A Rose by Any Other Name: Neoclassical Realism as the Logical and Necessary Extension of Structural Realism

Neoclassical realism is often criticized by non-realists for being an ad hoc and theoretically degenerative effort to explain away anomalies for neorealism. In this paper, I argue instead that neoclassical realism is a logical extension and necessary part of advancing neorealism. Structural realism argues that the system constrains but does not determine state action and where foreign policy departs from what would be ideal behavior given a state's structural position, domestic politics and ideas are generally the cause. This focus on mistakes and maladaptive behavior, seen in such neoclassical realist concepts as over-or under-balancing, is necessary to avoid falling into the trap of merely using domestic politics and ideas to make neorealism more determinate and explain residual variance in foreign policy choice unaccounted for by structure. The article attempts to correct the mistaken presumption that particular paradigms own domestic politics and ideas, asserting instead that each paradigm has access to these variables but must make them their own.     

Terror mandated by god

Religion's renewed political presence on a global scale is often accompanied by violence ‐ in part because of the nature of religion and its claims for power over life in death; in part due to the nature of secular politics, which places its own legitimacy on the currency of weapons and can only be challenged successfully on a military level; and in part due to the nature of political violence. The symbolic power of violence can be a valuable commodity for religious as well as for political forces. Through violence, the proponents of a religious ideology like Aum Shinrikyo remind the populace of the godly power that makes their ideology potent, and at times religious activists create man‐made incidents of terror on God's behalf.     

对恐怖与反恐怖斗争的反思

“9·11事件”是冷战结束后最具标志性的事件。值此“9·11”五周年之际,《现代国际关系》编辑部举办了“‘9·11’以来国际形势变化与中国外交”专题研讨会,邀请在京二十余位国际问题专家就五年来的国际形势变化、反恐形势、当前国际体系中的深层矛盾、大国关系的调整、国际格局的演变趋势、美国反恐的得与失、美国国际地位及实力的升与降、中国国际地位与国际战略等问题进行了深入分析和探讨。现将与会专家学者的主要观点辑录刊发,以期对读者把握国际战略形势及理解中国对外战略有所裨益。     

Transnational Terror and Human Rights

Do terrorist attacks by transnational groups lead governments to restrict human rights? Conventional wisdom holds that governments restrict rights to forestall additional attacks, to more effectively pursue suspected terrorists, and as an excuse to suppress their political opponents. But the logic connecting terrorist attacks to subsequent repression and the empirical research that addresses this issue suffer from important flaws. We analyze pooled data on the human rights behavior of governments from 1981 to 2003. Our key independent variable of interest is transnational terrorist attacks, and the analysis also controls for factors that existing studies have found influence respect for human rights. Repeated terrorist attacks lead governments to engage in more extrajudicial killings and disappearances, but have no discernable influence on government use of torture and of political imprisonment or on empowerment rights such as freedom of speech, assembly, and religion. This finding has important implications for how we think about the effects of terrorism and the policy responses of states, non-governmental organizations, and international institutions interested in protecting human rights.     

The Liberal Left Opts for Terror

For a century, intellectual debate on political violence has been dominated by efforts to romanticize the extremist and to invest him with the aura of the altruistic “freedom fighter.” It is astonishing that in the post-9/11 era, the terrorist's image continues to remain habitually mystified and ennobled, while terror attacks are justified as self-defense. “Terrorist discourse” is indicative of the universality of the intellectual position of the Left with regard to terror, national discrepancies notwithstanding. The present article evaluates leftist liberals' attitudes towards terrorism in the 20th-century Russian Empire, Europe, the U.S., and especially Israel—one of the epicenters of terrorism today. The article proposes to examine psychological responses to terrorism in conjunction with a range of contemporary reactions to threats, acknowledged or displaced with an assortment of mental constructs and rationalizations.     

国际恐怖与反恐怖斗争的"错位"

“9·11事件”是冷战结束后最具标志性的事件。值此“9·11”五周年之际,《现代国际关系》编辑部举办了“‘9·11’以来国际形势变化与中国外交”专题研讨会,邀请在京二十余位国际问题专家就五年来的国际形势变化、反恐形势、当前国际体系中的深层矛盾、大国关系的调整、国际格局的演变趋势、美国反恐的得与失、美国国际地位及实力的升与降、中国国际地位与国际战略等问题进行了深入分析和探讨。现将与会专家学者的主要观点辑录刊发,以期对读者把握国际战略形势及理解中国对外战略有所裨益。     

Transnational Dialogue in an Age of Terror

11 September led many people to dismiss the prospects for a meaningful dialogue between Islam and the West. This article argues that the terrorist attacks against the United States also created the potential for a new kind of dialogue by initiating a virtually unprecedented issue-specific global public sphere focused on the question of the relations between Islam and the West. It draws on Habermas to consider the potential for dialogue under contemporary conditions. By examining the constructivist foundations of both Islamist and neoconservative approaches to international politics, this article posits both a demand for and an important potential supply for a meaningful dialogue. In particular, it discusses the intense and important public arguments within the Islamic world about the concept of dialogue and its political possibilities. It focuses upon the internal arguments between moderates and extremists on both sides, and considers how dialogue (or its absence) can change the terms of the interaction by breaking the monopoly over representation claimed by – and too often granted to – radicals.     

滥用反恐及其后果

“9·11事件”是冷战结束后最具标志性的事件。值此“9·11”五周年之际,《现代国际关系》编辑部举办了“‘9·11’以来国际形势变化与中国外交”专题研讨会,邀请在京二十余位国际问题专家就五年来的国际形势变化、反恐形势、当前国际体系中的深层矛盾、大国关系的调整、国际格局的演变趋势、美国反恐的得与失、美国国际地位及实力的升与降、中国国际地位与国际战略等问题进行了深入分析和探讨。现将与会专家学者的主要观点辑录刊发,以期对读者把握国际战略形势及理解中国对外战略有所裨益。     

Precision Terror: Suicide Bombing as Control Technology

Suicide bombing can be understood as a technology that successfully integrates people, cultures, and hardware into precise, intelligent, lethal weapons systems. Lacking access to the sophisticated electronic guidance systems of their enemies, terrorists have developed a cost-effective alternative technology by using social and cultural pressure to convert human beings into guidance systems for terrorist ordnance. This demonstrates that while terrorists tend to be imitative in their technologies, they can still be effective and difficult to predict. A significant implication that arises from this discussion is that the American tendency to assume that “high-tech” devices will automatically confer an advantage on the United States in the struggle against terrorism should be reconsidered.     

A Smaller Military To Fight the War on Terror

The defense budget can be reduced and the U.S. military downsized because (1) the nation-state threat environment is markedly different than it was during the Cold War, and (2) a large military is not necessary to combat the terrorist threat. In fact, the Islamist terrorist threat is relatively undeterred by the U.S. military presence abroad, and U.S. forces abroad, particularly those deployed in Muslim countries, may do more to exacerbate than to diminish the threat. The arduous task of dismantling and degrading the terrorist network will largely be the task of unprecedented international intelligence and law enforcement cooperation, not the application of large-scale military force. To the extent the military is involved in the war on terror, it will be special forces in discrete operations against specific targets rather than large-scale military operations.     

The Electoral Terrorist: Terror Groups and Democratic Participation

Why do some terrorist groups participate in the electoral process but not others? If elections provide some strategic or tactical benefit then we would expect other groups to emulate that strategy. However, we see variation in the adoption of an electoral strategy by terrorist groups. I argue that involvement in territorial disputes and group competition determine whether terrorist groups embrace an electoral strategy. Conflicts involving territorial disputes are more likely to see terrorist groups contest elections because electoral participation may aid in the creation of the independent or autonomous territory they desire. Increased group competition changes the number of actors, which impacts the level and distribution of resources (supporters, finance, and arms) involved in the conflict. When multiple terrorist groups compete, groups are motivated to participate in elections in response to new competitive pressures. This argument is tested using a large-n dataset of 89 terrorist groups in existence during the years 1968–2006 and a case study of Hamas's decision to contest elections.     

Name List of CAFIU's Leadership

HonoraryPresidents:LeiJieqiong(female)formerVice-ChairwomanoftheStandingCommitteeoftheNationalPeople'sCongress(NPC)HonoraryChairwomanoftheCentralCommitteeoftheChinaAssociationforPromotingDemocracyWuXueqianformerVice-ChairmanoftheChinesePoples'sPoliticalConsultativeConference(CPPCC)formerMemberofthePoliticalBureauoftheCPCCentralCommitteeformerVice-PremieroftheStateCouncilPresideat:LiGuixianVice-ChairmanoftheCPPCCVuce-Presidents:WanGuoquanVice-ChainnanoftheCPPCCHonorary…     

Too central to fail? Terror networks and leadership decapitation

ABSTRACT

Leadership decapitation, as a means of hindering the operations and hastening the demise of terrorist organizations, has been the subject of a growing body of research. However, these studies have not examined how an organization’s position in a broader network impacts its ability to weather decapitation. We argue that highly networked organizations possess characteristics that make decapitation less effective. To test this argument, we combine data on leadership decapitation with network data on terrorist organizations and find that well-networked organizations are resilience to leadership decapitation. Our study has implications for our understanding of how terrorist organizations respond to counterterrorism efforts.