Terrorism

Christopher Dobson and Ronald Payne, War Without End: The Terrorists ‐ an Intelligence Dossier (London: Harrap, 1986). Pp.279. £9.95.

James Adams, The Financing of Terror (London: New English Library, 1986). Pp.293. £12.95.

Benjamin Netanyahu (ed.) Terrorism: How the West Can Win (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986). Pp.254. $18.95.     

Community Policing

I have been involved in trying to deliver effective neighbourhoodpolicing for over 25 years and it has, at times, been a frustratingprofessional challenge. I joined Hampshire Constabulary in 1980as a young history graduate from Oxford University. The ConstabularyI joined was coming to terms with a huge influx of young officersas a result of the Edmund Davies pay awards that had significantlyimproved the pay and conditions of police officers. I founda police force that was in transformation. There were stillmany, particularly in senior management, who had been broughtup in     

Governance and Policing

The theme of this issue is governance, a term with multipleand often contested meanings. By governance, in its broadestsense, I mean those more or less systematic attempts to shapehuman conduct. In civil society, these can range from self-governancethrough prayer and exercise, family and commercial management,the organization of residential and religious communities, strugglesover turf by street gangs and organized crime networks, to paramilitaryand ‘terrorist’ networks. As radical feminists andevolutionary theorists argue, the core of collective governanceor state government is patriarchal. This is so whether or notthere is an effective sovereign     

How the Public Defines Terrorism

Every time a major violent act takes place in the United States, a public debate erupts as to whether it should be considered terrorism. Political scientists have offered a variety of conceptual frameworks, but have neglected to explore how ordinary citizens understand terrorism, despite the central role the public plays in our understanding of the relationship between terrorism and government action in the wake of violence. We synthesize components of both scholarly definitions and public debates to formulate predictions for how various attributes of incidents affect the likelihood they are perceived as terrorism. Combining a conjoint experiment with machine learning techniques and automated content analysis of media coverage, we show the importance not only of the type and severity of violence, but also the attributed motivation for the incident and social categorization of the actor. The findings demonstrate how the language used to describe violent incidents, for which the media has considerable latitude, affects the likelihood the public classifies incidents as terrorism.     

论恐怖主义犯罪

恐怖主义犯罪是全人类文明社会的共同敌人。面对恐怖主义的全球危害 ,如何科学而全面地认识恐怖主义犯罪 ,探索其发生发展的规律 ,寻求更加有效地防范与打击恐怖主义犯罪的对策 ,是理论界一个重要的研究课题。本文在界定恐怖主义犯罪的基础上 ,对恐怖主义犯罪的特征进行概括 ,对恐怖主义犯罪原因进行了分析 ,进而提出了反恐怖主义犯罪的对策。     

Organizing the War on Terrorism

The network of public agencies, private firms, nonprofit organizations, ad hoc groups, and individual volunteers that deals with natural and technological hazards and disasters did a remarkable job of responding to and helping us recover from the September 11th attacks. That national emergency management network, along with the national security and law enforcement networks, provides a foundation for our war on terrorism, helps us mitigate the hazard of terrorism, and improves our preparedness for future violence. However, coordinating the efforts of the networks will be a real challenge for the director of homeland security and his or her state and local counterparts. Coordination will necessitate using legal authority to assure compliance, economic and other incentives to encourage compliance, formal partnerships to encourage collaboration, informal understandings to encourage cooperation, and personal encouragement to influence appropriate action. A top–down, command–and–control approach to the war on terrorism, such as the proposed Department of Homeland Security is intended to provide, may be counterproductive.     

Policing alienated minorities in divided cities

Minority groups frequently challenge the legitimacy of legal authorities, particularly the police. Without trust and legitimacy, the police encounter constant conflict and cannot function effectively. While past research has examined minorities’ perceptions of the police, national minorities provide an interesting and under‐investigated test case because of their inherent identity conflict with the state. The current research examines three factors to explain minority–majority disparities in views of the police: (i) police effectiveness and fairness; (ii) intergroup discrimination (termed relative deprivation in policing); and (iii) identification with the state. Findings from a survey of Jewish and Arab residents of nationally mixed neighborhoods in Israel (n = 394) suggest that while all of these factors account for minority–majority discrepancies in views of the police, perceptions of police fairness are particularly important. Furthermore, feelings of discrimination and low levels of identification with the state are less important than evaluations of fairness in explaining minorities’ negative perceptions of the police.