Modernization of Terror: The Transformation of Stalin's NKVD, 1934–1941

A defector's Russian barbecues

Edward Lee Howard: Safe House: The Compelling Memoirs of The Only CIA Spy to Seek Asylum in Russia. National Press Books, Bethesda, Maryland, 1995, 299 pp., $23.95.

The Comintern's U.S. legion — I Stalin's American division

Harvey Klehr, John Earl Haynes and Fridrikh Igorevich Firsov: The Secret World of American Communism. Yale University Press, New Haven, Conn., 1995, 348 p., $25.00.

Arcane no more

Roy Godson: Dirty Tricks and Trump Cards: U.S. Covert Action and Counterintelligence. Brassey's, Washington, DC, 1995, 337 pp., $24.95.

Chiang's aide keeps mum

Sidney H. Chang and Ramon H. Myers, eds.: The Storm Clouds Clear Over China: The Memoir of Ch ‘en Li‐fu. The Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, Calif., 1994, 359 p., $24.95.     

Crime Victims’ Perceptions of Police Behavior,Legitimacy, and Cooperation: A Review of the Literature

According to Tyler’s theoretical framework, police officers can motivate cooperation among citizens during direct interactions by using fair procedures and by showing how the police perform their job in combating crime. By conducting a systematic literature review, prior research was examined to see whether perceptions of procedural justice and police performance result in higher levels of perceived legitimacy of the police institution, and in turn whether this perceived legitimacy stimulates cooperative behavior among crime victims specifically. Results of the 15 included studies indicate that partial support for the applicability of this framework on crime victims was found. However, none of the included studies tested all relationships within the framework simultaneously among crime victims; they typically focused only on one of the interrelationships between the frameworks’ key concepts. Implications for future research and police practice are discussed.     

A Review of: “Jonathan Fox,Religion, Civilization,and Civil War: 1945 Through the New Millennium”

According to some terrorist fighters and academicians the constituencies of Muslim extremists are vital to the persistence of the jihad. Interviews and public information were used to examine the accuracy of this claim. The analysis demonstrates that sympathizers are indispensable to some preparative terrorist activities, yet not to others. Extremists depend less on sympathizers for making foreign journeys, generating revenues, and communication than they do for recruiting and sponsoring. So, sympathizers may be important for the persistence of the jihad, yet their role is not self-evident. This implies that receding of sympathy for the jihad will not automatically reduce it.     

Migration,gender, and mobility: Ethiopian–Israeli women's narratives of career trajectories

ABSTRACT

Most studies on the Ethiopian community in Israel discuss the difficulties in its social, cultural, occupational, and educational integration. Too little attention has been paid to the young professionals in the community who are experiencing upward mobility and to the women in particular. As opposed to stereotypes of Ethiopian–Israelis as poor, uneducated, and marginalized, this article explores socio-economic advancement of Ethiopian–Israeli women in Israel. We look at their integration in the labour market and their professional mobility in the areas of arts, business, religion, the army, and education by analysing the factors that play a role in their success. This study allows us to explore Ethiopian women's worlds by looking at their background and the steps they have taken to succeed in their careers.     

Politicization of identity in a European borderland: Istria,Croatia, and authenticity, 1990–2003

In most studies of the Balkans and Eastern Europe, identity politics focuses on nationalism. Unfortunately, very few examine regional identities and how they too are politicized in similar ways for similar reasons. Istria provides a good example of how identity is politicized and how and why individuals adapt it to both internal and external influences. While in the past local and regional identities were politicized in response to colonization, more recently national divisions became more prominent. However, in the very recent past, Istrian identity again became politicized as many natives drew lines between themselves and what they saw as an external national influence emanating from Zagreb. In the 1990s, a renewed Croatian national movement competed with an Istrian regional movement. Istrian regionalists, seeking to justify taking and maintaining regional power and hoping to more quickly bring Croatia into the European Union, used this new political tactic against the nationalizing Croatian government. While both the nationalists and the regionalists claimed the other side's ideology was foreign to Istria, in actuality both have historical roots in the region. Though the competition was not as virulent as in past episodes of nationalist tension between Italians and Croats, it does fit a pattern of continuity in the region.     

Turnover Intentions of Volunteer Resource Managers: The Roles of Work Motivations,Person–Organization Fit,and Emotional Labor

Volunteer management careers and the influence of workplace factors on volunteer manager turnover intentions have received relatively little attention in the empirical research literature. This study uses original survey data collected from over 400 volunteer managers to examine relationships between turnover intention and work motivation factors, person–organization fit (P-O fit), and emotional labor. Work motivation factors includes perceptions of advancement opportunities, task significance, autonomy, and pay satisfaction. P-O fit reflects the degree of congruence between an individual’s values and goals, and the characteristics of their workplace. Emotional labor reflects the degree to which employees are engaged in the management of emotions to adhere to the emotional expectations of their jobs. Results emphasize a lack of advancement opportunities as the primary driver of turnover, and P-O fit as a main factor for retention. In addition, the ability to regulate emotions was found to result in reduced quit intentions.     

Political Economy of the Environment,Gender, and Resistance under Colonialism: Murang'a District,Kenya, 1910–1950

This article draws on interviews with women resettlement farmers in Wedza District, Zimbabwe, to trace changes in livelihood strategies and gender relations from 2000 to 2006. The research indicates a shrinking number of viable options for livelihoods, and the severe erosion of formerly critical activities. Thewomen interviewed see increases inmarital discord and collapse, with implications for family formation, social order, and survival. The article explores the linkages between changing livelihoods and gender relations, focusing especially on marriage in relation to agriculture and land issues, gendered incomes, sexuality, AIDS orphans and other effects of HIV/AIDS. Within this overall difficult context, the enduring ethic of caring and the buffering effects of people’s access to arable land and other natural resources are apparent. Throughout, the article discusses the theoretical implications of the research, participating in debates about regional conditions and theoretical understandings of labour, economy, livelihoods and gender in southern Africa.     

Nationalist Jāhiliyyah and the Flag of the Two Crusaders,or: ISIS,Sovereignty, and the “Owl of Minerva”

This article argues that by understanding Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) state-building processes we are able to understand how ISIS has developed while also developing a united citizenship body built from people in Iraq and Syria and those making hijra. The fragmentation of Iraq and Syria resulted in conditions that would prove conducive to the group's expansion and identifying these conditions is imperative to understanding Sunni extremism in the Middle East. The article argues that ISIS builds citizenship in two ways: first, by developing asabiyya—group feeling—among Sunni and second, by securitizing the Shi'a threat. Identifying and engaging with the concepts of sovereignty and citizenship helps to develop much stronger policy responses.     

Symmetrical Solutions,Asymmetrical Realities: Beyond the Politics of Paralysis?

The historic significance of the Good Friday Agreement and its role in ending organized political violence is acknowledged at the outset. The article then goes on to probe the roots of the political paralysis built into the architecture of the Agreement that are predicated on a misplaced political and cultural symmetry between the “two communities.” It is suggested that the institutionalized relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the U.K. facilitates a cross-party, populist, socio-economic consensus among the nationalist and unionist political parties on the welfare state, taxation and maintaining the massive British subvention to the region. This in turn allows them to concentrate on a divisive culturalist politics, i.e., on antagonistic forms of cultural and identity politics over such issues as flags, parades, and the legacy of the “Troubles” which spills over into gridlock into many areas of regional administration. The article argues for a much broader understanding of culture and identity rooted in the different, if overlapping and interdependent, material realities of both communities while challenging the idea of two cultures/identities as fixed, mutually exclusive, non-negotiable and mutually antagonistic. It then focuses on the importance of Belfast as a key arena which will determine the long-term prospects of an alternative and more constructive form of politics, and enable a fuller recognition of the fundamental asymmetries and inter-dependence between the “two communities.” In the long run, this involves re-defining and reconstructing what is meant by the “Union” and a “United Ireland.”     

Three ‘Rs’ of Econometrics: Repetition,Reproduction and Replication

Development economics has become increasingly quantified in recent years, reflecting the aspirations of economists to practise hard science. We argue that standard applied econometric methodology lacks one key feature of the claim of science to be scientific, namely replication as part of independent confirmation of findings. Replication plays a large role in understanding the confidence we can place in the quantitative studies on which much policy advice rests, which is particularly salient in a UK context given the emphasis placed on evidence-based policy-making by the UK Department for International Development.     

Review article: ‘No body,no story’: Representations of war and disaster

Mark Pedelty, War Stories: The Culture of Foreign Correspondents (1995), London, Routledge.

Jonathan Benthall, Disasters, Relief and the Media (1993), London, I.B. Taurus.

Mark Thompson, Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia‐Hercegovina (1994), Article 19, International Centre against Censorship.     

Fertility,development, and family planning, 1970–1980: An analysis of cases weighted by population

A series of related studies (Freedman and Berelson, 1976; Mauldin and Berelson, 1978; and Tsui and Bogue, 1978) have presented empirical findings based on multiple regression analysis which indicated that family planning program effort (FP), as measured by an index developed by Lapham and Mauldin (1972), was the single most important predictor of (or influence on) fertility reduction in less-developed countries (LDCs). The basic results have been confirmed repeatedly. A more extensive data set was used to extend the analysis to a comparison of results of corss-sectional models circa 1970 and 1980. The study builds upon the results of past studies yet differs from them in several ways. All the variables in the present study were measured at 2 points in time: circa 1970 and circa 1980, allowing a comparison between cross-sectional models for 1970 and 1980. Among the cases included in this multivariate analysis was China, a country usually excluded for lack of data. The analysis was extend to 85 countries. Cases were weighted by population, having the effect of increasing the impact of larger countries such as India and China on the outcome of the analysis. Total fertility rate (TFR) was used as an indicator of fertility. For 1970, family planning program effort had the strongest direct influence on fertility (a result consistent with previous studies). Life expectancy at birth was the other direct influence. The direct influence of life expectancy at birth was less than that of family planning, but the total influence was greater. After life expectancy and family planning, school enrollment and relative educational status of women had the strongest indirect and total influences. The other variables all had a positive influence on fertility. When the total variance attributable was considered, directly and indirectly to each of the independent variables, urbanization, carlorie supply, and per capita gross national product all accounted for less than 5% of the variance in fertility, all of it indirect. Life expectancy, family planning, and school enrollment each explained (directly plus indirectly) more than 10% of the variance in fertility. The pattern differed somewhat for 1980. Calorie supply, per capita gross national product, and relative educational status of women had no influence, direct or indirect on fertility. Also for 1980, life expectancy had a stronger direct influence on fertility than family planning. Overall, life expectancy at birth, family planning program effort, and total school enrollment emerged as the principal influences on fertility.     

“Purity of Arms,” “Preemptive War,” and “Selective Targeting” in the Context of Terrorism: General,Conceptual, and Legal Analyses

Selective targeting (or targeted killing) of terrorist leaders is a legitimate mode of operation and part of a state's counterterrorism, anticipatory, self-defense activities that are designed to prevent the continuation of terrorism. Paradoxically, this counterterrorism measure is the best way of preserving the military ethical conventions of “purity of arms.” The concept refers to moral rules advocating the exercise of restraint and compassion in the course of a confrontation with the enemy. The “purity of arms” concept is debated extensively in democracies. Selective targeting of terrorist activists is a measure designed to hurt the real enemy while minimizing civilian casualties. Terrorist leaders and planners are targeted and an attempt is made, trying to avoid so far as possible, “collateral damage” that often accompanies any general military offensive. Customary international law permits targeting the enemy, provided that the criteria of necessity and proportionality of the attack are maintained. The relationship between the threat of terrorist attacks and the actual attacks carried out is shown in this study. The results contribute to reinforcing the legality of selective targeting as a preemptive mode of operation because they show that one should relate to a threat of an attack as to an imminent danger.     

Biopolitics,borders, and refugee camps: exercising sovereign power over nonmembers of the state†

This article addresses the relationship between the concepts of national identity and biopolitics by examining a border-transit camp for repatriates, refugees, and asylum seekers in Germany. Current studies of detention spaces for migrants have drawn heavily on Agamben’s reflection on the “camp” and “homo sacer,” where the camp is analyzed as a space in a permanent state of exception, in which the government exercises sovereign power over the refugee as the ultimate biopolitical subject. But what groups of people can end up at a camp, and does the government treat all groups in the same way? This article examines the German camp for repatriates, refugees, and asylum seekers as a space where the state’s borders are demarcated and controlled through practices of bureaucratic and narrative differentiation among various groups of people. The author uses the concept of detention space to draw a theoretical link between national identity and biopolitics, and demonstrates how the sovereign’s practices of control and differentiation at the camp construct German national identity through defining “nonmembers” of the state. The study draws on ethnographic fieldwork at the Friedland border transit camp and on a discourse analysis of texts produced at the camp or for the camp.     

Contested water,contested development: unpacking the hydro-social cycle of the Ñuble River,Chile

The way that water is entangled with broader social relations has become a prominent concern in political ecology, geography and beyond. Employing the concept of the hydro-social cycle highlights how water is produced by, and simultaneously constitutes, social and power relations. Applying and expanding the hydro-social cycle as an analytical lens, this paper explores the contestation of different discourses of water. Looking at the conflict over the construction of a proposed dam in Chile, we examine different meanings given to water to understand how these produce uneven power relations with material and symbolic implications. By teasing out the workings and contestations of this conflict as a hydro-social cycle, we aim to highlight the diverse range of elements enlisted in it beyond water, to expose its complexity and to search for more just and inclusive alternatives.     

Regulation of Government: Has it Increased,is it Increasing,Should it be Diminished?

This article examines arms-length 'regulation' of UK government – the public-sector analogy to regulation of business firms — and assesses the precepts for public-sector regulation embodied in the Blair Labour government's official vision of public-man-agement reform, its Modernising Government White Paper of 1999. As a background to assessing the recipes for public-sector regulation in Modernising Government, the article shows that such regulation grew markedly both in the two decades up to 1997 and in the plans and activities of the Blair government from 1997 to 1999. Against that background, the design principles for public-sector regulation contained in Modernising Government are assessed. The White Paper was notable for embracing a doctrine of 'enforced self-regulation' for the public sector that involved aspirations to both more and less public-sector regulation in the future. It put its faith in a mixture of oversight and mutuality for 'regulating regulation'. But in spite of the radical-sounding tone of Modernising Government, the measures proposed appeared limited and half-hearted, and two well-known institutional design principles for regulation seemed to be missing altogether from the Blair government's view of administrative 'modernity'.