Radical Beliefs and Violent Actions Are Not Synonymous: How to Place the Key Disjuncture Between Attitudes and Behaviors at the Heart of Our Research into Political Violence

This article develops and elaborates on three core points. First, as with research into other social science themes, it is argued that it is necessary to apply the logic of correlation and causality to the study of political violence. Second, it highlights the critical disjuncture between attitudes and behaviors. Many or most individuals who support the use of political violence remain on the sidelines, including those who sympathize with insurgents in Afghanistan (reportedly 29 percent in 2011), and those supportive of “suicide attacks” in the Palestinian Territories (reportedly reaching 66 percent in 2005). Conversely, those responsible for such behaviors are not necessarily supportive of the ostensible political aims. Third, it is argued that the motives that drive these attitudes and behaviors are often (or, some would argue, always) distinct. While the former are motivated by collective grievances, there is substantial case study evidence that the latter are commonly driven by economic (e.g., payments for the emplacement of improvised explosive devices), security-based (i.e., coercion) and sociopsychological (e.g., adventure, status, and vengeance) incentives. Thus, it is necessary for the research community to treat attitudes and behaviors as two separate, albeit interrelated, lines of inquiry.     

Power and property: commercialization,enclosures, and the transformation of agrarian relations in Ethiopia

The transnational agrarian social movement Vía Campesina is campaigning to have the United Nations negotiate and implement a Declaration, and eventually an International Convention, on Peasants' Rights. This article analyzes the origins and demands of the campaign and the place of the claimed rights in international law. Peasant organizations hope to follow in the footsteps of indigenous peoples' movements that participated in the negotiations preceding the 2007 UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The peasants' rights campaign has succeeded in linking its demands to discussions of the right to food in the United Nations, where concern is growing over the approach of the 2015 target for realizing the Millennium Development Goals, in particular the halving of the numbers of people suffering from hunger. The campaign is likely to face stiff resistance from powerful UN member states, but could achieve substantial advances even if the path to a convention is difficult or never completed.     

Interwar fascism and the post-1989 radical right: Ideology,opportunism and historical legacy in Bulgaria and Romania

Do contemporary Bulgarian and Romanian radical right movements represent a legacy of interwar fascism? We argue that the key element is not that interwar movements provided legacies (of structures, ideologies, or organizations) but rather a symbolic “heritage” that contemporary movements can draw upon. The crucial legacy is, rather, the Socialist era, which in asserting its own definitions of interwar fascism created a “useable past” for populist movements. The Peoples’ Republics created a flawed historical consciousness whereby demonized interwar rightist movements could be mobilized after 1989 as historical expressions of “anti-Communist” — and, ergo, positive symbols among those of anti-Communist sentiment. Although radical right parties in both countries may cast themselves as “heirs” to interwar fascism, they share little in common in terms of ideology. Their claims to a fascist legacy is, rather, a factor of how their respective Socialist states characterized the past.     

The Distinctive Significance of Systemic Risk

This paper suggests that “systemic risk” (e.g., of financial market collapse, or of ecological calamity) has a distinctive kind of moral significance. Two intuitive data points need to be explained. The first is that the systematic imposition of risk can be wrongful or unjust in and of itself, even if harm never ensues. The second is that, even so, there may be no one in particular to blame. We can explain both ideas in terms of what I call responsibilities of “Collective Due Care.” Collective Due Care arguably precludes purely aggregative cost‐benefit decision‐making and requires one kind of “precautionary” attitude in public choice.     

Information technology and education for the public service

Nation-wide surveys of graduate programs in public administration/affairs support assertions by critics that most programs do not provide students with adequate preparation for coping with information technology. This paper identifies the computer-related knowledge and skills demanded by the contemporary administrative workplace and, after analyzing the sufficiency of current curricula offerings, proposes three goals for education in the use and management of information technology and suggests curriculum revisions necessary to reach these goals. Finally, implementation problems associated with curricula revisions are identified and discussed.     

Disinvesting in the administrative capacity for public action

Recurring cutbacks in the public sector have received extensiveattention. Most of the emphasis has been on how to adjust to declinein support for public programs. Cutback Management andcon-tracting-out are examples of this approach. This article focuseson the negative consequence of cutbacks. It suggests that inadequateattention is being given to the decrease in the capacity of agenciesto act. An administrative disinvestment is occurring in much the sameway as it has for roads, bridges and other parts of our public infrastructure. Now, we are disinvesting in another critical social asset--our public bureau-cracies. The nature and implictions ofadminis-trative disinvestment are explord.