A Review of: “Israeli and Palestinian Postcards: Presentations of National Self”

Recent studies suggest that what the political talk radio hosts say on the air can shape the political orientations of their audiences. Drawing on data from a panel survey conducted in 1996, I examined the "Limbaugh effect" during the GOP presidential nomination campaign. My findings cast doubt on popular assumptions about the power of Limbaugh's words. Despite weeks of listening to Limbaugh criticize Pat Buchanan, members of the audience were no more likely to harbor negative feelings toward the candidate than were nonlisteners.     

Beijing: A conference of commitments?

The author of this article holds the view that the Declaration and Platform for Action at the UN Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 was the product of the most highly participatory process ever organized under the auspices of the UN. The Declaration and Platform expressed the strongest views on gender equality, empowerment, and justice that governments have ever endorsed. These documents were the consolidation of gains made by women in previous UN conferences. The 135-page Platform can be used at all levels of decision making. Governments and international can be held accountable for its provisions. The Platform exposes the problems violence and exploitation against women and girls as well as the revelation that environmental destruction is due to an unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in developed countries. Conference participants included about 3000 nongovernmental groups (NGOs). The Women's Linkage Caucus and WEDO served to facilitate the advocacy process by providing briefings on text still under negotiation and providing on-line recommendations from the 1995 and 1994 Commission on the Status of Women preparatory committee meetings. A scoreboard that tracked government's commitment at the 1995 preparatory committee meetings was reinstated in Beijing. The information was conveyed on the Internet. The European Union is credited with diluting the language about government commitment to the Platform. Governments are still given responsibility for implementation, and the need for political will is stressed (paragraph 293). Paragraph 297 indicates the process for implementation of the Platform and coordination with NGOs. Although the Platform recognizes the importance of women's groups and other NGOs, the responsibility for implementation is still given to governments.     

American perceptions of terrorism: A Q‐methodological analysis of types

The literature on terrorism makes a number of significant predictions of the effects of media coverage of terrorism on audiences, public policy, and terrorism itself. Many of these predictions are contradictory, and little or no empirical social‐scientific research has been done to determine public perceptions of international terrorism. Q‐methodology offers a means of identifying groups or “types” of persons who share similar attitudes toward a phenomenon. Use of Q‐methodology here revealed four types of respondents sharing similar views of international terrorism. These distinctive types helped shed light on the many diverse and contradictory predictions of the effects of terrorism coverage on American public opinion and public policy.     

Pioneers of peace research — Lewis Fry Richardson: Apostle of math

Most studies of economic sanctions have concluded that they are ineffective as instruments of foreign policy. In a previous effort, we applied the spatial model of bargaining to the question of sanctions effectiveness to identify the‐conditions under which sanctions can be expected to “work.” In this paper, we refine that analysis by examining the impact of domestic politics in the state that is the target of the sanctions. Sanction episodes may be examples of two‐level games in which the domestic game within both parties affects the international game and vice‐versa. Here, we take a first cut of applying this approach to the analysis of sanctions effectiveness. We extend the spatial model to focus on how sanctions affect the internal political bargaining within the target state. From this, we determine how state policy should change (or not) as a result of the sanctions. We use the basic model to identify general hypotheses regarding the nature of sanctions and their effectiveness and we evaluate some of these hypotheses using cases in which the United States imposed sanctions on Latin American countries for human rights violations.     

A Review of: “Brynjar Lia. Architect of Global Jihad: The life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus'ab al-Suri.”

During the quarter century before the First World War, anarchist terrorism was often blamed on the impact of anarchist agitators on naïve immigrants. This article seeks to investigate the truth of this claim, focusing particularly on Italian emigrants, but also looking at some examples of Spanish, French, and Russian emigrants. My conclusion is that, with a few exceptions, radicals emigrated, but emigration did not create radical terrorists. A particularly good example of this can be found by examining the large Italian emigration to Argentina. At most, the emigrant experience may have heightened a pre-existing radicalism or given more precise configuration to its violent expression.     

The Evolution of Political Violence: The Case of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab

This research investigates the development and expansion of the al-Shabaab movement in Somalia from 2000 to 2013. Initially a marginal player in Somalia, by 2013 al-Shabaab had transformed into the most formidable armed opposition to challenge the nascent Somali government and its allies. During this time period they administered territory domestically, while expanding their tactical repertoire and geographic scope of attacks. After analyzing the historical conditions (2000–2006) from which al-Shabaab emerged, I explore the evolution of this organization through the use of historical process tracing. This entails looking for critical junctures on a global, national, and local level that had a dramatic impact on the future trajectory of the insurgency. The results show that harsh foreign interventions had many deleterious consequences, acting as an initial impetus for armed resistance, while also acting as a continuous source of controversy which al-Shabaab exploited to gain new recruits. Moreover, irreconcilable intra-organizational schisms also contributed to altering the future organizational decisions made by al-Shabaab. The culmination of these results engage and expand the theory of categorical terrorism, offering observations to help scholars and policy makers alike begin to re-conceptualize ways to study terrorism and political violence.     

Italy: a case of mutating populism?

Italy is often presented as a showcase of populist parties. In the 2013 parliamentary elections, half of the Italian electorate voted for a party that has been labelled populist. During the 1994–2011 period, Italy witnessed four coalition governments dominated by populists. In line with the framework guiding this special issue, Italy thus offers a unique opportunity to trace the reactions of political and societal actors to populists in government. We propose that it is necessary to examine not only how populism's opponents react, but also how fellow populists respond. Indeed, we observe in Italy, on the one hand, what we will call mutating populism and, on the other hand, a peculiar mixture of paralysis, antagonism, and imitation by their opponents. This contribution is structured as follows: first, we describe Italian populism in the context of the end of the Italian First Republic and the emergence of the new party system under the Second Republic. In the process we discuss events under the four Berlusconi governments (1994–1995; 2001–2005; 2005–2006; 2008–2011). In each phase, we distinguish between populist and anti-populist contenders. We also describe the reactions abroad to governing Italian populists, especially within the European Union.     

A Review of: “The Take”

This study uses four waves of panel data to analyze inadvertent learning—that is, learning in the absence of interest or motivation—from watching public service television channels. Previous research suggests that motivation-based gaps in political knowledge are at least partly a function of the political information opportunities provided by the major television channels in a country, which influence the likelihood of being inadvertently exposed to news and current affairs programs. The present study puts the inadvertent learning hypothesis to a thorough empirical test by analyzing individual-level growth in knowledge over time, based on panel data collected during five months leading up to the Swedish 2010 national election. Using multilevel growth curve modeling and an extensive battery of surveillance knowledge questions, the results show not only (a) that public service channel viewing was related to learning, but also (b) that knowledge growth occurred among public service viewers independently of their political motivation and news attention, and (c) that such learning was even more pronounced among viewers lacking an interest in politics. The findings are discussed in light of ongoing media environmental transformations as well as cross-national comparative media systems research.     

The end of literature and the beginning of praxis: Wagō Ryōichi's Pebbles of Poetry

Abstract

On 16 March 2011, shortly after the hydrogen explosion in the third nuclear block, Wagō Ryōichi (1968–), a poet who has lived in Fukushima for decades, started using Twitter as an alternative method for his action poetry. The tweets from his nearly desolate hometown immediately gained public reception, spreading all across the country and beyond, being compiled into an anthology titled Shi no tsubute (Pebbles of poetry). This study examines the flood of words he posted during the critical post-earthquake turmoil, aiming to conceive them as radically redefining (albeit temporarily) the quotidian that has long been institutionalized during the country's recent history. Despite their later publication in book forms, Wagō's tweets initially circulated more like graffiti than printed books, being a more fundamentally contingent form of writing than his previously printed letters. Epitomizing the bio-sociological conditions (or what Karatani Kōjin calls ‘singularities’) arising from the intensified experience immediately following the Fukushima incident, Wagō's scribbles on the internet bear much resemblance to Terayama Shūji's mobilization of street epic in the 1960s–70s, or, more theoretically, Bergson's conception of evolution as multiplicity arising from intense temporality. His graffiti praxis is itself a renewed ethics, sharing the spirit of the-end-of-literature discourses by Karatani and others since the 1980s.     

A Review of: “Alison Pargeter. The New Frontiers of Jihad: Radical Islam in Europe.”

Recent years have witnessed a significant increase in the amount of counterterrorism legislation worldwide. The commonly held assumption behind the adoption of counterterrorism legislation links it to the terrorist threat in a state. However, little research has focused on empirically testing reasons driving states to legislate. This article addresses this void by analyzing the puzzle of why states choose to adopt new terrorism-specific legislation. The article presents empirical analysis of the probability of states to legislate before and after September 11, 2001, and is based on a new database of counterterrorism legislation. The findings reveal that before September 11, state decisions to adopt new legislation correlated with the number of terrorist organizations operating in their territory. Since September 11, however, the most significant predictors for the adoption of new legislation have become the existence of previous counterterrorism legislation and the participation of a state in the War on Terror.     

Donor-induced depoliticisation of development implementation: the case of Ghana’s Compact I

Based on empirical evidence from a donor-funded project in Ghana, this article demonstrates that when development implementation is depoliticised, targets will likely be achieved within budget and on time. Funded and supervised by the Millennium Challenge Corporation of the United States, Ghana Compact I has been recommended as a model for future development implementation. This article is an attempt to explain this success, compared to select social programmes. It argues that Compact I was implemented successfully because it was insulated from political interference, and suggests that donor-induced depoliticisation offers a route to successful development implementation in recipient countries.     

Muslim welfare bodies: New avenues of representation?

ABSTRACT

A lot of ink has flown over the issue of political under-representation of Muslims in India and over affirmative action measures needed to redress this imbalance. However, a minimal amount of attention has been paid to how Muslims are finding new ways to counter this under-representation. The Ministry for Minority Welfare and subsequent creation of the Minority Welfare Department seem to have expanded the locus of representation for Muslims beyond elections, legislatures, and membership of political parties. Consequently, the number of “Muslim representatives” has increased, in addition to MPs and MLAs who strictly speaking are supposed to be “people’s representatives.” Focusing on two Muslim groups’ engagement with the minority welfare bodies, the article contends that the success or failure of Muslim appointments to state bodies is based not so much on religious differentiation as on the ruling party’s electoral strategies, and their inclusion in these bodies only reinforces their minority status without integrating them entirely in the political process.     

The context of American millenarian revolutionary theology: The case of the ‘identity Christian’ church of Israel

It is popularly believed that the millenarian Christian Identity theology movement in the United States is inextricably associated with revolutionary violence. This article examines the Church of Israel, an important center of Identity theology, to determine whether or not that popular impression is consistent with the facts in this case and with the Identity movement as a whole. It differentiates among the competing appeals of the far right wing offering taxonomies of organization types and ideological appeals. The conclusion is that while Christian Identity theology represents a revolution within the religious tradition, its adherents have rarely resorted to revolutionary violence, following a pattern familiar to earlier millenial movements in which the dominant motif was partial withdrawal from society punctuated by unusual and exceedingly short outbursts of violence.     

A Review of: “Julia Sukys. Silence is Death: The Life and Work of Tahar Djaout.”

This article looks at Internet use by insurgent groups in the North Caucasus in the context of a regional diffusion of violence. Using a mixed methods research design that combines hyperlink network analysis and micro-discourse analysis, it examines the online characteristics of the Caucasus Emirate and the main frames conveyed by the websites affiliated with the Emirate. It demonstrates the existence of a network of cross-referencing websites that, collectively, articulate the Emirate's political agenda online and allow for the dissemination of frames across the Web. It also shows that while jihadism provides a cultural resource that fosters a global sense of community, the jihadization of discourse does not eradicate local references as the local dynamics of the conflict have a strong impact on online communicative strategies. Finally, although based on a specific case study, this article highlights the potential of a mixed methods research design as applied to an analysis of virtual insurgent networks.