The politics of response to terror: the reshaping of community and immunity in the aftermath of 7 July 2005 London bombings

This article explores the politics of response to the 7 July 2005 London bombings, by analysing UK counter-terrorism institutional campaigns in the three years following the attack. By drawing on the interpretive category of community/immunity, the semiotic analysis of counter-terrorism campaigns aims to describe their representation of the political community and citizen in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks. The article argues that the counter-terrorism discourse relies on two contrasting tendencies: on the one hand, the unifying force that brings people together in the name of common values; and on the other, the necessity to weaken communitarian bonds in order to allow the citizen to control and check-up on others, reporting “anything suspicious” to authorities. In these texts, the figure of the citizen surveillant clearly emerges. Surveillance activities are shaped around the representation of the terrorist event, from the image of the terrorist in normal everyday life to the actual attacks. Paradoxically this brings about a mimicry effect. The surveillance action carried out by the citizen and the imagined actions of the preparation of a terrorist attack partially overlap in the way they are described and visually represented.     

Parents’ Self-efficacy Beliefs and Their Children’s Psychosocial Adaptation During Adolescence

Research has shown that parents’ perceived parental self-efficacy (PSE) plays a pivotal role in promoting their children’s successful adjustment. In this study, we further explored this issue by comparing psychosocial adaptation in children of parents with high and low PSE during adolescence. One hundred and thirty Italian teenagers (55 males and 75 females) and one of their parents (101 mothers and 29 fathers) participated in the research. Data were collected at T1 (adolescents’ mean age = 13.6) and T2 (mean age = 17.5). Parents reported their PSE at T1. At T1 and T2, adolescents reported their perceived academic self-efficacy, aggressive and violent conducts, well-being, and perceived quality of their relationships with parents. At T2, they were also administered questions by using Experience Sampling Method to assess their quality of experience in daily life. As hypothesized, adolescents with high PSE parents reported higher competence, freedom and well-being in learning activities as well as in family and peer interactions. They also reported fewer problematic aspects and more daily opportunities for optimal experience. Findings pointed to the stability of adolescents’ psychosocial adaptation and highlighted possible directions in future research.     

Family Ties and Socio-Economic Outcomes in High vs Low Income Countries

Alesina and Giuliano illustrate that strong family ties lead to lower geographical mobility and reduced labour force participation of young and female individuals. We extend their analysis by arguing that the effect of strong family ties on economic outcomes depends on a country’s level of economic and institutional development. This cross-country heterogeneity arises because strong family ties not only foster traditional family values (which have disruptive effects on economic outcomes), but also provide economically valuable social networks – especially in societies characterised by weak institutions and limited market access. Empirical evidence using the European and World Value Surveys (EVS/WVS) are supportive of our theoretical argument.     

Domino effect or internal developments? The influences of international events and political ideologies on Catalan and Basque nationalism

Although comparative studies of nationalism have recently experienced a resurgence, few attempts have been made to analyse the reciprocal influences exerted upon one another by nationalist movements. This article distinguishes between a domino effect which denotes a concrete change at the governmental level, and a demonstration effect which signifies more general influences on nationalist movements exerted by ‘external’ models. A comparative analysis of external ideological influences on Basque and Catalan nationalism reveals that the domino effect metaphor does not easily apply to nationalism, while demonstration effects are often confined to certain sectors of these nationalist movements, generally the most radical ones.     

The British secret service in neutral Switzerland: An unfinished debate on NATO's cold war stay-behind armies

In 1990, the existence of a secret anti-Communist stay-behind army in Italy, codenamed ‘Gladio’ and linked to NATO, was revealed. Subsequently, similar stay-behind armies were discovered in all NATO countries in Western Europe. Based on parliamentary and governmental reports, oral history, and investigative journalism, the essay argues that neutral Switzerland also operated a stay-behind army. It explores the role of the British secret service and the reactions of the British and the Swiss governments to the discovery of the network and investigates whether the Swiss stay-behind army, despite Swiss neutrality, was integrated into the International NATO stay-behind network.     

Is There a Relationship Between Street Heroin Purity and Drug‐Related Emergencies and/or Drug‐Related Deaths? An Analysis from Vienna,Austria*

This study examines the quality of street heroin seized in Vienna in 1999 and whether there was a relationship between the purity of street heroin and the number of heroin-related emergencies as well as the number of heroin-related deaths. Street heroin confiscated by the Viennese police, run-sheets of drug-related emergencies, and postmortem reports of drug-related deaths in Vienna in 1999 were analyzed. A total of 415 retail samples with a total weight of 128.02 g contained a median percentage of 6.5% diacetylmorphine (range: 0.0-47.0%). All the samples contained a diluent, mainly lactose, as well as adulterants, such as caffeine and/or paracetamol. During the study period, 75 heroin-related deaths and 387 heroin-related emergencies were registered in Vienna. Time-series analysis revealed no statistically significant relationship between the rate of heroin-related incidents and the diacetylmorphine concentration of street heroin samples confiscated in Vienna in 1999. The widely held belief that the number of heroin-related deaths could be explained simply through fluctuations in the purity of street heroin could not be substantiated, even though the results of this study do not rule out an association between the purity of heroin and heroin-related deaths/emergencies.     

Airway obstruction by laryngeal masses in sudden and homicidal deaths

We present two cases of autopsy detection of laryngeal masses with medico-legal implications. The first is a 56-year-old man who died suddenly of asphyxia due to upper airway obstruction caused by a large glosso-epiglottic retention cyst and glottic oedema. Hypothesis of medical liability was raised, due to delayed tracheotomy as the result of repeated failed attempts at oral intubation by various physicians. Difficult oral intubation due to the presence of a laryngeal mass in an asphyxiating subject requires rapid tracheotomy. The second case deals with a 43-year-old woman who died of asphyxia due to airway obstruction, as a result of injury of a cavernous laryngeal haemangioma after homicidal manual strangulation, with severe haemorrhagic infiltration of the surrounding soft tissues. Damage to laryngeal/hypopharyngeal masses should be considered as a possible sign of manual strangulation, as well as neck skin bruises/abrasions and laryngeal haemorrhages.     

Microscopic Pattern of Bone Fractures as an Indicator of Blast Trauma: A Pilot Study

The assessment of fractures is a key issue in forensic anthropology; however, very few studies deal with the features of fractures due to explosion in comparison with other traumatic injuries. This study focuses on fractures resulting from blast trauma and two types of blunt force trauma (manual compression and running over), applied to corpses of pigs; 163 osteons were examined within forty fractures by the transmission light microscopy. Blast lesions showed a higher percentage of fracture lines through the Haversian canal, whereas in other types of trauma, the fractures went across the inner lamellae. Significant differences between samples hit by blast energy and those runover or manually compressed were observed (p < 0.05). The frequency of pattern A is significantly higher in exploded bones than in runover and compressed. Microscopic analysis of the fracture line may provide information about the type of trauma, especially for what concerns blast trauma.     

The ghost of Machiavelli: An approach to operation Gladio and terrorism in cold war Italy

In 1990, a document was made public in Italy that shed new light on the secret aspects of the Cold War in Western Europe. The document, dated 1 June 1959, had been compiled by the Italian military secret service SIFAR and is entitled “The special forces of SIFAR and Operation Gladio”. It explained that a secret stay-behind army linked to NATO had been set up in Italy for the purpose of unconventional warfare. Ever since, there have been allegations in Italy that the Gladio stay-behind army was linked to acts of terrorism during the Cold War. Despite their importance for criminal, legal and social investigations into the secret history of the Cold War, these questions have received next to no attention among the English-speaking research community since the documents' discovery, partly due to language barriers. With no claim to deal with the stay-behind armies in an exhaustive manner, this essay attempts to analyse and contextualise the Italian data.