The Logic of Terrorist Target Choice: An Examination of Chechen Rebel Bombings from 1997–2003

The current article seeks to add to the quantitative approach to understanding terrorism by examining the logic underlying terrorist choice of targets and timing within the context of the Chechen–Russian conflict. Using data on Chechen rebel bombings in Chechnya and Russia from 1997–2003, the analysis revealed support for a logic underlying terrorist choice of targets. The results indicated that civilian targets were more likely to be targeted in Russia than in Chechnya, illustrating the importance of examining contextual effects within quantitative approaches to terrorism. The results also implicated an affect of weather and urbanization. Implications of the results and future directions for research are discussed.     

Secret Things and the Confinement of Walls

This article explores the under-examined issue of sexual abuse of children by women. It asks what are the conditions under which such things become knowable or when are they rendered unthinkable? The private sphere, marked by domestic walls, has been identified as the space most influenced and shaped by women. Its walls symbolise shelter and protection, and they are associated with the safety of all within. At the same time, however, the walls which constitute the private also enable a space within which women's actions can take place with limited oversight by others. Walls foster secrecy and what happens within can include elements of transgression. The sexual abuse of children by women—either their own or those entrusted into their care by others—is one such transgression. This article analyses a series of case studies derived from different historical sources in order to highlight how walls and the understandings of privacy that they support help to perpetuate a widespread belief that women can be unquestioningly trusted in their relations with children.     

Negotiating normative premises in democracy promotion: Venezuela and the Inter-American Democratic Charter

ABSTRACT

This article analyses negotiations on democracy promotion by looking at the case of the Inter-American Democratic Charter. It argues that Venezuela contested the concept of representative democracy during the Charter negotiations, advancing the notion of “participatory and protagonist democracy” and that, even if it was unsuccessful in its demands, the country contributed to deepening the debate on the concept of democracy, on which there is far from worldwide consensus. The article suggests that the main drivers of the negotiation process and the final agreement were domestic political changes in Venezuela, specific features of the negotiations, and the structural position of Venezuela in the field of democracy promotion in the global and regional contexts, which were, at the time, favourable to a compromising attitude to conclusion of the Charter, even if not to the concept of democracy.     

Dermestes maculatus (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) development under fluoxetine effect using two drug administration models

Fluoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, commonly used for the treatment of a variety of psychopathological conditions. As such, fluoxetine may be expected to appear in clinical and forensic cases. Dermestes maculatus De Geer (Coleoptera: Dermestidae) has been recognized as a relevant component of the insect fauna associated with decomposing human and animal remains. Experiments were conducted to study the effect of fluoxetine on developing D. maculatus using two‐drug administration models: a non‐living animal model (pork muscle) and a living one (Sus scrofa L. pigs). We assessed the duration of immature stages and total life cycle, as well as morphological parameters (body length, cephalic width, and weight). The effect of fluoxetine was studied at an overdose concentration: In the non‐living animal model the drug was mixed with macerated pork muscle (2000 mg/kg) and in the living animal model, pigs were given the drug orally (833 mg/kg). A control was used for each model. Daily observations were performed from the beginning to the end of the experiments. GC‐MS was used for drug detection and quantification. There were no statistically significant differences in the duration of immature stages, life cycle, larval mortality, morphological parameters, or sex ratio, between treatment and control, regardless of the drug administration model. Given that fluoxetine had no detectable effect on the development of D. maculatus, detection of this drug in forensic situations would not compromise the accuracy of PMI estimations.     

Parliamentarianism and anti-parliamentarianism in Portugal. The voices of the republicans, 1910–26

In Portugal the republican regime broke ties with the monarchy, advocating the need to reassume the national principle, as well as the secularization of its foundations and of the state itself. With the establishment of the new parliamentary republic in 1910 and the debate between republic and monarchy, the supporters of parliamentarianism saw a rupture in the composition and relationship between the powers foreseen in the constitutional charter of 1826, which gave more power to the king during the period of the constitutional monarchy. This made republicans grow closer to the constitution of the French Third Republic, the Brazilian constitution of 1891, the 1812 constitution of Cadiz and the 1822 Portuguese constitution, owing to the fact that these were radical liberal constitutions that conferred national sovereignty. The republicans put forward various arguments both to defame and to defend parliamentarianism. Nevertheless, as in the constitution of 1822, the republican constitution of 1911 stipulated that the congress (the Portuguese Parliament) would be, in theory, the only body that could regulate the political guidelines of the republic.     

Trade Unions and Political Parties in Italy (1946–2014): Ideological Positions and Critical Junctures

The paper investigates party-union relationships in Italy (1946–2014) by hand-coding parties’ parliamentary speeches and trade unions’ congress motions. In line with the cartel party thesis, a time series analysis shows that the ideological closeness between the left-wing Italian General Confederation of Labour and left-wing parties deteriorated when the Italian Socialist Party (1980) and the heirs of the Italian Communist Party (1998) converged toward the centre of the ideological spectrum. Conversely, the closeness between the Catholic-inspired Italian Confederation of Workers’ Unions and the heirs of Christian Democracy increased after 1994, when the former party’s leftist factions became the major part of the Italian Popular Party.     

The relationship between psychological buffers, hopelessness, and suicidal ideation: identification of protective factors

In this study we examined the role of psychological buffers (life satisfaction, self-esteem, perception of family cohesion, and perception of social support) in the development of hopelessness and suicidal ideation. The participants were 314 university students, 71 males and 243 females, who were asked to complete a battery of instruments measuring the psychological buffers mentioned above. The results of a set of hierarchical multiple regression analyses suggested that life satisfaction and self-esteem are independent predictors of lower levels of hopelessness, while perception of social support seems to be the major predictor of lower levels of suicidal ideation independent of depression and hopelessness severity. Thus, hopelessness seems to be minimized by the level of life satisfaction and level of self-esteem exhibited by the individuals, while the key factor to the mitigation of suicidal ideas seems to be perception of social support.