Every Kingdom Divided Against Itself Will Be Ruined: A Reflection,a Deflection,and a Qualified Reinterpretation of the Global Jihad

Much analytical commentary implies that a generic West is the principal target of jihadist activism. This study contends that this is a misconception fostered by jihadist groups like Al Qaeda in order to accentuate their stature in the Islamic world and to obscure their true aims, which are first and foremost to secure the dominance of the Salafist interpretation of Islam. The analysis situates Al Qaeda in the tradition of Islamic reform movements and shows that a violent Sufi/Salafist conflict pervades nearly all current examples of strife within the Muslim world. In these conflicts, the role of the “West” is instrumental, not central to the struggle. Consequently, this study offers a qualification to notions of a “global jihad” and suggests this has important considerations for policymakers in determining the nature of the threat posed by Islamist militancy.     

Counter-COIN: Counterinsurgency and the Preemption of Strategy

The notion of “counterinsurgency” (COIN) has for some years been the central concept driving military operations in Afghanistan, and before that, in Iraq. It constitutes the dominant idea influencing much current military planning of the major Western powers. This study questions the assumptions and relevance of the thinking behind counterinsurgency doctrine. It suggests that the ultimate effect of its dominance is to reduce the highly contingent nature of war to a list of techniques, the application of which are regarded as a sufficient precondition whenever states deem that they are confronted by conflicts that can be described as an “insurgency.” Such assumptions are both arbitrary and risk crowding out necessary, although by their nature very difficult, political judgments that are required for the effective construction and implementation of strategies that seek to ensure that the ends sought are proportional to the means employed.     

Toulmin's philosophy of argument and its relevance to offender profiling

This study sought to identify the extent to which claims about the probable characteristics of offenders in ‘offender profiles’ were based on substantive arguments. Because Toulmin's (1958) philosophy of argument has been demonstrated as a useful way of breaking down arguments into their constituent parts (Burleson, 1979) we examined the extent to which profiles contained grounds, warrants, backing and rebuttals to support or refute various claims about offenders. Twenty-one profiles, representing a range of ‘profiling styles’, were obtained from a variety of sources. All of these had been used in major criminal investigations either in the UK or internationally. Of the nearly 4,000 claims made, nearly 80% were unsubstantiated. That is, they contained no grounds, warrant, backing or rebuttal. Moreover, less than 31% of the claims were falsifiable. We argue that (a) this demonstrates the need for a careful, systematic evaluation of profiling advice (b) Toulmin's structure is one useful method for evaluating such material and for providing a possible framework for such advice.     

Strategies of inheritance among Kentish fishing communities in the later Middle Ages

Anthropologists and historians have long been interested in the subject of inheritance. One area that has received considerable attention is the connections between property, production and the family. Researchers have noted the complexity of the systems used by donors and recipients whereby assets are transmitted, including matters of timing, life cycle stage and the formation of relationships. One of the most significant times is death. For the family, the death of a spouse often has severe implications for its production and reproduction, and the strategies of inheritance employed affect its subsequent history. Studies of post-mortem inheritance have primarily investigated agricultural communities. This article seeks to test their findings by exploring the links between occupation and inheritance, and between identity and inheritance with respect to the fishing families from two small late medieval Kentish towns. The exceptionally good testamentary materials for the fishermen of Lydd and Folkestone reveal the deployment of a number of post-mortem inheritance strategies. By indicating the importance of significant relations in the transference of material and symbolic capital at this critical time, the study provides a greater understanding of the role of inheritance in familial and communal replication.     

Democratic legitimacy in the European Union: Fulfilling the institutional logic

The European Union's delicate institutional balance between intergovern‐mentalism and supranationalism has been the source of both the EU's successes and its problems. This balance is under scrutiny as representatives of Member States and EU institutions pursue their particular visions of democratic legitimacy in the course of the 1996–97 Intergovernmental Conference. This essay examines three competing conceptualisations of democratic legitimacy: the Gaullist view, which associates legitimacy narrowly with national sovereignty; a national culture perspective that posits a unique correspondence of national character and national parliaments; and a parliamentary view that associates legitimacy with the role played by parliaments in scrutinising the behaviour of executives, whether at national or European level. Only the last of these perspectives acknowledges that democratic legitimacy is a continuous variable rather than an all‐or‐nothing concept, and that the EU may therefore accumulate legitimacy by improving both the process and substance of policy making within the logic of existing institutional structures.     

The dynamics of committee outliers: Evidence from the house of representatives, 1951–90

In this study, we enter the on‐going debate on committee outliers by addressing two important points. First, we dispute the conventional wisdom that committee outliers are best identified and evaluated using traditional tests of statistical significance. Contesting the appropriateness of such tests, we contend that any observed difference between chamber behaviour and floor behaviour may be substantively significant and use raw mean differences between Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) scores to examine differences between the full House of Representatives and its committees. Second, we attempt to integrate the committee outlier literature into the broader literature on the historical development of the House by using data from 20 Congresses over four decades (1951–90). This longitudinal analysis indicates that there have been interesting dynamic changes in the prevalence of committee outliers across time and committee types in patterns that are consistent with both the principal‐agent framework and the more general literature on congressional change and reform. Many of these important changes are not obvious when relying solely on traditional tests of statistical significance to examine committee outliers.     

Back for the future: a client centred analysis of social welfare and family law provision

The landscape of legal advice provision is entering a period of significant change in England and Wales. Whilst there is a great deal of uncertainty about how the future landscape of advice service provision will evolve, there are lessons to be drawn from past delivery models.

This article first looks back at the period following the Access to Justice Act 1999, setting out a range of delivery models initiated following the Act, as well as research and evaluation conducted in the millennium decade. Findings are then presented from a comprehensive qualitative study on how people experience and deal with social welfare and family problems, and on facilitators and barriers to integrated advice provision, including inter-organisational working. This is explored through the lens of a delivery model which emphasised partnership and the pooling of resources and specialisms to meet client needs: the Community Legal Advice Centre model.     

Interpersonal communication and the dialogue of drama

SUMMARY

Because of the problems that people encounter in their everyday relationships there is a need for a greater understanding of interpersonal communication in the modern world. This article is a study of interpersonal communication based on the dialogical approach to communication which departs from the premise that communication is man's mode of existence. Communication is the way in which people reach an understanding of each other and at the same time, realise their potential as human beings through self-expression. Because of the difficulties involved in studying people in interpersonal communication, the dialogue of drama is used as a paradigm for dialogue in the real world. The insights gained should be of value in reaching an understanding of the communication problems that people experience in the course of their everyday lives.     

Using jump lists to identify fraudulent documents

Jump lists show the file opening activity of a computer user. When a computer user wants to know the most recent file they opened, a jump list can provide that information. Windows 7 displays jump lists for recently used files, but more importantly for investigators, it also records hidden jump list artifacts. These hidden jump list artifacts reveal the complete trail a fraudster follows in creating fraudulent documents or to perform other illegal activities when using their computers. Such jump list artifacts can remain on the computer's drives for years. The paper describes a method that can be used to identify artifacts and their potential for use as forensic evidence in a financial fraud case.