Radicalizing Religion? Religious Identity and Settlers' Behavior

Does religious identity prompt radical action? This article presents a model of individual-level radical action. Drawing mostly on collective action theory the article posits that organizational membership drives the effect of religious identity on individual-level radical action. Using survey data the article assesses the behavior of Jewish settlers in the West Bank in the face of the 2005 Gaza withdrawal. The article finds that contra the prevailing view, which holds that religious identity alone is sufficient to trigger violence, evidence suggests that organizational membership is a mechanism bridging religious identity and radical action. Longstanding arguments tying radical actions solely to religion may require substantial revision.     

Perceptions of the “Arab Spring” Within the Salafi-Jihadi Movement

This article provides a detailed examination of how the Salafi-jihadi movement perceives the “Arab Spring” revolutionary events. Although Western scholars almost unanimously agree that these events will have an enormous impact on Al Qaeda and other groups that share its ideology, the voice of the jihadis has not been examined in detail. This article addresses this critical gap in the literature through an analysis of 101 significant documents produced by jihadi thinkers within a year following the movement's very first statement on the uprising in Tunisia. These include statements released by jihadi spokesmen, interviews with the movement's intellectual leaders, and discussions on jihadi Web forums. The article concludes that Al Qaeda and the jihadi movement largely believe that the uprisings provide them a great deal of new opportunities, and outlines the movement's developing strategy to capitalize on rapidly changing events on the ground.     

The affective politics of sovereignty: reflecting on the 2010 conflict in Kyrgyzstan

This article examines the concept of sovereignty in elite and popular affection during the violent and turbulent events from April to October 2010 in the Kyrgyz Republic. Nationalist leaders promoted Kyrgyz ethnic values and ideals as the center of sovereignty held by some to be under threat. These events exemplify what we describe as the affective politics of sovereignty. We explore how emotion, in particular, serves as an important component of the constitution of sovereignty as both an international and popular institution. We explore how Kyrgyz identity has become intertwined with the sovereignty of Kyrgyzstan and clashes with Western multi-ethnic conceptions and practices.     

Democracy, Law, and Comparative Politics

This article offers a revision of democratic theory in light of the experience of recently democratized countries, located outside of the northwestern quadrant of the world. First, various definitions of democracy that claim to follow Schumpeter and are usually considered to be “minimalist” or “processualist” are critically examined. Building upon but clarifying these conceptual efforts, a realistic and restricted, but not minimalist, definition of a democratic regime is proposed. Thereafter, this article argues that democracy should be analyzed not only at the level of the political regime but also in relation to the state—especially the state qua legal system—and to certain aspects of the overall social context. The main underlying theme that runs through this article is the concept of agency, especially as it is expressed in the legal system of existing democracies. I dedicate this article to my daughter Julia, for the metonymy and much love Guillermo O'Donnell is the Helen Kellogg Professor of Government at the University of Notre Dame. He has written many books and articles on authoritarianism, political transitions, democratization, and democratic theory. His latest book,Counterpoints, was published in 1998 by the University of Notre Dame Press. O'Donnell is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I presented previous versions of this paper and received useful comments at seminars held in April and May 1999 at the University of North Carolina; Cornell University; Berlin's Wissenschaftszentrum; the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Atlanta, August 1999; and in September 1999 at the Kellogg Institute. I also appreciate the comments and criticisms received from Michael Brie, Maxwell Cameron, Jorgen Elklit, Robert Fishman, Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Jonathan Hartlyn, Osvaldo Iazzetta, Gabriela Ippolito-O'Donnell, Iván Jaksić, Oscar Landi, Hans-Joachim Lauth, Steven Levitsky, Juan Linz, Scott Mainwaring, Juan M. Abal Medina, Martha Merritt, Peter Moody, Gerardo Munck, Luis Pásara, Timothy Power, Adam Przeworski, Héctor Schamis, Sidney Tarrow. Charles Tilly, Ashutosh Varshney, and Ruth Zimmerling. I am particularly grateful for the careful revision and editing undertaken by Gerardo Munck and Ruth Collier for the present issue ofSCID.     

The Local Turn in Peace Building: a critical agenda for peace

This article unpacks the renaissance of interest in ‘the local’ in peace building. It pays increased attention to local dimensions of peace in a wider context of increased assertiveness by local actors as well as a loss of confidence by major actors behind international peace-support actors. The article sees the ‘local turn’ in peace building as part of a wider critical turn in the study of peace and conflict, and focuses on the epistemological consequences of the recourse to localism in the conceptualisation and execution of peace building. The local turn has implications for the nature and location of power in peace building. This article is largely conceptual and theoretical in nature but it is worth noting that the local turn is based on reactions to real-world events.     

State Dilemmas in the Provision of Alternative Care for Children: Relative Efficacy of Public Sector and Independent Sector Foster Placements

The population of children around the world who require alternative care outside of the natural family is staggeringly large. This presents fundamental dilemmas and challenges for every nation. This article notes how the United Kingdom's (UK's) response has evolved from that of a non-interventionist state to one that claims an interest in “Every Child”. Attention is drawn to the way in which the State's “Third Way: What matters is what works” ideology has led to radical reform of public sector services and the widespread sub-contracting of alternative care for children to the independent sector.

The article presents rare data on the relative performance of children in public sector as opposed to costly independent foster care. Contrary to expectations the data reveal minimal differences between the two groups. The data offer no justification, on the grounds of efficacy, for the use of independent sector provision as opposed to public sector provision.     

‘Compliance or contradiction’? Teaching ‘History’ in the ‘New’ Ukraine. A view from Ukraine's Eastern Borderlands

Whilst much academic rigour has been devoted to analysing the ‘contents’ of historical textbooks in Ukraine, this article examines the teacher's role in the ‘transfer’ of the state's message to schoolchildren. This article demonstrates that in Ukraine's eastern borderlands teachers are highly active in negotiating the new historical narrative. Teachers are found to subtly change the accent or focus away from the ‘nationalist’ stance towards Russia, as found in the school history textbooks, to a more tolerant stance which aims to promote rather than negate Ukraine's historical interactions with Russia. Thus, this simultaneously reinforces a particular ‘regional’ understanding of historical events.     

Swedish Counterterrorism Policy: An Intersection Between Prevention and Mitigation?

The aim of this article is to analyze how and why Swedish counterterrorism policy has changed since 2001. It raises the issue of how counterterrorism interacts with other factors on the governmental agenda, which priorities are made, and how these can be understood. Although much empirical evidence on the real political influence of emergent interagency networks is still lacking in the case of Sweden, an attempt is made here to analyze the importance of focusing events. In the light of the Swedish national strategy for counterterrorism, the article analyzes the content of annual reports from the Swedish Security Service. The article also explores linkages between the counterterrorism and crisis management literatures, and argues that the reassuring overtones in Swedish counterterrorism policy of late can be understood not only as the result of changes in threat perception and policy, but also in institutional change.     

Revolution,longevity and legitimacy in communist states

This article examines key linkages in the dramatic turn of events in totalitarian states by reviewing the literature on regime legitimacy and longevity in communist regimes. But that longevity is a poor substitute for legitimacy. Eastern Europe states, where communist rule was externally imposed, were relatively “easy” to overcome. However, changes occurring in countries where quasi-legitimacy was achieved by mass movements, as in China or the Soviet Union; and those under family dictatorships, such as North Korea and Cuba, are not as subject to collapse. These pseudo forms of legitimacy resist liberalization in political terms, although economic changes are increasingly feasible as a half-way house. Still it is now clear that longevity in and of itself is not a substitute for legitimacy. The former is a function of time, the latter of social structure. This paper was written and accepted for publication in the wake of events following the collapse of communist power in most states of Eastern Europe during 1989. It does not cover the events which led to the collapse of communist power in the Soviet Union during 1991. Rather than simply adjust the paper to reflect current events, I take this opportunity to simply note the time frame during which the paper was produced. Indeed, I would also note that the Russian Revolution of 1991 served to delegitimize communist power by the exposure and then collapse of the coup attempt orchestrated by the KGB, a sector of the military elite and the upper stratum of the Communist Politburo. Such delegitimation accelerated a process of communist disintegration that could have taken a much longer period of time, and with possibly a different set of outcomes. [ILH] Irving Louis Horowitz is Hannah Arendt distinguished professor of sociology and political science at Rutgers University. He has written widely on developmental subjects, includingThree Worlds of Development (1965);Equity, Income, and Policy: Comparative Studies in Three Worlds of Development (1977); andBeyond Empire and Revolution (1982); all published by Oxford University Press.     

The Limits of Local Accommodation: Why Contentious Events Remain Prone to Conflict in Northern Ireland

This article examines the difficulties of finding local solutions to the problem of contentious events in contemporary Northern Ireland. In so doing, it offers a sociological perspective on fundamental divisions in Northern Ireland: between classes and between communities. It shows how its chosen case study—parades and associated protests in north Belfast—exemplifies the most fundamental problem that endures in post-Agreement Northern Ireland, namely that political authority is not derived from a common civic culture (as is the norm in Western liberal democracy) but rather that legitimacy is still founded on the basis of the culture of either one or the other community. Haugaard's reflections on authority and legitimacy are used to explore Northern Ireland's atypical experience of political conflict vis-à-vis the Western liberal democratic model. The Bourdieusian concepts of field illusio and doxa help to explain why it is that parading remains such an important political and symbolic touchstone in this society.     

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.”     

Measuring Democratic Consolidation

The concept of democratic consolidation has become a pivotal concept in comparative politics. In its most widespread acceptation, a “consolidated” democracy is one that is unlikely to break down. For all its apparent thinness and simplicity, this conceptualization poses considerable problems of operationalization and measurement. As the article argues, cholars have been relying on three basic strategies to assess the survival prospects of democratic regimes. They have been studying either behavioral, attitudinal, or structural foudnations of democratic consolidation. This article briefly examines those approaches that rely on different kinds of empirical evidence as well as on different causal assumptions. On the basis of a quick revision of recent Latin American experiences, it concludes that in common judgments about democratic consolidation, behavioral evidence seems to trump both attitudinal and structural data. Andreas Schedler is professor of political science at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO) in Mexico City. He also chairs the Research Committee on Concepts and Methods (C&M) of the International Political Science Association. His current research focuses on democratization and electoral governance in Mexico in comparative perspective. I am indebted to the Austrian Academy of Sciences for supporting work on this article through the Austrian Program for Advanced Research and Technology (APART). Also, I am most grateful to Ruth Berins Collier, Peter Burnell, David, Collier, Michael Coppedge, Larry Diamond, Graciela Ducatenzeiler, Francis Hagopian, Robert R. Kaufman, James Mahoney, Scott Mainwaring, Sebastián Mazzuca, Gerardo L. Munck, Martin Schürz, Richard Snyder, Kurt Weyland, and the anonymous reviewers ofSCID for their valuable comments. Many thanks, too, to Harold Waldrauch for sharing the New Democracies Barometer data. Naturally, though, all responsibility is mine.     

The rise of risk assessment and risk management in the United Kingdom

This article examines the reform of the health care system in England in terms of the risk assessment and risk management. Three major health policies are examined, the Health of the Nation strategy, community care and the Patient's Charter. The article demonstrates that effective risk assessment and risk management is an important component of each initiative. The Health of the Nation strategy is based on epidemiological evidence on the nature of health risks and is linked to specific targets for the reduction of harm that require effective management of risks. Community care is a well established policy designed to provide long term and continuing support for vulnerable individuals in the community. With high profile incidents in the 1980s, there has been a greater emphasis on effective risk assessment and risk management, especially to protect the public. The Patient's Charter is designed to empower users of service.

Central to this strategy is informed consent. Effective empowerment depends of the provision of adequate information, especially on the risks of treatment. Although competent adults may formally be autonomous risk-taking decision-makers, their ability to assess risk and make decisions depends on having adequate information.     

The past in the present: time and narrative of Balkan wars in media industry and international politics

In this article, we explore various forms of travel writing, media reporting, diplomatic record, policy-making, truth claims and expert accounts in which different narrative perspectives on the Balkan wars, both old (1912–1913) and new (1991–1999), have been most evident. We argue that the ways in which these perspectives are rooted in different temporalities and historicisations and have resulted in the construction of commonplace and time-worn representations. In practical terms, we take issue with several patterns of narratives that have led to the sensationalism of media industry and the essentialisation of collective memory. Taken together as a common feature of contemporary policy and analysis in the dominant international opinion, politics and scholarship, these narrative patterns show that historical knowledge is conveyed in ways that make present and represent the accounts of another past, and the ways in which beliefs collectively held by actors in international society are constructed as media events and public hegemonic representations. The aim is to show how certain moments of rupture are historicised, and subsequently used and misused to construct an anachronistic representation of Southeast Europe.     

De-Radicalization Initiatives in Egypt: A Preliminary Insight

This article provides a preliminary insight to the ideological revision of the two principle Islamist militant groups in Egypt, the Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiyya and Al-Jihad Al-Islami. Several leaders of these groups have taken steps to renounce violence and promote peace co-existence with the government and society. They have also repented and apologized for the past terror attacks in Egypt that led to the killing of many innocent civilians, government officials and tourists. In addition, they have gone to great lengths to counter and argue against Al Qaeda's violent ideology and to restrict its influence on the Muslim population. The ideological revision of these two groups reflects a significant shift in the efforts of the Egyptian authorities and community to address the problem of ideological extremism and terrorism in the country.     

The demonisation of politicians: moral panics,folk devils and MPs’ expenses

This article makes an argument of almost primitive simplicity: politicians have become examples of Cohen's ‘folk devils’. This, in turn, raises as yet unexplored questions about demonisation and social discourse, the capacity of politicians, the role of invisible political actors, the dangers of ‘self-evident truths’ and the challenges of revitalising politics within a low-trust high-blame environment. More specifically, this article engages in a process of conceptual travelling through which the theory of moral panics and the concept of ‘folk devils’ are deployed in order to tease apart a recent political crisis. The core argument of this article is that Cohen's seminal work on folk devils provides a powerful conceptual lens through which to generate a more reasoned and balanced account of political behaviour. More broadly, it argues that the ‘bad faith model of politics’ presents a severely distorted view of political reality that urgently needs revision.     

Traumatic Events and Symptoms Among Mexican Deportees in a Border Community

Research on traumatic events experienced among Mexicans deported from the United States is scant. Using clinical interviews, this study assessed the frequency of traumatic events and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among 47 Mexican deportees in a U.S.-Mexico border community. The majority of participants (98%) reported having experienced one or more traumatic events (M = 9, SD = 5) and nearly half met DSM-IV-TR criteria for PTSD. Meeting criteria for PTSD was associated with a higher number of traumatic events. Results suggest that prevention, intervention, and policy efforts are necessary to improve the well-being of this understudied immigrant subgroup.     

The Production of Social Science Knowledge beyond Occidentalism: the quest for a post-exotic anthropology

This article makes the case for a post-exotic anthropology as an alternative disciplinary practice adapted to the emerging historical conjuncture that is reconfiguring the political and epistemic relations between different parts of the world. This is raising anew a legitimation challenge to mainstream social sciences but especially academic anthropology, as its a practice is still characterised by a chronic exoticist inflection thanks to its allegiance to the epistemology of Occidentalism. The article calls for a revision of anthropology's geo-theoretical premises in light of an emergent post-exotic historical conjuncture, which entails the abandonment of the duopoly exercised by the epistemic regimes of postmodernism and postcolonialism, in favour of a post-exotic standpoint. It suggests the adoption of mesography as the optimum means of operationalising a post-exotic anthropology as well as an alternative mode of social science knowledge production. Finally, it proposes an ethic of reciprocity to rectify the extractive fieldwork practices that sustain the illiberal politics of interpretation of academic anthropology.     

The dancing body in peace education

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the potentials of the dancing body in peace education seen from a transrational perspective. The author explores how the multifaceted and creative body as worked with in the conscious dance and movement practice Open Floor can be tapped into and drawn upon to engage the multiple potentials of humans as contact boundaries at work. She reflects in this regard upon her own experiences as an Open Floor teacher. The article first discusses how the experience of dancing in Open Floor unfolds a creative process that is 1) both intrarelational and interrelational, and 2) always in transformation. Further, the article discusses how the dancing body is engaged as holistic, relational and dynamic through the Open Floor teaching tool 4 × 4, and how this dancing body supports a creative engagement with intra-inter dynamics in peace education.