A Missing Peace? The Role of Religious Actors in Countering Terrorism

Despite the surge of scholarly interest in terrorism and counter-terrorism in the post-9/11 world, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the role of religious actors (especially faith communities and faith leaders) in combating the threat of terrorism. However, the resurgence of religiosity in contemporary politics should not be viewed as an inherently dangerous force. As Appleby has argued, a new secular-religious model of inter and intra-state diplomacy looms as a development with significant potential to resolve conflict and deny terrorist groups access to communities of support. By drawing on an Australian example, we argue that in societies that have a strong multicultural and multifaith character secular-religious diplomacy pitched at the national and sub-national level can play an important role in the formation of a flexible long-term counterterrorism strategy.     

Toward an Increasingly Heterogeneous Threat: A Chronology of Jihadist Terrorism in Europe 2008–2013

The 2012 Toulouse and Montauban shootings and the grisly murder of Drummer Lee Rigby in Woolwich in 2013 are stark reminders of a continued terrorist threat posed by jihadist terrorists in Europe. Whereas the 2011 death of Osama bin Laden and the advent of the “Arab Spring” fed expectations that international jihadism was a spent force, attack activity in Europe does not only seem to persist, but as will be shown here, the region has actually faced an increase in terrorist plots over the past few years.     

Exploring the “Root Causes” of Terrorism

This article attempts to clarify what is meant by “root causes” and considers if their analysis helps to explain and describe how, where, and why terrorism occurs. In attempting to explore—but not definitively resolve—these challenges, the article will attempt to delineate “root causes” into qualitative and quantitative variables that can be empirically tested in relation to contemporary terrorist activity. In so doing, it considers the relative merits of different methodologies for approaching “root causes.” The article concludes that indirect and underlying sources of conflict are significant to understanding specific incidents of terrorism and certain categories of terrorism; that “root causes” are less helpful in describing and explaining terrorism as a general phenomenon; and that root causes are of analytical use only in conjunction with precipitant factors.     

“From Terrorists to Peacekeepers”: The IRA's Disengagement and the Role of Community Networks

Utilizing interviews with former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, Loyalists, and community workers, the article looks at how militants in Northern Ireland have helped to prevent terrorism and political violence (TPV) by adopting roles in the community. By using mobile phones, a network of former combatants emerged around interface areas in the late 1990s to contain trigger causes of terrorism, providing a unique role that the state could not. The structure of the network encouraged militant groups to follow the IRA's example to disengage—thus creating a domino effect—and the co-operation between senior militants has limited the opportunities for other groups to mobilize a campaign of terrorism.     

Forest Jihad: Assessing the Evidence for “Popular Resistance Terrorism”

Despite increasing concern over the potential threat from “forest jihad,” there has been no systematic attempt to assess whether such attacks are in fact taking place. Drawing on principles from the geospatial profiling of terrorist events, fire-risk prediction data, and information on jihadist convictions, this article offers a thorough review of the evidence to address this question. The available information suggests that so far, jihadists have not attempted to attack North American or European wildlands by means of arson. Despite calls for “popular resistance terrorism” in the jihadist literature, and the apparently low costs associated with this type of attack, jihadists have so far shown little appetite for “forest jihad.”     

Women’s Radicalization to Religious Terrorism: An Examination of ISIS Cases in the United States

Abstract

American women joining Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) have increased and their roles evolved beyond auxiliary and domestic provisions, demonstrating both agency and tenacity for pursuing, recruiting, supporting, and spreading extreme Islamist ideals and terrorism. Social learning theory was applied to information gained from open-source court cases as a way of examining how thirty-one?U.S. women acquired, maintained, and acted pursuant to radicalization to religious terrorism for ISIS. Internet functionalities, reasons, roles, and support types for radicalization and illegal activities for ISIS were examined using self-, dyad-, and group-classifications. A gendered interventive program based on social learning theory’s extinguishing of radicalized ideology and behavior was outlined.     

A Survey of Terrorism of the Left in Italy: 1970–78

Abstract

The terrorists who have ravaged Italy over the past several years are not totally faceless. The names and backgrounds of many are well known, as are their habitual modes of operations and the ideologies by which they are moved. After a brief catalog of the terrorists’ actions, the article outlines the physiognomy of Italy's major terrorist groups. A substantial part of this consists of a list of each group's victims, since any assessment of the terrorist groups’ effects must begin with an awareness of which sectors of Italian society have been struck. The backgrounds of the terrorists, the political language they speak, and the list of their victims point unambiguously to the conclusion that terrorism in Italy is overwhelmingly a phenomenon of the Left and that it conceives of itself as a means of bringing about a Communist regime. The terrorists regard themselves as the competitors and reformers of the Italian Communist party. But at the same time they have made good their claim as the mortal enemies of the enemies of the Communist party. The question regarding the Italian terrorists’ international connections cannot be answered definitively. Such evidence as exists, however, suggests that today's self‐declared Communist terrorists may be acting in ways similar to their predecessors of the 1940s and early 1950s, who found safe haven in the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.     

The “Imperial Minority”: An Interpretative Framework of the Russians in Kazakhstan in the 1990s

This article is the fifth and final in a Nationalities Papers series providing an overview of the development of Romani political group representation and administration, from the arrival of Roma to Europe up to 1971, the landmark year of modern transnational Romani politics. The article concentrates on the period between the Second World War and 1970 and the emergence of the following phenomena which distinguish this period from those covered in the previous articles: some limited Romani participation in non-Romani mainstream political or administrative structures, an international Romani evangelical movement, reconciliation between Romani political representation and the Catholic Church, national institutions created by various governments to aid the administration of policies on Roma and rapid growth of non-governmental organizations addressing Romani issues.     

Search for identity: the impact of the “great books” in public administration

Do public administration scholars build upon seminal works by scholars in the field or do they still rely heavily upon other disciplines? This question is addressed by assessing the impact of the “great books” in public administration on research published in academic journals. It is found that the 1980's are characterized by an increasing importance of those classic books that are generic management in orientation, suggesting that scholars still rely heavily on other fields for theoretical direction. Implications for an interdisciplinary approach to public administration and the training of doctoral students is discussed.     

Advocating for the cause of the “victims of Communism” in the European political space: memory entrepreneurs in interstitial fields

The European Parliament (EP) adopted, between 2004 and 2009, a series of resolutions calling for recognition of Communist crimes and commemoration of their victims. This article focuses on an overlooked aspect of anti-Communist activism, the awareness-raising activities carried out by some Central European Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to perpetuate the cause through networks that enable them to exchange institutional credibility, scientific legitimacy, and policy-oriented knowledge with Institutes of National Memory, parts of academia, and victims associations. Although they use the techniques of expertise and scandalization that are often effective in European institutions, these memory entrepreneurs have largely failed to further their claims in the European Union (EU) after 2009. In line with the turn toward “practice” in EU studies and the increased attention paid to agency in memory politics, this article contends that the conditions of production of their narrative of indictment of Communism accounts for this relative lack of success. Because their demands produced a strong polarization inside the EP while colliding with established Western patterns of remembrance, these MEPs’ reach remains limited to their Conservative peers from the former Eastern bloc. This weak national and ideological representativeness hinders their capacity to impose their vision of the socialist period in the European political space.     

Community Participation in Local Governance – An Empirical Analysis of Urbanized Local Governments in the Philippines and Uganda

This article addresses community participation in local government, a controversial issue in the era of governance. Under the context of decentralisation reform in particular, active participation of the community in local governance has been expected, where as a range of critical arguments has been made on its concepts, ideas and feasibilities. Despite the significance of the issue, practices of community participation at the local level are academically under-examined, even in developed countries, let alone in developing countries. Given such situations, empirical observations from local governments of the Philippines and Uganda are introduced and comparatively analysed with in a specific analytical framework of participation. By doing so, the artide leads us to some keys to success for community participation schemes in the development context, which include the local leadership, functions of the central government and enhancing awareness of values of community participation both in the public and the local government.     

“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.     

Framing through Paradox: Egypt and the “Obama Supports Terrorism” Campaign

This article presents and analyzes the “Obama supports terrorism” campaign, which was launched in Egypt in late June 2013 and was instrumental to the framing of some Islamist groups as terrorist both before and after the 3 July 2013 coup. The analysis of the visual material of the campaign highlights its reliance on various Western discourses from the War on Terror, including some whose religious and racial content is an odd fit for a non-Western, Muslim country like Egypt. Yet, despite the lack of a clear and unified causal narrative to justify such framing, the success of the campaign was crucially aided by the symbolic and rhetorical power its slogan, which provided a credible “schema of interpretation” for its supporters.     

Airlines and Empires: Great Britain and the “Scramble for Africa,” 1919–1939

This study examines the dynamics of female African immigration and settlement in the United States and discusses the research and policy implications for these processes. It highlights a significant surge in female immigration from African compared to non-African countries in recent years. This surge is driven by female immigration from Africa's most populous countries, from countries affected by civil conflicts, and from English-speaking countries in the region. African women are also more likely to arrive as unmarried singles than other female immigrants. In addition, they have the highest prevalence of bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees among women in the US. African females are also about twice more likely to be enrolled in US educational institutions compared to other women. Those in the labor force are more likely to work as nursing professionals than in technical occupational groups such as engineering and computing. The study concludes by discussing the research and policy implications of these findings for countries in the developing world.     

Demand for tea in the UK 1874–1938: An econometric study

The main objective of this study is to provide estimates of price and income elasticities of demand for tea in order to explain the growth in tea consumption over the period 1874–1938. Numerous other factors, both economic and social, may contribute to changing patterns of consumption. Indeed, such factors as demographic and organisational changes and different social habits may exert an influence on price and income elasticities. A subsidiary aim of this study is to examine the influence of these factors on the differences in income and price elasticities in demand for tea over various sub‐periods between 1874 and 1938.