Terrorist (E)motives: The Existential Attractions of Terrorism

This article describes a number of possible existential motivations for engaging in terrorism. Three in particular are identified: (1) the desire for excitement, (2) the desire for ultimate meaning, and (3) the desire for glory. Terrorism, according to the argument set out here, is as much a site of individual self-drama and self-reinvention as a tactical instrument for pursuing the political goals of small groups. The conclusion explores the concept of “existential frustration,” and suggests that terrorist activity may provide an outlet for basic existential desires that cannot find expression through legitimate channels.     

UNRWA’s First Years, 1949–1951: The Anatomy of Failed Expectations

The birth of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Near East Refugees (UNRWA) in 1949 represented the culmination of two years of international diplomacy to solve the Palestinian refugee problem. The United States, Britain, and the international community not only sought an agency to take charge of refugee relief, but also envisaged a body to facilitate direct programmes for public works to wean the refugees away from aid dependency whilst also contributing to the economic productivity of host Arab nations. It was hoped this would support the refugees on a self-sustaining basis and even lead to their re-settlement and re-integration into the region. This analysis examines how and why Britain, the United States, and international bodies established UNRWA and identifies why UNRWA, by 1951, was unable to fulfil the task for which it was initially conceived.     

Public Services after Austerity: Zombies,Suez or Collaboration?

Public services—in the UK and elsewhere—are under considerable pressure, not just from austerity, but also from a variety of social, demographic and technological changes (in effect ‘austerity plus’). In this context, three broad options are open to policy‐makers: continue with tried‐and‐tested approaches while spending less money, which in the UK means a reliance on ‘New Public Management’ (NPM); withdraw completely from certain public services; or develop new approaches to public administration. We argue that all of these approaches have been attempted in recent years, but it is the final option that is most interesting and potentially the most beneficial. In this article, we examine experiments with these new approaches in responding to ‘austerity plus’. In particular, we examine various attempts at ‘collaboration’ in public services and discuss the risks associated with them. We conclude by setting out the extent to which policy‐makers have moved beyond NPM and suggesting some of the benefits that this could bring.     

Forecasting the 2013 German Bundestag Election Using Many Polls and Historical Election Results

This article reports on an attempt to forecast the outcome of the 2013 election to the German Bundestag. In contrast to the predominant academic approach to forecast incumbent vote shares from measures of government popularity, economic conditions and other fundamental variables, we entirely relied on data from published trial heat polls. Opposite to common practice in the news media, we did not take isolated polls as election forecasts in their own right. Instead, we used historical data to assess empirically the relationship between polls and election outcomes, and combined extrapolations from current polls in a Bayesian manner. The forecast was published one month ahead of the election. The retrospective evaluation of our method was added after the election. While our method is parsimonious and provides a large lead time, the performance at the 2013 election was underwhelming. We offer additional suggestions how the approach can be improved in future scenarios.