps, photographs, tables, index.     

Rethinking Public Service Delivery: Managing with External Providers John Alford and Janine O'Flynn

Governance by Green Taxes. By Mikael Skou Anderson. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994. £40 hb; £14.99 pb.

The German Greens, Challenging the Consensus. By Thomas Scharf. Berg, 1994. Pp.278. £34.95 hb; £14.95 pb.

Privatisation and Popular Capitalism. By Peter Saunders and Colin Harris. Open University Press, 1994. Pp.192. £37.50 hb; £12.99 pb.

Cymuned a Chenedl: Ysgrifau ar Ymreolaeth. By Ioan Bowen Rees. Gomer Press, Llandysul, Dyfed, 1993. Pp.233. £9.95.

Success and Failure in Housing Provision: European Systems Compared. By James Barlow and Simon Duncan. Pergamon, 1994. Pp. 170. £24.95 pb.

Planning and Urban Change. By Stephen V. Ward, London: Paul Chapman Publishing Ltd, 1994. Pp.320. £14.95.

Citizens and Cities: Urban Policy in the 1990s. By Dilys M. Hill. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994. Pp.262. £10.95 pb.

Quality in Public Services: Managers’ Choice. By Lucy Gaster. Public Policy and Management Series, Open University Press, 1995. Pp.149. £37.50 hb; £13.99 pb.

Managing in Local Government. By Richard Kerley. Macmillan, 1994. Pp.256. £37.50 hb; £11.99 pb.

Divided Britain. By Ray Hudson and Allan Williams. John Wiley, 2nd edn., 1995. Pp.315. £12.95 pb.

Public Policy in Britain. Edited by Stephen Savage, Rob Atkinson and Lynton Robins. Macmillan, 1994. Pp.316. £40 hb; £12.99 pb.

The Channel Tunnel: A Geographical Perspective. Edited by Richard Gibb. Wiley, 1994. Pp.220 + bibliography. £39.95.

Education Reform: A Critical and Post‐Structural Approach. By Stephen J. Ball. Open University Press, 1994. Pp.xii + 164. £37.50.

Reinvesting a Region: Restructuring in West Yorkshire. Edited by Graham Houghton and William Whitney. Avebury, 1994. Pp.243. £27.50 hb.

Against All Odds: Local Economic Development Policies and Local Government Autonomy in Sweden and Britain. By Christine Hudson, Research Report 1993:3, Department of Political Science, University of Umeå, Sweden, 1993.

On The Third Age, Inlogov Informs, Issue 2, Volume 4, 1994/5. Edited by Lesley Grayson and Margaret Hobson. Institute of Local Government Studies, University of Birmingham, 1995. Pp.155. £35 pb.     

Terrorism and national security

The surge in mass casualty terror attacks during the first decade of the 21st century presented a special challenge for health organizations. Unique types of injury resulting from these Mass Casualty Events called for special capabilities to restore the balance between immediate demands and scarce resources. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), to both victims and healthcare providers and first responders required extra knowledge and early intervention. All these and the concerns of the possibilities of non-conventional weapons terror attacks, led to the defining of “Terror Medicine”, a new medical field. This field evolves the medical macro management of terror attacks, the focused clinical management of the specific injuries and coping with the aftermath consequences. The scope of Terror Medicine is: Prevention, Preparedness, Response and Recovery. The evolution and trends of Terror Medicine is discussed in this article.     

T-Test for Terrorism: Did the Introduction of Proportional Representation Reduce the Terrorist Threat? A Time-Series Case Study of Algeria and Northern Ireland

Can electoral reform lead to a reduction in the number of terrorist incidents? Economists have shown that the introduction of constitutional institutions such as courts in the early eighteenth century had a direct effect on investment. Could there be a similar link between the introduction of proportional representation (PR) electoral systems and a reduction in the number of terrorist attacks? Previous studies using cross-sectional data have found a negative correlation between the presence of PR-electoral systems and the number of terrorist incidents. However, earlier studies were based on aggregate figures, not on time-series data. They did not provide a direction that could be used to measure the possible effect of the introduction of PR. This research note addresses this problem. Using a paired samples t-test it is possible to show that the introduction of proportional representation in Northern Ireland and Algeria led to a marked reduction in the number of terrorist attacks. The note thus adds strength to earlier studies.     

Notable Literature on Germany's Red Army Faction within the Context of Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus

The world is urbanizing rapidly, yet Western military forces have yet to come to terms with the peculiar demands of urban warfare. The harsh urban environment, particularly in the developing world, is an ideal arena for “asymmetrical” adversaries seeking to neutralize the technological, logistical, and organizational advantages currently enjoyed by modern military forces.

After examining some of the security implications of urbanization, this article explores three recent representative examples of urban warfare: Beirut (1982), Mogadishu (1993), and Grozny (1994–1995). In each case study, the organization, equipment, and training of the forces involved are examined, and conclusions are drawn about what types of military systems, munitions, and force structure were effective, and why.

The final section of the article draws together lessons from these case studies and from other accounts of urban battles in an effort to understand what is needed to improve military performance in this environment. The author concludes that greater effectiveness will require changes in organization and equipment; more important, it will also require a change in a military organizational culture that has largely ignored the challenge of fighting an asymmetrical adversary on urban terrain.     

Settling on Violence: Expansion of Israeli Outposts in the West Bank in Response to Terrorism

How does terrorism affect land control in intrastate conflicts? This article explores this question in the case of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during the Second Intifada (2000–2005), and shows that Palestinian attacks led to an expansion of Israeli outposts in the disputed territories of the West Bank. Following suicide attacks, there is an increase in outposts in home districts of the perpetrators. The number of outposts also increases following deadly attacks against Israelis in West Bank districts where these attacks take place. These results suggest that Israeli settlers use outpost expansion as retaliation against Palestinian communities they perceive to be involved in violence, and this shifts territorial control against Palestinians.     

Russia's air war in Chechnya

The Russian Air Force experienced its first trial by fire during the 1994— 1995 fighting in Chechnya. Considering its diminished assets retained in the wake of the USSR's collapse, its airlift arm performed well. However, as the war unfolded and stresses mounted due to weather complications, its ground attack performance was spotty at best, starkly revealing the effects of three years of consistently underfunded training. The extent to which it was strapped in fulfilling its tasking in a relatively low intensity local flareup indicated that, as long as it remains financially deprived, it will constitute only a regional air arm with little sustainability or capacity for high technology combat.     

National Minorities and the Milošević Regime

Tone Bringa, Being Muslim the Bosnian Way: Identity and Community in a Central Bosnian Village. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, xxi, 281 pp. + illustrations, bibliography, index.

Robert J. Donia and John V. A. Fine, Jr., Bosnia and Hercegovina: A Tradition Betrayed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, xi, 318 pp. + maps, illustrations, chronology, glossary, bibliography, index.

Noel Malcolm, Bosnia: A Short History. New York: New York University Press, 1994, xxiv, 340 pp. + maps, glossary, bibliography, index.     

Counter-hegemony in today's Belarus: dissident symbols and the mythological figure of Miron Vitebskii

Tackling the role of state symbols in negotiating national identity and political development, this research focuses on Belarus where the alternative white–red–white flag became instrumental in protests against the dominant political discourse. Since 1995, oppositional mass media have been reporting about cases of this tricolor being erected in hard-to-reach and/or politically sensitive places. These actions were mainly attributed to some “Miron,” whose identity remained concealed and served as a simulacrum of a national superhero in non-conformist discourse. The image of Miron immediately acquired multiple functions: condemning the Soviet colonial past, struggling for the European future, and creating a nation-state rather than the Russian-speaking civil-state of Belarus. Yet, first and foremost, Miron became a means for contesting the authority of the president who has been in power since 1994. Concentrating on the methods employed for the construction of the counter-hegemonic fakelore project of Miron and its aims, this article explores the vernacular response to its creation.     

Building the Human Bomb: The Case of the 16 May 2003 Attacks in Casablanca

The terrorist attacks that took place on 16 May 2003 in Casablanca were a result of internal factors. These factors include the terrorists" view of their faith, poverty, and under-education. The links between the terrorists in Morocco and the Al Qaeda network, despite their ideological similarities, are not of a “command and control” nature. The relationship can be described as a franchise operation. The attacks resulted in the alienation of the population from movements attempting to use Islam in politics. Consequently, the attacks backfired on the Moroccan Islamist movement.     

Reference reviews

Third World Resource Directory 1994–1995. by Thomas P. Fenton and Mary J. Heffron, Oakland, California: Third World Resources, 1994, pp 800

Third World Atlas (Second edition). by Alan Thomas et al., Milton Keynes, England: Open University Press, 1994, pp 80, £37.50 hb, £12.99 pb

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World Resources 1994–95. World Resources Institute, New York: Oxford University Press, 1994, pp 400

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Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia and Eritrea (Second edition). by Chris Prouty and Eugene Rosenfeld, Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1994, pp 642, US$69.50 hb

Historical Dictionary of Western Sahara (Second edition). by Chris Prouty and Eugene Rosenfeld, Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1994, pp 641, US$69.50 hb     

Informing Grassroots Development: The 1994–1995 Peacebuilding Experience in Northern Ghana

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focused on poverty alleviation play a central role in responding to conflict situations and initiating peacebuilding activities. Following the 1994–1995 conflict in Northern Ghana, development NGOs coordinated a largely effective grassroots peacebuilding effort. However, insights gained from peacebuilding activities have not informed ongoing development efforts, which continue to propose ‘top-down’ strategies. By examining the strengths and limitations of the peace process in Ghana, this article suggests development NGOs apply the grassroots strategies they used for peacebuilding to their ongoing development activities. This analysis is based on data drawn from archival research as well as field interviews with 21 representatives of the state and NGOs, and community and religious leaders.