A Review of: “Media Democracy: How the Media Colonize Politics,by Thomas Meyer with Lew Hinchman”

This study assesses the importance of paid advertising. Drawing from observations and interviews with ad creators and campaign managers, it describes, analyzes, and evaluates what the candidates did and why in the 1992 New Hampshire presidential primary election. Specifically, the study examines the importance of initial ads, consistency in ads, and the use of negative ads. It demonstrates that candidates flooded the airwaves with 30‐second ads, spending well in excess of overall spending limits on advertising alone. Ad innovations in 1992 were as follows: heavy New Hampshire and Boston time buying, an attack strategy against an incumbent president, an informercial to raise money, distributed videotapes, interactive video appeals, and half‐hour programs. Candidates who advertised early and stayed consistent in their imagery did better than candidates who advertised later and created multiple images and varied ads.     

British Muslim youth: radicalisation,terrorism and the construction of the “other”

Academic interest in Muslim youth, Islam, radicalisation and Islamic-inspired terrorism exploded in the aftermath of 9/11, aimed at discovering the connection between Islam and terrorism, radicalisation and terrorism and how to detect and understand those who might become involved in them. Radicalisation as a process has increasingly become associated with Muslim youth, particularly male Muslim youth, as the precursor to Islamic-inspired violence against Western states. In an effort to understand these youths, the radicalisation of, or potential radicalisation of, Muslim youth is linked in the literature to alienation due to living in separate or parallel communities, identity crisis and intergenerational conflict. Because of this, terrorism, radicalism and extremism have become entangled with notions of identity, integration, segregation and multiculturalism, and this entanglement has made being a “Muslim youth” a precarious designation in the United Kingdom. This article examines some of the concepts that are central to the process of radicalisation as it is described in the literature. Using empirical data from a study with Muslim youth, the article examines the realities of the emergence of new transcultural identities and generational change amongst Muslim youth in the United Kingdom as a feature of their lived experience, rather than as evidence of a process of radicalisation.     

Sovereignty Negotiations and Gibraltar's Military Facilities: How Two “Red-Line” Issues Became Three

The Brussels Agreement signed between Britain and Spain in 1984 aimed to resolve all aspects of the dispute over Gibraltar, including sovereignty, which dated back to the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713. Desultory progress was made in negotiations until 2001, when the British Government decided to attempt to negotiate a joint sovereignty agreement. From the outset two non-negotiable (‘red-line’) issues on Britain's part were established: the agreement must be permanent, and it must be subject to a referendum in Gibraltar. As the negotiations progressed, a third ‘red-line’ issue emerged: Britain insisted on retaining control of Gibraltar's military facilities. The article explores how this third issue emerged and the possible reasons why it did so following 9/11.     

Ten “Rs” of Social Reaction: Using Social Media to Analyse the “Post-Event” Impacts of the Murder of Lee Rigby

This article provides a case study analysis of social reactions to the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby in 2013. Informed by empirical data collected by systematic monitoring of social media platforms, the analysis identifies a number of online behaviours with offline effects—labeled the ten “Rs”—that collectively constitute the process of social reaction to the crime. These are defined as: reporting; requesting; responding; recruiting; “risking”; retaliating; rumouring; remembering; reheating; and “resiliencing”. It is argued that the ability to observe these behaviours through the application of qualitative social media analysis has considerable potential. Conceptually, the analysis provides new insight into the complex and chaotic processes of sense-making and meaning attribution that arise in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. It illuminates how patterns of social reaction on social media are nuanced and complicated, with different segments of the public interpreting the same developments very differently. In addition, the findings and the conceptual framework outlined have implications for policy and practice development in terms of establishing a more effective and evidence-based approach to the consequence management of “post-event” conflict dynamics and social reactions.     

Critique of Schuker “J.M. Keynes and the Personal Politics of Reparations”

In “J.M. Keynes and the Personal Politics of Reparations,” Parts I and II, published in Diplomacy and Statecraft (2014), the American historian Stephen Schuker claims that Keynes’ scientific arguments against the policy of reparations were distorted by both political passion and his emotional attachment to the German banker, Dr. Carl Melchior. He provides no evidence for this argument, and Keynes’ analytic positions emerges without reference to either.     

The Al Qaeda Brand: The Strategic Use of the “Terrorist” Label

Al Qaeda leaders have consistently praised the Chechen insurgents as an exemplary front of global jihad. Ayman al-Zawahiri recently applauded the steadfastness of the Chechen rebels and indicated that their resolve for jihad is worthy of emulation. Ever since the world found out about a war going on in the Muslim republic in the North Caucasus, Al Qaeda leadership has attempted to represent the Chechen struggle as one of its own battlefields. In turn, the Russian government has tried to justify its policies in the North Caucasus through demonstrating to the world that the Kremlin is fighting nothing less than Osama bin Laden’s agents in Chechnya. The North Caucasus insurgents in turn have embraced some of Al Qaeda’s narratives. While such narratives have proliferated, the factual evidence to show the direct links between the North Caucasus insurgents and Al Qaeda is still lacking. The article examines how terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda use framing for strategic ends. The evidence discussed here suggests that Al Qaeda, the North Caucasus insurgents, and the Russian government have adopted similar narratives. However, the lack of evidence to back up such narratives indicates the differences in reasons driving the convergence of the narratives.     

A Review of: “Joshua Alexander Geltzer. U.S. Counter-Terrorism Strategy and al-Qaeda: Signalling and the Terrorist World-View.”

Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi'a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1987. Pp. xxii + 238.

Leonard Weinberg and William Lee Eubank, The Rise and Fall of Italian Terrorism. London and Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987. Pp.155.

Robin Erica Wagner‐Pacifici, The Moro Morality Play: Terrorism as Social Drama. London and Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1986. Pp.360.

Leonardo Sciascia, The Moro Affair. London: Carcanet Press, 1987. Pp.175.