Culture and Terrorism: The Role of Cultural Factors in Worldwide Terrorism (1970–2013)

The relationship between terrorism and culture was systematically examined using three high-quality global databases. Contrary to prior research, terrorism—collapsed across form and era—was not related to any of Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Yet, particular forms of terrorism—incidents involving substantial casualties and damage, suicide bombings, and the proportion of incidents involving fatalities—all showed relationships with cultural dimensions. Tolerance of terrorism and relative tolerance of the 9/11 attack were related to cultural dimensions and terrorist events. Finally, populations that were relatively voiceless, disengaged from their communities, suffering, angry, and hopeless showed more tolerance of terrorism and incidents of terrorism.     

Ecosocialisms,Past, Present and Future: From the Metabolic Rift to a Reconstructive,Dynamic and Hybrid Ecosocialism

John Bellamy Foster and his colleagues have recently argued that the project of ecosocialism should be understood in terms of a “prefigurative” and “first stage” of red-green thinkers whose insights have largely been transcended by their own work on the metabolic rift. Rift scholars have further argued that “second-stage” ecosocialists should push back against “idealist” deviations occurring amongst historical materialists concerned with the production of nature, socionatures and “hybridity,” as well as more or less all engagements with literatures on eco-technological transitions, industrial ecology and the like, which are implicated in supporting “green capitalism.” This paper critically evaluates these claims. In each case, it is argued, rift scholarship is narrowing the possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement and for thinking in dynamic and reconstructive terms about red-green futures. It is our sense that an ecosocialist vision of just transitions has to be conceptualized as a diverse, dynamic, iterative and always incomplete affair. Anthropocene ecosocialisms are inevitably going to involve co-producing, making and remaking hybrid social ecologies on an irreducibly restless, turbulent and warming planet. We argue that what follows from this is the necessity to both critique and recuperate the better insights of hybrid political ecology and ecological modernities.     

Grammar Schools,a Policy of Social Mobility and Selection—Why?

Initially, four plausible reasons for introducing selection in secondary education are examined, three of which are irrelevant to contemporary debates about expanding grammar‐school education. These are: first, to ration education in less advanced economies; second, to increase the supply of skilled labour within an expanded national elite; third, as part of a ‘segmented’ system of education. A fourth—increasing upward social mobility—is open to two objections: first, the May government's proposals are so limited as to have little likely impact on mobility and, second, upward mobility in the twentieth century was possible only because of structural change in the British labour market, and that will probably not continue in this century. Finally, it is argued that attempts to select the ‘best’ in any activity or skill are necessarily highly imperfect, and are far less accurate than testing who does and does not meet some minimum level of competence.     

Can Political Participation Prevent Crime? Results from a Field Experiment About Citizenship,Participation, and Criminality

Democratic theory and prior empirical work support the view that political participation, by promoting social integration and pro-social attitudes, reduces one’s propensity for anti-social behavior, such as committing crimes. Previous investigations examine observational data, which are vulnerable to bias if omitted factors affect both propensity to participate and risk of criminality or their reports. A field experiment encouraging 552,525 subjects aged 18–20 to register and vote confirms previous observational findings of the negative association between participation and subsequent criminality. However, comparing randomly formed treatment and control groups reveals that the intervention increased participation but did not reduce subsequent criminality. Our results suggest that while participation is correlated with criminality, it exerts no causal effect on subsequent criminal behavior.     

Reflections on variability in the blood–breath ratio of ethanol and its importance when evidential breath-alcohol instruments are used in law enforcement

Variability in the blood–breath ratio (BBR) of alcohol is important, because it relates a measurement of the blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) with the co-existing breath-alcohol concentration (BrAC). The BBR is also used to establish the statutory BrAC limit for driving from the existing statutory BAC limits in different countries. The in-vivo BBR depends on a host of analytical, sampling and physiological factors, including subject demographics, time after end of drinking (rising or falling BAC), the nature of the blood draw (whether venous or arterial) and the subject’s breathing pattern prior to exhalation into the breath analyzer. The results from a controlled drinking study involving healthy volunteers (85 men and 15 women) from three ethnic groups (Caucasians, Hispanics and African Americans) were used to evaluate various factors influencing the BBR. Ethanol in breath was determined with a quantitative infrared analyzer (Intoxilyzer 8000) and BAC was determined by headspace gas chromatography (HS-GC). The BAC and BrAC were highly correlated (r = 0.948) and the BBR in the post-absorptive state was 2 382 ± 119 (mean ± SD). The BBR did not depend on gender (female: 2 396 ± 101 and male: 2 380 ± 123, P > 0.05) nor on racial group (Caucasians 2 398 ± 124, African Americans 2 344 ± 119 and Hispanics 2 364 ± 104, P > 0.05). The BBR was lower in subjects with higher breath- and body-temperatures (P < 0.05) and it also decreased with longer exhalation times into the breath-analyzer (P < 0.001). In the post-absorptive state, none of the 100 subjects had a BBR of less than 2 100:1.     

When do People Value Rehabilitation and Restorative Justice Over the Punishment of Offenders?

The authors explored the characteristics of individuals that affect their attitudes toward restorative justice-—in which offenders, victims, and communities meet to redress the damage the offence had caused. Across three studies, participants completed questionnaires that assessed whether they believe that people in general, or offenders in particular, can change fundamentally as well as attitudes toward restorative justice, rehabilitation, and punishment. In one study, the questionnaire also included measures of social dominance orientation, goal orientation, and future clarity. Generally, participants who believed that offenders can change fundamentally were more likely to agree to participate in restorative justice meetings and endorse rehabilitation over punishment. Yet, the belief that individuals in general can change fundamentally was not significantly associated with these attitudes toward alternative responses to crime. Social dominance orientation was inversely, and a learning orientation and future clarity were positively, associated with this belief that offenders can change. Thus, interventions that diminish inequality in income, privileges, and influence—and thus curb a social dominance orientation—may foster an openness toward restorative justice. Initiatives that continually reward people who gradually develop their expertise, and thus promote a learning orientation, should also foster this openness toward alternatives to custodial sentences.     

Hans Jonas: A Study in Biology and Ethics

Hans Jonas was a philosopher who looked nihilism in the eye and courageously stood his ground. He did so by volunteering to serve against the Nazis in World War II, by discovering the links to nihilism in his thought of his teacher Martin Heidegger and by developing a novel philosophy of nature that took its lessons from both Aristotle and Darwin. Jonas’s philosophy of organic nature – his rehabilitation of the soul as a relevant notion for biology – provided prescient insights for the still developing fields of bioethics and environmental ethics.

Partisan self-interest and electoral reform: The new Italian electoral law of 2005

In December 2005, Italy's mixed-member electoral system was replaced with a system of bonus-adjusted proportional representation. The reform conformed with rational-choice models in that it was imposed by the ruling coalition, which sought to bolster its own power interests. But the case illustrates the impossibility of reducing such power-based motivation to a single goal, such as seat maximization. Power is shaped by many factors, and electoral systems influence many of these. This article develops a theoretical framework for understanding the various power-oriented considerations that may operate in electoral reform. It then analyses the role these played in Italy. It argues, in particular, for the need to take account of coalition dynamics when studying such processes.     

Die Wiederherstellung des Marktsubjekts

The UK is generally considered a laboratory for styles of governance influenced by New Public Management: outsourcing, internal markets, targets, auditing. The shifts in governance style, and the new instruments that have accompanied them, were once synonymous with “Thatcherism” but have since been adopted and refined by New Labour. Early critical social scientific analyses deployed the Gramscian notion of hegemony to analyse this shift. This was followed by Foucault inspired analyses of “governmentality”. The latter focused more explicitly on the micro-level of conduct. This article follows that lead, but seeks to address the central puzzles thrown up by this experiment through Max Weber’s conception of a “bureaucratic revolution” and Karl Polanyi’s analysis of the constitution of a “market subject” via a “double movement”: a simultaneous loosening and tightening of control. The Weber-Polanyi approach allows us, we argue, to make the link more explicit between micro-level changes in the “conduct of life” (Lebensführung) and the meso-level instruments designed to bring about such a re-orientation of conduct. The article makes the case with reference to empirical material from a number of public services, notably education and health. Overall, the decisive factor is not a weakening of the state, but a change in its capacities and instruments.