The lessons of Eastern Europe for modern intelligence reform

The proliferation of threats to security, which emerge in states going through major reform processes, demands a functional intelligence architecture. Accurate intelligence is essential in identifying risks to the wider reform process. Western intelligence agencies have viewed intelligence services in reforming states as tactical opportunities and sources of intelligence rather than as targets for reform in the context of a wider reform agenda. Sensitivities inherent in intelligence gathering in states with a recent history of repressive government make the relationship between the intelligence services and civil society crucial if the intelligence services are to be effective and to play a positive role in the transition process. The practice of countering terrorism has altered the nature of intelligence gathering in ways that make accountability and public legitimacy more central to the effectiveness of intelligence services than the ‘traditional’ threats did. Western models of intelligence oversight and accountability are inadequate in states without developed traditions of democratic governance and weaknesses in wider political culture means that these models are not effective in lending intelligence services popular legitimacy. Alternative models for structuring the relationship between the intelligence services, parliament, the executive and the public must therefore be identified.     

Famine and human rights

Famine is clearly and undeniably a terrible wrong, and famine is preventable. The occurrence of famine is an indictment of the ethics of the country in which it has occurred. Despite this, those claiming to represent ethical concerns in general and human rights in particular have had little impact on either understanding famine or dealing with it. This paper is an attempt to develop an agenda whereby human rights concerns can be brought to bear on the problem of famine.     

A Test of Competing Hypotheses about Homicide Following Terrorist Attacks: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis of September 11 and Oklahoma City

There is substantial evidence that catastrophic events, including terrorist attacks, lead to increased levels of post-traumatic stress, especially in communities in close proximity to the incident. Some scholars also argue that these events disrupt social organization. On the other hand, many contend that these incidents produce social cohesion as community members coalesce to help each other in time of need. These ideas have resulted in competing hypotheses in the literature. The first is that violence will increase in the wake of catastrophic events due to heightened levels of individual stress and community disorganization. The second is that violence will decline after these events because of increased social cohesion, especially in the face of an outside threat. In order to test these competing hypotheses, we employed autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) techniques to model the impact of the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11 attacks on monthly homicide counts at the local, state, and national level. Unlike prior studies that provided evidence of an effect but did not use rigorous time-series techniques, we found no support for either of the competing hypotheses. We conclude that while such catastrophic events may have an effect on individual and collective efficacy well beyond the immediate impact of the incidents, these effects are not strong enough to influence homicide rates. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Applied Decision Analysis: Utilizing Poliheuristic Theory to Explain and Predict Foreign Policy and National Security Decisions

In recent years, more than 40 articles and chapters have utilized Poliheuristic Theory to analyze critical decisions made by foreign leaders and U.S. presidents. In this paper, I introduce the Poliheuristic Procedure—a series of steps that one can use to explain or predict decisions by world leaders. Subsequent articles in this Symposium present examples of poliheuristic analyses of decisions made by Presidents Carter, Clinton, Gorbachev, Mussaref and Saddam Hussein. These case studies provide strong support for Poliheuristic Theory: leaders use a two-stage process in making decisions: they first use simple heuristics to eliminate alternatives based on the avoid-major-political-loss principle, and then use more analytic calculations in selecting an alternative from a subset of surviving alternatives.