Radicalisation and Higher Education: Students’ Understanding and Experiences

ABSTRACT

Since 2015 universities have been placed under a legal duty of “due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.”¹ This reflects the belief in UK counter-terrorism policy that radicalisation exists and can be countered. Advice to universities is largely silent on how this duty applies to teaching. Yet many degree programmes generate lectures and seminar discussions where views of an allegedly radicalised nature could be aired. This article presents focus group research which elicits students’ understanding of radicalisation, and provides insights into their experience of debating contentious issues such as identity, community cohesion, and the causes of terrorism. We argue that students’ understanding of radicalisation is conflated with extremism and we explore students’ anxiety about debating these issues and reliance on educators to create the right environment for such discussions. Finally, the data presented here challenges some of the assumptions underpinning contemporary counter-radicalisation policy in the domain of higher education, which are premised on ideas of active grooming. We argue that this does not accord with students’ own experiences, as they regard themselves as discerning, critical thinkers rather than inherently vulnerable to manipulation by those espousing violent extremist views.     

Globalization,international coalitions,and domestic reform

This article considers the impact of China's insertion into the global political economy on the nature of political power in China. It argues that for most of the period of the transition from socialism, state leaders attempted to protect domestic interests where possible from the perceived detrimental impacts of globalization. However, China's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) marked a key shift in this strategy. Through the creation of an international coalition for reform, key state leaders used WTO entry as a tool to enforce change on reluctant domestic constituents, rather than the earlier strategy of protecting them from competition and change. While domestic reform efforts have been responsible for many of the changes to the Chinese regime, external actors and interests have also played an important role in altering the fundamentals of politics in the People's Republic of China, and in particular, changing the raison d'être of Communist Party rule.     

KOTJEBI: NORTH KOREAN CHILDREN IN CHINA

The China/North Korea border has always been somewhat porous. Since the se-vere famines in the 1990s, the flow of migrants has tended to be towards China with a primarily illegal population of North Koreans seeking work, political freedom or simply essential supplies. Children from North Korea in China have a particularly precarious status. Either they are illegal immigrants themselves or they have mothers who are illegal immigrants. But, when interviewed, they did not repeat the stories of famine, endemic shortage and desperation which are so common in media reportage. Instead they spoke of a desire for a better life, with more opportunity, security and flexibility. It seems that the social, political and economic realities of the DPRK are changing rather faster than the dis-course which surrounds the country.     

Governmental Efforts on Homeland Security and Crime: Public Views and Opinions

This paper examines views of the respondents regarding homeland security and traditional crime in the United States. Using questions from the 2007 Penn State Poll, a sample of 862 Pennsylvanians participated through a telephone interview. Participants were questioned about their concerns regarding the effectiveness of homeland security, their fear of crime (white-collar, property, violent and terrorist attacks). The results revealed that citizens were satisfied with the effectiveness of homeland security since the September 11, 2001, attacks. The results indicate that fear of crime is different for demographics, and we were able to show that those that thought homeland security had been effective increased the likelihood of fear of white-collar crime. We were also able to show demographic differences for national spending on crime. In addition, we were able to show that those who believed that homeland security was effective did not believe that national spending was at the proper level for property, violent, or white-collar crime. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Examining the Effects of Race/Ethnicity and Race Relations on Public Opinion about the Overrepresentation of Black People in U.S. Prisons

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine whether persons of different racial/ethnic backgrounds differ in their perceptions of the role racial discrimination plays in the overrepresentation of Black people in the U.S. prison system. The paper also tested the gradient hypothesis of comparative conflict theory, which predicts Black people perceive the greatest amount of racial discrimination, followed by Latinx and white people, respectively. This study also tested whether perceptions of race relations between Black, Latinx, and white people influenced the role participants thought racial discrimination played in Black people’s overrepresentation. Nationally representative Gallup Poll data were used. Results partially supported the gradient hypothesis. Black people were more likely than Latinx and white people to perceive racial discrimination to explain Black people’s overrepresentation in prison, but Latinxs’ views did not differ from whites’. Participants who perceived poorer relations between Black, Latinx, and white people were more likely to consider racial discrimination to explain Black people’s overrepresentation. Findings suggest Black people and those who perceive poorer race relations are most likely to support criminal justice reform efforts aimed at reducing racial disparities in the criminal justice system.     

Feature reviews

Perspectives on the Philippines

Crisis in the Philippines: The Marcos Era and Beyond. John Bresnan, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1986. 284pp. n/p

The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance. Daniel B Schirmer and Stephen Rosskam Shalom, Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press. 1987. 425pp. $11.00hb

The Philippines After Marcos. R J May and Francisco Nemenzo, London: Croom Helm. 1985. 239pp. £19.95hb

Touching Ground, Taking Root: Theological and Political Reflections on the Philippine Struggle. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations. 1986. 214pp. £5.75pb

Winds of change in Moscow

The Sixth Continent: Russia and Mikhail Gorbachev. Mary Frankland, London: Hamish Hamilton. 1987. 292pp. £12.95hb

The Waking Giant. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Martin Walker, London: Michael Joseph. 1986. 282pp. £14.95hb

The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline. Seweryn Bialer, London: I B Tauris. 1986. 391pp. £19.50hb

The Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Edited by Martin McCauley, London: Macmillan. 1987. 247pp. £29.50hb/£9.95pb

The future of China

China—Politics, Economics and Society: Iconoclasm and Innovation in a Revolutionary Socialist Country. Marc Blecher, London: Frances Pinter, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Riener. 1986. 232pp. £22.50hb/£6.95pb

The China Challenge: Adjustment and Reform. David S G Goodman, Martin Lockett and Gerald Segal, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (for Royal Institute of International Affairs). 1986. 86pp. £5.95pb

The Political Economy of Reform in Post‐Mao China. Edited by Elizabeth J Perry and Christine Wong, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1985. 331pp. £11.95pb

Apartheid observed

Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White. Joseph Lelyveld, London: Sphere Books. 1987. 390pp. £3.95pb

Black and Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid. Anthony Sampson, London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1987. 280pp. £12.95hb

The Sanctions Handbook. Joseph Hanlon and Roger Omond, Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1987. 389pp. £4.95pb

South Africa: No Easy Path to Peace. Graham Leach, London: Methuen. 1986. 312pp. £2.95pb

King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa. William Minter, New York: Basic Books. 1986. 401pp. n/p

Environmental warfare

Herbicides in War: The Long‐Term Ecological and Human Consequences. Edited by Arthur H Westing, London: Taylor and Francis. 1984. 210pp. £15.00hb

Environmental Warfare: A Technical, Legal and Policy Appraisal. Edited by Arthur H Westing, London: Taylor and Francis. 1984. 107pp. £12.00hb     

Corporatism and the ‘privileged position’ of business

This article examines the contradictions between Lindblom's thesis of the ‘privileged position of business’ and the corporatist views of writers such as Schmitter and Lehmbruch. The implications of the two theories are analysed in the context of the exchanges between the capital and labour in corporatist systems. The analysis focuses on the kinds of exchange business may enter into, with special attention to the question of capital mobility, for that gives important insights into the stability of corporatist systems. Case studies of Sweden and Norway show that the kinds of bargain struck under corporatism may have serious consequences for corporatism, both as an analytical device and as a working system.     

China in East Asia: The process and implications of regionalization

This paper assesses the impact of foreign direct investment on China's integration into the East Asian regional economy. The phenomenal growth of investment since 1992 has both benefited from, and also fuelled, the growth of local autonomy in post‐Mao China. The central state's ability to control the process of integration has subsequently been significantly undermined as the relationship between the local and the international becomes ever more important. While the tendency to emphasize low cost production advantages has attracted considerable inward investment in some areas, impressive short‐term growth rates may hide less beneficial long‐term consequences for China's position within East Asia, and for the trajectory of China's development in general.     

Reviews

Opening Rounds: Lessons of Military History, 1918–1988, by Anthony Farrar‐Hockley. Andre Deutsch, London, 1988. xiii+188 pp. £12.95. ISBN 0–233–98009–1.

The Blunted Sword: The Erosion of Military Power in Modern World Politics, by Evan Luard. I. B. Tauris, London, 1988. v+196 pp. £16.95. ISBN 1–85043–068–3.

Total War: The Causes and Courses of the Second World War (Revised second edition), edited by Peter Calvocoressi, Guy Wint and John Pritchard. Viking, London, 1989. xxviii+1,315 pp., illus., maps. £25. ISBN 0–670–80311–1.

Codebreaker in the Far East, by Alan Stripp. Frank Cass, London, 1989. xiv+204 pp., illus. £18. ISBN 0–7146–3363–1.

The Pacific: Peace, Security and the Nuclear Issue, edited by Ranginui Walker and William Sutherland. Zed Books, New Jersey; UN University, Tokyo; 1988. xiii+243 pp. £8.95 paperback. ISBN 0–86232–815–2.

China eyes Japan, by Allen S. Whiting. University of California Press, Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1989. xi+228 pp. $29.95. ISBN 0–520–06511–5.

Single Sparks: China's Rural Revolutions, edited by Kathleen Hartford and Steven M. Goldstein. M. E. Sharpe, New York, 1989. xi+216 pp. $35.00. ISBN 0–87332–427–7.

China's Regional Development, edited by David S. G. Goodman, (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) Routledge, London and New York, 1989. xvi+204 pp. £32.50 hardback. ISBN 0–415–03510–4.

China's Science Policy in the 80s, (Studies on East Asia), by Tony Saich. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1988. iv+188 pp. £29.95. ISBN 0–7190–2986–4.

The Chinese Communist Party's Nomenklatura System, edited by John P. Burns. M. E. Sharpe Inc., New York and London, 1989. xlii+166 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0–87332–543–5.

The Thought of Mao Tse‐tung, by Stuart Schram. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. x+242 pp. £27.50 hardback, £8.95 paperback. ISBN 0–521–32549–8 and 0–521–31062–8.

The Secret Speeches of Chairman Mao: From the Hundred Flowers to the Great Leap Forward (Harvard Contemporary China Series: 6), edited by Roderick MacFarquhar, Timothy Cheek and Eugene Wu. The Council on East Asian Studies/Harvard University, Harvard, 1989. xxiii+561 pp. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–67 4–7967 3‐X.

Marxism and the Chinese Experience: Issues in Contemporary Chinese Socialism, edited by Arif Dirlik and Maurice Meisner. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk NY and London, 1989. xii+384 pp. $45.00. hardback, $17.95 paperback. ISBN 0–87332–515‐X and 0–87332–546‐X.

The Asiatic Mode of Production in China, edited by Timothy Brook. M. E. Sharpe, Armonk NY and London, 1989. xi+204 pp. $39.95. ISBN 0–87332–542–7.

The New China: Comparative Economic Development in Mainland China, Taiwan and Hongkong, by Alvin Rabushka. Westview Press, Boulder and London, 1987. xii+254 pp. £28. ISBN 0–8133–0519–5.

Golden Inches: The China Memoir of Grace Service, edited by John S. Service. University of California Press, Berkeley, 1979. xxvi+346 pp. $19.95. ISBN 0–520–06656–1.

Information China: The Comprehensive and Authoritative Reference Source of New China, (3 volumes), organized by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, compiled and translated by the China Social Sciences Publishing House. Edited for Pergamon Press by C. V. James. (Oxford, New York, Beijing, Frankfurt, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto: Pergamon Press, 1989). 1,621 pp., 1,250 photographs, line drawings and tables; 52 full colour plates; 23 maps. £450. ($795.00). ISBN 0–08–034764–9.

New China's Population, by China's Financial and Economic Publishing House. (New York and London: Macmillan, 1988). xxiv+232pp., tables, charts. £64. ISBN 0–02–905471–0.

China: Facts and Figures Annual, Volume 12, 1989, edited by Charles E. Greer (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1989). xxiii+510 pp. $91.00. ISBN0–87569–112–9.

The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 5: The Nineteenth Century, edited by Marius B. Jansen. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1989. xiv+828 pp. £60, $89.50. ISBN 0–521–22356–3.

The Cambridge History of Japan: Volume 6: The Twentieth Century, edited by Peter Duus. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 1988. xx+866 pp. £60, $89.50. ISBN 0–521–22357–1.

Children of the Sun: The Japanese and the Outside World, by Michio Kitahara. Paul Norbury Publications, Sandgate, Folkestone, Kent, 1989. 160 pp. £12.95. ISBN 0–904404–68–4.

The Sun also Sets: Why Japan will not be Number One, by Bill Emmott. Simon and Schuster, London, 1989. xii+275 pp. £14.95. ISBN 0–671–69696–3.

Japan: The Blighted Blossom, by Roy Thomas. I. B. Tauris, London, 1989. xii+299 pp. £16.95. ISBN 1–85043–125–6.

A History of Japanese Economic Thought, by Tessa Morris‐Suzuki. Routledge, London and New York; with the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, Oxford, 1989. vii+213 pp. £30. ISBN 0–415–01264–3.

The Japanese Business Community and the National Trade Policy, 1920–1942, by William Miles Fletcher III. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill and London, 1989. x+226 pp. £34.95 ($37.45). ISBN 0–8078–1847‐X.

Management and Higher Education Since 1940: The influence of America and Japan on West Germany, Great Britain, and France, by Robert R. Locke. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989. xiii+328 pp. £30. ISBN 0–521–34102–7.

Democracy in Japan (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies), edited by Takeshi Ishida and Ellis S. Krauss. University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa., 1989. x+354 pp. $39.95 hardback, $14.95 paperback. ISBN 0–8229–3608–9 and 0–8229–5414–1.

A History of Singapore, 1819–1988 (Second Edition), by C. M. Turnbull. Oxford University Press, Singapore, Oxford and New York, 1989. xiv+388 pp. 16 plates, 8 maps. £30. ISBN 0–19–588911–8.

Asia's Next Giant: South Korea and Late Industrialization, by Alice H. Amsden. Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1989. xvi+379 pp. £25. ISBN 0–19–505852–6.

Korea: A Religious History, by James Huntley Grayson. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1989. xii+319 pp. £37.50. ISBN 0–19–826186–1.

Authoritarianism and Opposition in South Korea, by Hak‐Kyu Sohn. Routledge, London and New York, 1989. xii+287 pp. £35. ISBN 0–415–03550–3.

Australian Public Policy and Economic Vulnerability: A Comparative and Historical Perspective, by Francis Castles. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1988. xii+184 pp. £12.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–324021–6.

The Politics of Development in Australia, edited by Brian Head. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1989. xv+274 pp. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–861880–2.

The Great Betrayal: Britain, Australia and the Onset of the Pacific War 1939–42, by David Day. Angus and Robertson, Sydney and London, 1988. x+388 pp. Illus. £14.95, AS39.95. ISBN 0–207–15328–0.

India and South East Asia: Indian Perceptions and Policies, by Mohammed Ayoob. Routledge, London, 1989. xi+105 pp. £25. ISBN 0–415–03894–4.

Southeast Asia: An Illustrated Introductory History (Expanded Edition) by Milton Osborne. Allen & Unwin, Sydney, Wellington, London and Boston, 1989. viii+263 pp., illus., maps. £11.95 paperback. ISBN 0–04–352238–6.

Crisis and Response: The Challenge to South‐South Economic Cooperation, edited by Noordin Sopiee, B. A. Hamzah and Leong Choon Heng. Kegan Paul International, London, 1989. xxvii+450 pp. £45. ISBN 0–7103–0370‐X.

Women's Asia, by Yayori Matsui. Zed Books Ltd., London and New Jersey, 1989. viii+172 pp. £26.95 ($49.95) hardback, £7.95 ($12.50) paperback. ISBN 0–86232–826–8 and 0–86232–827–6.

Urbanization in Asia: Spatial Dimensions and Policy Issues, edited by Frank J. Costa, Ashok K. Dutt, Laurence J. C. Ma, and Allen Noble. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1989. ix+412 pp. $44.00. ISBN 0–8248–1151–8.

The Far East and Australasia 1990 (updated and revised edition), (London: Europa Publications, 1990), xxi+1,054 pp., maps. £105.00. ISBN 0–946653–53–4.