Al-Qaeda and the Nature of Religious Terrorism

This article examines the nature of religious terrorism, principally with reference to al-Qaeda. It argues that a distinction must be made between the ultimate aims and the immediate objectives of ‘religious’ terrorists, and that while the ultimate aims will be religiously formulated, the immediate objectives will often be found to be almost purely political. This distinction is illustrated with reference to such pre-modern religious terrorists as the Assassins and Zealots. Immediate objectives, are for many purposes more important than ultimate aims.

Although the immediate objectives of al-Qaeda on 9/11 cannot be established with certainty, it is highly probably that the intention was to provoke a response from the US that would have a radicalizing impact on al-Qaeda's constituency. Reference to public opinion in the Middle East, especially in Egypt, shows that this is indeed what has happened. Such an impact is a purely political objective, familiar to historians of terrorism from at least the time of Errico Malatesta and the ‘propaganda of the deed’ in the 1870s. While no direct link between Malatesta and al-Qaeda exists, al-Qaeda was certainly in contact with contemporary theories that Malatesta would have recognized, and seems to have applied them.

Even though its immediate objectives are political rather than religious, al-Qaeda is a distinctively Islamic group. Not only is its chosen constituency a confessional one, but al-Qaeda also uses—and when necessary adapts—well-known Islamic religious concepts to motivate its operatives, ranging from conceptions of duty to conceptions of ascetic devotion. This is demonstrated with reference to the ‘Last Night’ document of 9/11. The conclusion is that terrorism which can be understood in political terms is susceptible to political remedies.     

United States Law on the Protection of Abused and Neglected Children

1.Introduction This paper discusses child protection in the United States.I will discuss four general topics.The first topic is United States laws on the protection of children from child abuse and neglect.The second topic is providing care for children who must be removed from their homes.The     

QUEER(Y)ING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Queer theory, understood here as a set of political/politicized practices and positions which resist normative knowledge and identities, has emerged as a theoretical perspective having important emancipatory and explanatory power in the arts, humanities and social sciences. Queer theory resists definition ipso facto, residing as it does within a postructuralist paradigm. It has not hitherto featured within the discipline of public administration and we argue the case for its utilisation in this field by first explicating the theory. Here we develop a way of using queer theory to analyse data, notably through the identification of the ‘moments’ of a queer theory analysis: identification of the norms that govern identity, analysis of what is allowable within those norms, and exploration of what is unspeakable. We demonstrate its use via an empirically‐based case study. The lessons from this exercise are then applied to some of our earlier work which we re‐read through a queer theory lens. This shows the great explanatory power offered by the theory, in that it can develop insights that previously have been inaccessible. We conclude with recommendations for its broader application and wider use within public administration.     

DETERRENCE OR BRUTALIZATION? AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF OKLAHOMA'S RETURN TO CAPITAL PUNISHMENT*

On September 10, 1990 Charles Troy Coleman was put to death by lethal injection at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. Coleman's execution was the first in the state in more than 25 years, generating significant media coverage and providing a unique opportunity to assess the impact of the state's return to executing capital offenders. Interrupted time-series analyses are performed with weekly data from the UCR Supplemental Homicide Reports for the state for the period January 1989 through December 1991. Analyses are performed for the total level of criminal homicides and homicides disaggregated into two types of murder–felony murder and stranger homicides–testing hypotheses that predict opposing impacts for each type of homicide. As predicted, no evidence of a deterrent or a brutalization effect is found for criminal homicides in general. Similarly, the predicted deterrent effect of the execution on the level of felony murders is not observed. Evidence of the predicted brutalization effect on the level of stranger homicides is observed, however. Supplementary analyses on further offense disaggregations continue to support these initial findings and permit a more coherent interpretation of the results.     

The National Interest and the Politics of Threat Exaggeration: The Blair Government's Case for War against Iraq

During the 2005 General Election the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, suggested that the invasion of Iraq was in 'the national interest'. Whether he knew it or not, this phrase has often referred to controversial decisions taken by governments, away from scrutiny and subject to criticism when made public, but which they believe are in the best interests of the British state.
The article summarises the consequences of the invasion in terms of the subsequent criticism and official inquiries before addressing the question of what is the national interest. The article then considers what exactly was the threat, and whether or not it was exaggerated, and what evidence is now emerging to indicate that the decision to invade was taken 'in the national interest'. It concludes that there was a decision to support the USA and that the threat was exaggerated to justify this decision.     

The Third Force? Independent Regulatory Agencies and Elected Politicians in Europe

Governments and legislatures in Europe have created or greatly strengthened independent regulatory agencies (IRAs). Yet they also retain many formal controls over those agencies. The article analyzes whether elected politicians have used their powers to create IRAs in their own image and kept IRAs under tight control or whether they have allowed IRAs to become a distinct set of actors, hence a "third force" in regulation. Principal–agent (PA) theories, largely based on U.S. experience, emphasize the importance of certain formal controls for elected politicians to limit "agency losses." However, an analysis of four European nations between 1990 and 2001 shows that elected politicians did not use their powers to appoint party politicians, force the early departures of IRA members, reverse IRA decisions, or reduce IRA budgets and powers. Using PA theory, two interpretations of this apparent puzzle are offered, each with differing implications for agency autonomy. One is that elected politicians used alternative methods of control, hence they suffered low "agency losses" and IRAs in practice had little autonomy. The other is that elected politicians found that the benefits of IRA autonomy in practice and the costs of applying their formal control outweighed agency losses, and hence accepted agency autonomy.     

Ringing in the Changes

SUITED senior officials,shaggy singers and slouch-ing Internet potatoes movedaround each other with anuneasy lack of familiarity atthe opening ceremony of the Intel i-CafeMusic Studio in Zhengzhou on an icylate November day. The dignitaries wereofficials from the Department of Cultureof Henan. the central Chinese provinceof which Zhengzhou is capital. Wearinga surfeit of black, white and brown hairdye, the would-be rock stars were mak-ing a rare public foray. Most of themweren't familia…