Fighting Al Qaeda in Yemen? Rethinking the Nature of the Islamist Threat and the Effectiveness of U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy

This article evaluates U.S. perception of and response to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) operating in Yemen. It evaluates the empirical evidence on which the present understanding of the group is based, the implications of the sociopolitical context in which it operates, and the uneasy position of the Yemeni government in the War against Terror as it has been affected by U.S. policy from the early 1990s to the present. In the contested Yemeni state, AQAP is competing for political legitimacy and is increasingly dependent on public support. The U.S. kill-or-capture response, the “on–off” nature of its support that has made Yemen vulnerable to the influence of Al Qaeda in the past, and the actions of the Yemeni government itself, which depends on the continued existence of the threat to secure financial support vital for political survival, means that none of the measures being taken has the potential to defeat AQAP.     

Coping with U.S. and EU's challenges? Strategic confusion in the Czech foreign and security policy

This article traces developments in the Czech political elite's thinking about structural changes that the region and the country have experienced during the last several years. It is argued that two parallel, external structural constraints have significantly shaped decisions of the Czech political elite as the country has, once again, proven to be an ostensibly “reactive state”. These structural constraints have been the ongoing U.S. recalibration of its grand strategy as well as the financial crisis with a systemic challenge to the European political project in which fiscal and monetary issues have largely replaced previous criticism of the Constitutional Treaty and then the Reform Treaty. It is argued that these developments have posed a notable problem for two predominant ideological convictions present in the Czech political thinking – Atlantism and Europeanism, as neither of them has offered readily answers to deal with such a challenge. As will be shown, this mutually reinforcing dual challenge has further exacerbated previously existing Czech government's lack of political vision, and resorted to a political mentality which has contained elements of denial, rationalization, and political resignation.     

Are there Limits to Financing Culture through the Market? Evidence from the U.S. Museum Field

The commercialization of nonprofit organizations has recently taken center stage as one of the pivotal policy issues facing this sector in the United States and elsewhere. In many ways, American museums have long been at the forefront of the trend with the operation of retail activities in the form of museum stores, mail-order catalogues and, most recently, web-based virtual shops. While museums in other parts of the world have begun to follow the American example, there has been relatively little scrutiny of the viability of this commercialization strategy. This article examines US tax and census data to chart the development of museum merchandising revenues from the 1980s to the 1990s.     

Are older workers really different ? the effects of age,tenure, and education on work preferences of registered nurses

The aging of the workface has generated interest in the special needs of older workers. This research on registered nursed in nursing homes investigated the relationship between nurses' age and their work preferences, as well as the effects of tenure and education on this relationship. Older nurses assigned greater importance to work flexibility and lesser importance to development, career advancement, and socialization than did younger ones. Tenure and education contributed to the predictive power of age but did not moderate the relationship.     

Wasted Words? The Limitations of U.S. Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy

For America's foes in Afghanistan and the Middle East, triumph on the battlefield is less important than winning the battle of perceptions. In response, the United States has turned to Strategic Communication and Public Diplomacy (SC-PD) to engage key audiences in ways that advance U.S. interests and to win the political-ideological contest for domestic and international legitimacy. But are these strategies effective? While winning hearts and minds is politically important, SC-PD—even at its best—is much less effective than other well-crafted and mutually supportive policies and strategies. Moreover, there are structural obstacles that greatly limit the effectiveness of SC-PD.     

Global South solidarity? China,regional organisations and intervention in the Libyan and Syrian civil wars

Why was China responsive to regional organisations’ call for intervention in the case of the Libya crisis, where it supported sanctions and an International Criminal Court referral, and acquiesced to a no-fly zone, but unresponsive to pressure from regional organisations for intervention in the Syria crisis, issuing repeated vetoes instead? Using interviews and other primary data, this article explains the variation by highlighting that China is most responsive to regional organisations when these groups remain cohesive, congregate around the same policy position and when they publicly criticise or isolate China.     

Informal payments for health care services – Corruption or gratitude? A study on public attitudes,perceptions and opinions in six Central and Eastern European countries

In this study we aim to compare the public perceptions towards informal patient payments in six Central and Eastern European countries (Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Ukraine). Overall, around 35–60% of the general public in each country has ever made informal payments, though informal cash payments are perceived negatively, mostly as corruption. In-kind gifts are often seen as a token of gratitude. However, significant differences among countries are observed. Despite the public support for the eradication of informal payments, there are population groups who favor their existence and this should be taken into account in policy-making.     

What's Special about U.S. Muslims? The War on Terrorism as Seen by Muslims in the United States,Morocco, Egypt,Pakistan, and Indonesia

Since 11 September 2001, Europe has suffered multiple jihadi attacks but the United States has not. This “American exceptionalism” has been attributed to the special qualities of U.S. Muslims, who are seen as politically better integrated and less sympathetic toward radical politics than other Muslims. This article tests the exceptionalism hypothesis by comparing results from a 2007 Pew poll of U.S. Muslims with results from 2006–2007 START polls of Muslims in Morocco, Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia. On questions about religious identity, attitude toward Al Qaeda, U.S. intentions in the War on Terrorism, and suicide terrorism, U.S. Muslims differed only slightly from comparison Muslims.     

Securing the Transatlantic Maritime Supply Chains from Counterterrorism: EU–U.S. Cooperation and the Emergence of a Transatlantic Customs Security Regime

This article offers an analysis of the cooperation between the European Union (EU) and the United States on customs security in the context of the two actors' fight against terrorism. While other aspects of EU–U.S. counterterrorism cooperation have received some scholarly attention, not so much research has focused on security cooperation in the EU–U.S. customs and supply chain. To investigate the emergence of transatlantic cooperation in this field this article employs regime theory in examining the 2004 EU–U.S. customs security agreement, the 2012 EU–U.S. mutual recognition decision, and the transatlantic disagreement on the U.S. 100 percent scanning rule.     

Do Citizens really care about federalism? public preferences for the administration of governmental programs

In this paper we present a secondary analysis of a survey of Alabama residents. The focus of that survey was individual attitudes toward a variety of policy areas, five of which could reasonably be administered at either the state or national level. Rather than simply asking what level of government should have responsibility, we asked respondents to construct national and state budgets which might, or might not, include appropriations for these and other policy areas. In general, individuals allocated funds to each policy area at both the state and national level. This means either that most citizens favor cooperative federalism, or more likely, people are primarily interested in seeing that certain programs are funded and do not much care what level of government administers a policy area. This latter interpretation is supported by the fact that no theory taken from the current fed-eralism literature is able to explain individual attitudes toward federalism as measured by these budget allocations. Most people simply do not have very strong feelings about which level of government should be responsible for any given program.