Hollywood and the Spectacle of Terrorism

As terrorist actions, both state and non-state, have spread in both frequency and destructive power since the 1960s, the topic has become an enduring source of narratives, fantasies, and myths that have contributed to Hollywood filmmaking with its familiar emphasis on international intrigue, exotic settings, graphic violence, and the demonization of foreign threats. Images of political violence have a strong appeal in the US, where the gun culture, civic violence, crime sprees, and a thriving war economy permeate the landscape. The al Qaeda attacks of 9/11 heightened public fascination with terrorism, fueled by mounting fear and paranoia, and this was destined to inspire a new cycle of films in which on-screen terrorism dramatizes elements of real-life threats that now include possible weapons of mass destruction. The “war on terror,” driven as much by US strategy to reconfigure the Middle East as by the events of 9/11, serves as the perfect backdrop for film industry productions of violent high-tech spectacles, now a major staple of media culture. For cinema as for politics, the “Middle East” now exists as a mystical category largely outside of time and space, a ready source of dark fears and threats. At the same time, corporate-driven globalization, viewed as a cultural as well as economic and political process, feeds into modern terrorism as political violence (including militarism) sharpens its capacity to attack, disrupt, and surprise—the same features now so integral to the Hollywood film industry. We see jihadic terrorism as not only a virulent form of blowback against US imperial power but as possibly the darkest side of neo-liberal globalization.     

Causes of Noncompliance with International Law: A Field Experiment on Anonymous Incorporation

Using two field experiments, we probe the efficacy of international rules mandating that incorporation services establish their customers’ true identities. The standards were designed to prevent anonymous “shell” corporations central to money laundering, corruption, and other crimes. Posing as consultants seeking confidential incorporation, we randomly assigned six experimental conditions in emails varying information about monetary reward, international and domestic law, and customer risk to 1,793 incorporation services in 177 countries and 1,722 U.S. firms. Firms in tax havens obey the rules significantly more often than in OECD countries, whereas services in poor nations sometimes prove more compliant than those in rich countries. Only the risk of terrorism and specter of the Internal Revenue Service decrease offers for anonymous incorporation, but they also lower compliance. Offers to “pay a premium” reduce compliance. The risk of corruption decreases response rates but, alarmingly, also decreases compliance rates. Raising international law has no significant effect.     

Comparing the legitimacy and effectiveness of global hard and soft law: An analytical framework

The international norms that are developed as tools of global governance can be placed on a continuum from traditional “hard law” treaties to the vaguest and voluntary “soft law.” In this article we develop an analytical framework for comparing norms on different positions along the continuum, thus for comparing international hard and soft law. We root the framework in both the rationalist and the constructivist paradigms of international relations by focusing on two overarching evaluative criteria: effectiveness and legitimacy. These broad concepts are divided into smaller building blocks encompassing mechanisms through which norms can exert influence; for example, by changing material incentives, identities, and building capacity, and by contributing to building source‐based, procedural, and substantive legitimacy. We illustrate the applicability of the framework with three norm processes of varying degrees of “softness” in global climate governance.     

Highway to the Danger Zone: United States Legislative Framework Regulating the Commercial Space Sector

The last decade has been witness to a rapid rise of the commercial space sectors of many countries. This development offers myriad prospects for the development and exploration of outer space, but simultaneously poses threats to the international community if not regulated properly. The potential dangers of outer space activity were recognized by both the United States and the former Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War, which led to the concretization of the international legal regime regulating outer space activities. However, without the enforcement of these legal standards at the municipal level of the state, this regime is ineffective. Therefore, it is an imperative that all states with a commercial space presence develop national space legislation that appropriately incorporates international standards. The U.S. space legislation is, at present, the most robust legal framework which addresses many of the necessary concerns. At the same time, in attempts to promote the growth of its space sector, the U.S. regime regulating commercial space ignores some of the standards developed in the international regime. The critical evaluation of the salient features of the U.S. legislation undertaken by this article serves as a guide for many states seeking to develop their own legislation regulating the commercial space industry. It serves as a guide to adopting comprehensive standards of protections provided for in the U.S. legislation and the International Law Association’s “Model Law on National Space Legislation,” but also cautions against the dangers of weaponization, poor environmental protection, and exposure to international liability. A thorough legislative framework that adequately balances economic, strategic, and political concerns with accepted legal principles of international law is essential to prevent commercial space activities from becoming a “highway to the danger zone.”     

Ability to Face Threats of Cyberterrorism: Factors Associated with Organizational Competence

ABSTRACT

Acts of cyberterrorism represent potential, significant negative effects to property, infrastructure systems, security, and an overall way of life. These disruptions garner significant attention from government and the public. Managers concerned by threats of cyberterrorism should understand the components that enhance organizational competence so that doubt and fear do not overtake organizational members when faced with such extreme events. Although organizational competence is important in everyday organizational behaviors, the presence of confidence in organizational abilities is especially critical when operating in the midst of the ambiguity and destructive disruptions associated with cyberterrorist threats. We empirically assess three factors associated with competence for organizations facing simulated cyberterror attacks. Our results support the relationship between two of these factors—organizational identification and deference to expertise—with organizational competence. These findings contribute to research concerning the antecedents critical to organizational competence and also add to the growing research on cyberterrorism.     

Can Terrorism Abroad Influence Migration Attitudes at Home?

This article demonstrates that public opinion on migration “at home” is systematically driven by terrorism in other countries. Although there is little substantive evidence linking refugees or migrants to most recent terror attacks in Europe, news about terrorist attacks can trigger more negative views of immigrants. However, the spatial dynamics of this process are neglected in existing research. We argue that feelings of imminent danger and a more salient perception of migration threats do not stop at national borders. The empirical results based on spatial econometrics and data on all terrorist attacks in Europe for the post-9/11 period support these claims. The effect of terrorism on migration concern is strongly present within a country but also diffuses across states in Europe. This finding improves our understanding of public opinion on migration, as well as the spillover effects of terrorism, and it highlights crucial lessons for scholars interested in the security implications of population movements.     

Law as a System of Rights: A Critical Perspective

The “rhetorical incorporation of human rights terminology” into domestic law is the central concern of this article. Over the last 20 years or so, countries have faced international pressure to conform to human rights standards in order to enjoy legitimacy. However, there is a huge gap between what is legalized as “human rights” in domestic laws and what is set forth as “human rights” in international human rights instruments. Based on this presupposition that a proper incorporation of human rights on the books is a prerequisite for putting them into practice, this study by adopting a Systems Thinking approach seeks to show that law as a soft system on the books is more than the name and number of rights. It is a complex whole whose function depends on not only the name and number of rights but also different features of rights and the relationships between them. To this end, law is conceived as a system of rights that has five major features including the “frame of reference,” “scope of rights,” “orientation of rights,” “enforceability of rights,” and “realizability of rights.” The way of codification of human rights with respect to each of these features makes a big difference in implementing human rights in practice. To develop a heuristic devise for evaluating the situation of human rights in current legal systems, the conceptual space of law as a system of rights is depicted in a matrix called a “Rights Fabric Matrix.”     

Citizenship and Mediated Society

This paper challenges the idea of the liberating potential of information and communication technologies in terms of their meaning related to citizenship. It shows that the mechanisms that are supposedly conducive to the democratization of society can function as the mechanisms of exclusion of citizens. Adopting the critical-cultural perspective applied to issues of consumerism and their relations to citizens in media environment, the paper addresses the mediated appearances and manifestations of citizenship. The line dividing “old” from “new” media that is commonly used to apply to new media their participatory democratic potential lacks a reflection that would more explicitly admit new media limitations. These, when seen more in depth, appear as comparable to those of mass media. If in the beginning of the 1990s the Internet was embraced as truly enhancing political action, today its consumer realities, together with the spread of racism and xenophobia, need to be critically studied. As studies have shown, the Internet increasingly encourages the individual to look for private solutions to the problems of public nature which contributes to the understanding of citizenship not as a public but predominantly as a private affair. If cyberspace is becoming a vital link for new social movements and different groups of political activists, when seen from a broader citizenship perspective, the Internet has to be discussed also with regards to its limited democratic potential.     

Canada's Communications Security Establishment,Signals Intelligence and counter-terrorism

Canada's Communications Security Establishment has undergone a far-reaching transformation in conjunction with the expanded role of Signals Intelligence in the global ‘war on terror’. For the first time, Canada adopted a formal statute for CSE, including an expanded remit for countering terrorism. With a shift in targeting priorities towards terrorism and threats to Canadian interests abroad, Canada's participation in SIGINT-related international partnerships takes on new significance. The collection of communication intelligence touches upon public sensibilities regarding privacy rights of Canadians. The evolution of Canadian SIGINT capabilities was therefore accompanied by the establishment, as early as 1996, of a system for intelligence accountability and review, the Office of the CSE Commissioner. Recent advances in communications technology and pressing requirements for Signals Intelligence have impelled changes in the law, while also accentuating the role played by the CSE Commissioner in scrutinizing CSE activities to ensure compliance with ministerial authorizations and the laws of Canada.     

From Passive Objects to Active Agents: A Comparative Study of Conceptions of Victim Identities at the ICTY and ICC

Contemporary developments in international criminal justice have led to new systems of victims' rights and redress. A number of studies have identified the processes of victim protection, participation, and reparations at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, little attention has been paid to how these changing practices have served to constitute victim identities. This article seeks to address this gap in scholarship through an analysis of the changing definitions, status, and integration of victims into these institutions. It explores how institutional practices serve to construct victims as either “passive objects” or “active agents” of the law. It then considers whether this “active agent” translates to ideas of the person in all social contexts. The article argues that the ICC needs to consider whether victims hold the necessary personal, material, and social “resources” required to action their rights in this institutional context.     

Globalization and legal change: The “Americanization” of European law?

Intensified global economic competition, economic liberalization, and the rise of EU governance have led some observers to argue that there has been a trend toward the “Americanization” of the European “way of law.” This article addresses that contention, focusing on legal change in European member states. It first describes ways in which the American legal tradition has differed most sharply from the national legal systems of Western Europe (including Great Britain) and the political and economic factors that account for this “American legal distinctiveness.” Similar political and economic factors currently are at work in Europe, the article acknowledges, creating incentives for legal convergence. But it also argues that European legal culture and the political organization of European national states generate path‐dependent forces that impede European movement toward American ways of law, and it discusses six important differences between European and American law that remain entrenched and are unlikely to disappear.     

The political and practical obstacles to the reform of the judiciary and the establishment of a rule of law in China

Is China’s “socialist rule by law” (社会主义法制) qualified to be called “rule of law” (法治) or a “thin rule of law” proposed by Randall Peeremboon, without abolishing the political supremacy of the Chinese Communist Party and the establishment of an independent judiciary? Since the mid-1990s, the Chinese legal system and its judiciary have gone through reforms and on the whole modernized. However, the Chinese judiciary still faces many problems, and among them the lack of professional jurists, corruption and local protectionism appear as crucial ones. The current political and institutional arrangements and lack of freedom of the press and freedom of association clearly intensify these problems. “Rule of law” (法治) or “rule by law” (法制) in China is still more often interpreted in the light of the respective political, bureaucratic and economic powers of the parties involved than according to principles of law or equity. The modernization of the legal system will continue, but the political translation of the legal demands of society and the international community will take time to materialize. In the meantime, risks, setbacks and difficulties will continue to prevent China from establishing a truly independent judiciary and what is universally called a rule of law.     

Outsiders Inside and Insiders Outside: Linking Transnational and Domestic Public Action for Human Rights

Human Rights Review - “Is the traditional divide between domestic and international politics breaking down?” and, if so, with what effects on transnational human rights activism? This...     

The Communitarian Foreign Policy of Amitai Etzioni

Amitai Etzioni’s communitarian perspective offers a comprehensive approach to international affairs in addition to offering guidance for domestic policy. His argument that a focus on traditional “realist” concerns for a nation’s security and interests (“security first”), combined with a dialogue over competing moral imperatives, is more likely to lead to the emergence of an idealist end state--a sustainable international community. His emphasis on gradualism--of breaking apart complex policy goals into small, discrete steps--comes from his assessment that this is a better way of promoting lasting change in the international system. His perspective does not fit neatly into any of the dominant U.S. foreign policy approaches, but his ideas have formed part of the foreign policy debate for the last fifty years.     

Regulating ethics in financial services: Engaging industry to achieve regulatory objectives

This article addresses the issue of renewing a sense of vocation in finance. Drawing on experiences in the UK, Australia, and Ireland, three common law jurisdictions at various phases of developing “an ethical esprit de corps” to professionalize the banking industry, it argues that adopting some aspects of a profession, a “trajectory towards professionalization” of the banking industry, could serve, at least to some extent, to improve the industry-wide norms that influence firms' cultures and individual behaviors. It contends that professionalization could help to develop bankers with a professional, pro-social identity, in which there is a recognition of broader obligations to society, that exists independently of the profit-driven nature of banking and the hierarchy of their own firms. This analysis is informed by an integration of regulatory theory, which casts doubt on the utility of sanctions except as a last resort, behavioral science, which offers insights into how ethics and culture, not just law and markets, can constrain irresponsible behavior in the financial services sector, and criminological theory, which emphasizes that particular types of controls, including individual attachments to groups, build “stakes in conformity” which encourage law abiding and responsible behaviors.     

Escaping the International Governance Dilemma? Incorporated Transgovernmental Networks in the European Union

This article investigates the role of transgovernmental networks of national regulators in addressing collective action problems endemic to international cooperation. In contrast to recent work on transgovernmental actors, which emphasizes such networks as alternatives to more traditional international institutions, we examine the synergistic interaction between the two. Building on the broader premise that patterns of “dual delegation” above and below the nation‐state enhance the coordinating role of networks of national agencies in two‐level international governance, the article examines the formal incorporation of transgovernmental networks into European Union (EU) policymaking. The focus on authoritative rule‐making adds a crucial dimension to the landscape of EU governance innovations while connecting to the broader study of transgovernmental networks in international governance. The article develops an analytical framework that maps these incorporated networks across different sectors in terms of function, emergence, and effectiveness. Two case studies of data privacy and energy market regulation are presented to apply and illustrate the insights of this mapping.     

The Chinese People's Liberation Army and Space Warfare

Space warfare will be an integrated part of battle planning by the Chinese People's Liberation Army in any future conflict with the United States. The People's Liberation Army has carefully absorbed and is reacting to what the American armed forces have published on space warfare and counter-space operations. Chinese strategists and legal scholars are engaged in an internal debate on how traditional ideas of sovereignty and the laws of war apply in space. One authoritative volume explored the importance of ensuring that the People's Liberation Army sets out legal justifications for military actions in advance of any conflict. Chinese scholars believe that many of the concepts surrounding the conduct of war on the “common seas” apply in space. Also, there is disagreement between the United States and China on the American position on outer space. The United States treats “peaceful uses” to mean “non-aggressive,” whereas the Chinese interpretation is that to be peaceful uses, it must be “non-military.”     

Viewpoint: Space System Negation in the Context of Space Policy and Law

For 21st century warfare, space is the unquestioned new high ground for military operations. The United States (U.S.) has relied on satellites for significant support to military operations and activities since Desert Storm in 1991. Indeed, the U.S. enjoys an asymmetric advantage in modern warfare utilizing our space capabilities. States with interests hostile to the U.S. believe that the significant dependence on space assets by the U.S. military could become its “Achilles heel” in future combat operations. What are the legal and policy bases for the U.S. to respond to threats to space systems that provide support to our military forces? Should the U.S. rely on space arms control initiatives to ensure security in space? This Viewpoint analyzes the international space law regime and U.S. National Space Policy framework applicable to the conduct of military space operations and activities, including the use of force in space to protect and defend our satellite networks as well as our military forces.     

Competency Costs in Foreign Affairs: Presidential Performance in International Conflicts and Domestic Legislative Success, 1953–2001

Numerous prominent theories have relied on the concept of “audience costs” as a central causal mechanism in their arguments about international conflict, but scholars have had greater difficulty in demonstrating the efficacy and even the existence of such costs outside the bounds of game theory and the political psychology laboratory. We suggest that the audience costs argument focuses too narrowly on the likelihood that leaders will be removed from office by domestic constituencies for failing to make good on threats. Instead, we argue that scholars should ground these arguments on Alastair Smith's ( 1998 ) broader concept of “competency costs.” Our analysis of presidential legislative success from 1953 to 2001 demonstrates the existence of foreign policy competency costs by showing that public disapproval of presidential handling of militarized interstate disputes has a significant and substantial negative impact on the president's ability to move legislation on domestic issues through Congress.     

Domestic legislatures and international human rights law: Legislating on religious symbols in Europe

This article examines the dynamics of domestic legislatures' application of international human rights law. Specifically, this article asks the following: What factors shape how domestic legislatures apply international human rights law while they enact national law and policy? Lawmakers have a variety of motives for invoking and deliberating international law. Given these motives, the article identifies two factors — civil society actors and legal experts and the flexibility of international law — that are likely to contribute to if and how national legislatures interpret and apply international human rights law while legislating. These factors are examined through case studies on religion in schools in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. This article argues civil society actors and legal experts and the flexibility of international law inform lawmakers' estimation of political costs related to compliance and thus how they apply international human rights law to domestic legislation.