The Greek state response to terrorism

Since 1975 Greece has been suffering a persistent assault of terrorism mainly at the hands of the 17 November, revolutionary communist group. The Greek state after two decades of bitter and bloody experience, has been unable to resolve the problem. The purpose of this article is to identify and examine the attitudes of Greek political elites towards the problem and the tactics and responses which they have utilized to combat it. Focusing on the major political parties, the study explores opinions and reactions to different manifestations of the problem of political violence. It also attempts to demonstrate that, although each party stands in principle against terrorism, the overall response of the Greek state has been uniquely lethargic, dilatory and unbalanced. Four conclusions emerge from this study: the inefficacy of legislation that treats terrorism like organized crime; the need for a thoroughgoing reform of the security services; the lack of a national strategy to combat all terrorist activity; and the necessity for Greek governments to put party politics aside, when dealing with terrorism.     

India's response to terrorism after 13 December 2001

The nature of the December 13, 2001 terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament brought about an Indian reaction significantly different from the restraint exercised in the past, influenced by the ongoing global “war on terror”. India's response to terrorism became dynamic and multi-faceted, with alternating emphasis on a variety of measures, including diplomatic, military, political, administrative, and legal. Considerable emphasis was also placed on international cooperation, especially with the U.S. With continuing tensions in Indo-Pakistani relations, and the regrouping of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the risk of a high-value Al Qaeda-linked attack in New Delhi remains high. This could well escalate into another military confrontation between India and Pakistan, with inherent uncertainties.     

The liberal in liberal democracy

This article argues that much of the work on democratization and democratic consolidation is obscured by a conceptual fog, when at the very least some of this confusion could be ameliorated by parsing out components that are obviously liberal in nature. An admission of the importance of liberalization and liberal consolidation as distinctly different in form and measurement from democratization and democratic consolidation are the first steps to better research on the varieties of causation that constitute and propel the dissolution of more authoritarian regimes towards more liberal democratic regimes. Acknowledging that the liberal in liberal democracy is unpopular for some, and that liberal democracy does not necessarily mean American liberal democracy, go a long way to freeing these terms from ethnocentric misconceptions, as well as cementing analytical clarification. Though all modern democracies have both liberal and democratic components, democratic consolidation does not guarantee liberal consolidation.     

The liberal dilemmas of a people-centred approach to state-building

The article explores the dilemmas of providing security assistance to post-conflict states. It argues that when used as a strategy for intervention, SSR exposes the inherent contradictions of liberal peace-building. The article focuses on the Weberian state monopoly versus other—hybrid or non-state—forms of security and justice provision. It presents the background for the discussion and suggests that as a strategy for intervention, the choice is not simply between a top-down ‘imposition’ of a universal state model and a bottom-up ‘working with what is there’ approach. It is also a choice between direct and indirect forms of rule. This makes the dilemma real for liberal-minded practitioners and observers.     

International terrorism in the Mediterranean: A legal response

The new French scheme for a Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), officially inaugurated on 13 July, has stirred up a great deal of controversy inside the EU. Even in its watered-down form, the initiative promises to relaunch the stalled relations between the two sides of the Mediterranean in the context of the Barcelona Process. Though vulnerable to all manner of external shocks linked to the multiple inter- and intra-state conflicts around the Mediterranean, the Sarkozy plan is a welcome move to a greater degree of “co-ownership” through the institution of a joint presidency. Of great importance in the interest of overcoming at least some of the problems that have bedeviled the Barcelona Process is further “decentring” of Euro-Med politics away from Brussels and more comprehensive trade opening by the EU.     

The myth of liberal peace-building

‘Liberal peace-building’ is a subject of intense debate within contemporary IR. This article contends, however, that for all the merits of much of the work on the subject, the overall terms of the debate are rooted in a series of questionable assumptions. Proponents and critics alike hold that peace-building is an essentially liberal project, over which there is a global (or Western) consensus, and which is pursued by a decentralised plurality of institutions irrespective of the particularly of war-endings. This article shows that this is misleading. Focusing on the relations between peace agreements and peace-building, it shows that peace agreements are contextually specific political arrangements, driven above all by strategic considerations of power and legitimacy, in relation to which liberal peace-building doctrines and practices are unevenly applied, instrumentalised or plain ignored—including by international actors. It argues in turn that liberal peace-building discourse overstates both the liberalism of contemporary peace interventions, and the degree of global consensus thereover, and fails to capture the enduring centrality of states, strategy and geopolitics in the making of peace. These arguments are developed with reference to a wide range of cases of post-Cold War peace interventions, though with especial focus on UN peace-building in Cambodia in the early 1990s.     

The phenomenon of conservative terrorism

In his studies of loyalist terrorism in Northern Ireland, Steve Bruce introduces the concept of ‘pro‐state’ terrorism, whereby terrorists carry out attacks in order to eliminate threats which they believe should have been eliminated by the state's security forces. This article argues that whilst the actions of loyalist terrorists may have a pro‐state element, they can more properly be seen in the wider context of conservative terrorism.     

The welfare cost of terrorism

Data from 117 countries over the period 2006 to 2011 are used to estimate a macroeconomic cross-country system of equations that examines the association between terrorism, self-reported life satisfaction, and national income. Results indicate that terrorism is negatively associated with life satisfaction, whereas no such association is found between terrorism and real GDP per worker. Stark contrasts are found, however, between OECD and non-OECD members. In all, our results suggest that the social costs of terrorism are potentially much higher than the economic costs, and measuring only the conventional economic costs of terrorism significantly underestimates the true costs.     

The terrorism of the other: towards a contrapuntal reading of terrorism in India

This article advances an argument for a contrapuntal reading of terrorism using the case study of India. In recent years, the work of Edward Said has received some attention in the field of international relations. As yet, however, most readings of terrorism, either in its traditional form of terrorism studies or in the guise of critical terrorism studies, have not addressed the interface between terrorism and security, drawing on the work of Said. We take his work as a point of departure, enabling the analysis in this article to critique the ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis whilst also exploring the relationship between mass casualty terrorism and crowded places. In doing so, we draw attention to the instantiation of a series of attacks in India. The final section of this article pulls the analysis together so as to question the relationship between poverty and resilience.     

The democratic legitimation of European institutions

Italy is firmly in the grip of an austerity programme mandated by the European Union institutions, and executed by an unelected technocrat. This state of affairs is at once the result of the acute and unexpected crisis of the financial and economic integration of the eurozone, and an expression of the failures of the Italian political class. Although the euro crisis has been mishandled by European elites, Italy's long-term economic decline, and the inability of Italian party politicians to generate a sustainable coalition to address Italy's economic problems, hinders an exit from the crisis.     

Responding to terrorism across the technological spectrum

The ‘revolution in military affairs’ arguably heralds a new era of warfare dominated by the American military's mastery of the conventional battlefield. This ‘revolution’, however, will have little if any impact on American military capabilities so far as countering terrorism, insurgency, or guerrilla warfare are concerned. With regard to terrorism specifically, a combination of the resurgence of terrorism motivated by a religious imperative and the implications that it has to trigger acts future of mass, indiscriminate violence; the proliferation of ‘amateur’ terrorist groups which may contribute to the loosening of previous self‐imposed constraints on operations and lethality, and the growing sophistication of established, more ‘professional’ groups is likely to lead to higher levels of lethality and destruction than in the past.