Contextualizing Political Terrorism: A Collective Action Perspective for Understanding the Tanzim

An attempt is made to embed the study of political terrorism within the larger phenomenon of Collective Action. It is suggested that the analysis of dynamics within and between components of Collective Action—structure of conflict, a social movement, authorities, and contention—can be beneficial for gaining additional insights into the study of group risk for political terrorism. Using the case of the Tanzim contention with Israeli forces it is demonstrated how processes within, between, and outside the conflictants affected Tanzim members' decision to employ political terrorism. Based on the analysis, several implications for counterterrorism are offered.     

Lost in Translation: A Multi‐Level Case Study of the Metamorphosis of Meanings and Action in Public Sector Organizational Innovation

This paper explores the early implementation of an organizational innovation in the UK National Health Service (NHS) – Treatment Centres (TCs) – designed to dramatically reduce waiting lists for elective care. The paper draws on case studies of 8 TCs (each at varying stages of their development) and aims to explore how meanings about TCs are created and evolve, and how these meanings impact upon the development of the organizational innovation. Research on organizational meanings needs to take greater account of the fact that modern organizations like the NHS are complex multi‐level phenomena, comprising layers of interlacing networks. To understand the pace, direction and impact of organizational innovation and change we need to study the interconnections between meanings across different organizational levels. The data presented in this paper show how the apparently simple, relatively unformed, concept of a TC framed by central government is translated and transmuted by subsequent layers in the health service administration, and by players in local health economies, and, ultimately, in the TCs themselves, picking up new rationales, meanings and significance as it goes along. The developmental histories of TCs reveal a range of significant re‐workings of macro policy with the result that there is considerable diversity and variation between local TC schemes. The picture is of important disconnections between meanings, that in many ways mirror Weick's (1976) ’loosely coupled systems’. The emergent meanings and the direction of micro‐level development of TCs appear more strongly determined by interactions within the local TC environment, notably between what we identify as groups of ’idealists’, ’pragmatists’, ’opportunists’ and ’sceptics’ than by the framing (Goffman 1974) provided by macro and meso organizational levels. While this illustrates the limitations of top down and policy‐driven attempts at change, and highlights the crucial importance of the front‐line local ’micro‐systems’ (Donaldson and Mohr 2000) in the overall scheme of implementing organizational innovations, the space or headroom provided by frames at the macro and meso levels can enable local change, albeit at variable speed and with uncertain outcomes.     

The Long‐term Solution for Europe

The solidarity of the G‐20 nations in staving off global financial crisis two years ago has deteriorated into a brawl over currency valuations, trade imbalances and sovereign debt, reflecting the great powershift from the West to the East and the emerging economies. In this section, we invited comments from historians, a former head of state who successfully navigated the Asian financial crisis and a prominent Chinese dissident.     

How to Jump‐Start the Post‐Revolutionary Era in Egypt

The Great Arab Revolt of 2011 has moved swiftly from the peaceful overthrow of autocrats in the nation‐states of Tunisia and Egypt to brutal repression in the tribal societies of Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen. Meanwhile, the wired youth bulge of the Middle East that brought change is dissipating into an impotent diaspora while the organized interests of the old regimes and the once‐suppressed Islamists charge ahead to power. This section examines the revolt, the reaction and the power struggles in its aftermath.     

Local Government Partnerships in Urban Management: The Case of South Asia

The article examines emerging partnerships in local government in South Asia. It argues that public private partnerships at local authority level tend to emerge where existing service deficiencies are greatest and most often involve the private voluntary sector. These partnerships typically function as 'hybrid' concessions where the private operator performs a service and collects a fee but without responsibility for capital investment. Many of the most successful partnerships have operated at the most localised level involving a coalition of stakeholders under local authority co-ordination. However, few partnerships have developed adequate mechanisms for joint planning, management and monitoring of services.     

Progrssive Regrimes, Partnerships and the Involvement of Local Communities: A Framework for Evaluation

This paper examines the nature of community involvement in urban politics as it is played out through regeneration partnerships. At a theoretical level, it explores the potential for a community dimension to local governance, that is, a strategic influence for communities within local power structures. It is argued that the nature of involvement can be explicated by considering three concepts: power (as expressed by urban regime theory), participation and partnership. The paper explores these three broad themes and then focuses on the particular issues pertaining to community involvement in partnership working. Building on this frame-work, the paper develops a model – a 'wheel of involvement'– for analysing the effectiveness of community involvement in regeneration partnerships. This model enables the effectiveness of involvement to be 'quantified by the use of a simple questionnaire survey. It provides a tool for academic researchers and practitioners concerned with evaluating partnerships to begin to explore the quality and level of community involvement in the process of urban renewal. The results of an analysis of two regeneration partnerships are presented as an illustration of the efficacy of the evaluative technique.     

Post‐Olympic Powershift: The Return of the Middle Kingdom in a Post‐American World

In the minds of its leaders and intellectuals, China is more than just another successful emerging economy and a rising regional power. For them, what is going on today might be considered a renaissance that will bring a neo‐Confucian sensibility to a post‐American world. In this section NPQ editor Nathan Gardels reports on his recent visit to Shanghai. Wang Hui, China's leading new left intellectual and author of The Rise of Modem Chinese Thought, offers his, views on subjects ranging from modernity to Tibet.     

Is America Ready for a Post‐American World?

Globalization may not be coming apart at the seams—yet—but the seams are ever more apparent. Rising fuel prices challenge a model of global transportation based on cheap energy, reinforcing the possibility of decoupling through great regionaliza‐tion of trade. Already, 50 percent of trade among ASEAN plus China and Japan is among each other. The Wall Street meltdown has spread a lack of confidence in the American financial system and the model of deregulation which stimulated rapid globalization of capital flows. Along with other developments, all this raises the question of whether the United States is prepared to operate successfully in a world it no longer dominates. An anti‐globalization leader, a former US labor secretary, a top American intellectual and a Nobel laureate address these issues.