Research note: Terrorism and science,technology and medicine databases: New concepts and terminology

This article focuses on material about terrorism retrieved from Science, Technology and Medicine (STM) computerized databases. It deals with the function of this type of literature, which is remote from the mainstream. Computerized databases relating to scientific terrorism literature are observed, and the future of the interdisciplinary approach to this subject area is considered.     

Terrorism dissertations and the evolution of a specialty: An analysis of meta‐information

The notion that the terrorism subject‐area has failed to become a specialty because of too few researchers and trainees in the field arose first in 1983, and most recently in 1997 (by Reid), thus indicating an ongoing, unsolved obstacle in the developmental life of this sub‐field. This issue is discussed in the present study.

Authors of M.A. and Ph.D. theses were considered here as the future researchers in this field and as fulfilling the role of apprenticeship. The literature has pointed to this function as one of several conditions enabling a sub‐field to become a specialty, since it fulfills the function of self‐reproduction by providing a discipline with new and young researchers, new views and ideas and more accumulated and organized knowledge.

The abstract and bibliographical details of theses and dissertations were retrieved and analyzed from Dissertation Abstract International, which is a UMI database on OCLC's FirstSearch. This analysis of meta‐information should provide some indication of the status of the subject of terrorism today as a subfield and its chances of becoming an institutionalized specialty in the future.     

Professional leadership in local government

Local public service professionals are experts who temper their use of expertise with public service ethics. Public service ethics differ from the ethical codes of most professions in that they stress external accountability. Ethical codes of private sector professions create a sense of responsibility to the profession and help undergird professional autonomy. Public service ethics emphasize public responsibility and help create public accountability. City and county managers show how public service ethics can help make experts accountable to the public.     

Institutional and management building in sub-saharan africa: the role of training

In this essay, I intend to argue that in Mexico public administration as a discipline has not achieved the necessary theoretical cohesion, because rather than understanding and explaining the state, the government and the administrative structure, it has devoted itself to justifying the proposals made from the heights of power. The challenge facing public administration in countries such as Mexico is that of seeking a more specific space for study and creation. I believe this space should result from a deep analysis of the institutional capabilities that must be generated, and from the design and implementation of public, non-governmental policies, with the participation of different, so to make real the transit to democracy. From a brief review of some decisions derived from the political project of the Salinas Administration, I argue that public administration's concerns are absorbed by the issues that are set over them from the summit of power, thereby impeding the necessary distance that scientific proposals should take. This paper includes, therefore, a brief analysis of the issues that, since the governmental relay in December of 1988, have hold the attention of Mexican scholars in this field. The aim is to show that public administration's theoretic-methodological development cannot be solid and long-term as long as public administration studies are forced to justify or do justify the governmental proposals. Finding in public administration a true social science, with the complete theoretic structure social sciences must have, is a concern shared in many academic fields around the world. However, the problem facing the discipline in Mexico might be set forth as that of the “object” of public administration, which makes the concern for the requirement of a scientific character secondary. This does not hide public administration's limitations and conditioning factors, even as a not “heavily” scientific discipline.     

Charity as Resistance: Connections between Charity,Contentious Politics,and Terror

This article explores two ways of conceptualizing ties between charity, contentious politics, political violence, and terrorism. The first half of the article discusses how social and political exclusion serve as motivations for within-group philanthropy, political activism, and political violence. Using this conceptualization, charity and terrorism can be seen as two activities among a range of possible actions that address grievance and exclusion. The second half of the article discusses how terrorist organizations and political insurgents use charity as a tool to move community members along a “continuum of community support” toward greater acceptance of and participation in violent activities.     

Deficits,Democracy, and Demographics: Europe’s Three Crises

This article argues that the EU and, above all, the eurozone are facing not one crisis – an economic and fiscal one – but three: an economic crisis, a crisis of institutions, and a crisis of demography. These crises are not simultaneous; they are overlapping and self-reinforcing, and there is a high degree of feedback across all three crises. Economically, the euro inflated economic growth and government revenue in the peripheral economies, giving those member states a false sense of their economic prospects. Institutionally, mechanisms were too weak at the EU level to prevent a dangerous escalation of asset (above all house) prices and too fragmented to confront the crisis through an immediate and decisive plan that would provide calm to the markets. Demographically, Europe’s economic and fiscal problems are and will increasingly be exacerbated by the continent’s demographic situation and its projected development, especially in southern Europe.     

Two generations of Sutherland’s white-collar war crime data and beyond

Edwin Sutherland published his famous White Collar Crime in 1949 where he excoriated leaders of American firms for their war crimes. The names of all corporations were deleted, however, from the book by the threat of legal action. The unabridged version was published in 1983 when the Sutherland files at Indiana University were unsealed. These files can now be compared with both the 1949 and 1983 book, as well as with other evidence of corporate war crimes during World War II.     

Historical trauma in American Indian/Native Alaska communities: a multilevel framework for exploring impacts on individuals, families, and communities

Over multiple generations, American Indian communities have endured a succession of traumatic events that have enduring consequences for community members. This article presents a multilevel framework for exploring the impact of historically traumatic events on individuals, families, and communities. The critical connection between historically traumatic events and contemporary stressors is also discussed at length.