DAGGERS,RIFLES AND DYNAMITE: ANARCHIST TERRORISM IN NINETEENTH CENTURY EUROPE

Initially the anarchists did not call for terrorism, but by the 1880s, it erupted as the result of harsh socio-economic conditions in Europe and America, regional and national traditions of social warfare and justified regicide, government repression of more peaceful and organized forms of protest and labor activity, the spellbinding examples of the Paris Commune and the assassination of Tsar Alexander II, the invention of dynamite and anarchist incitement to ‘propaganda by the deed’. These ignited chain reactions of social protest, repression and revenge. While the number of assassinated heads of state and government, and of monarchs of major countries was unprecedented, the anarchists, outside of Spain, killed relatively few people. Nonetheless, the anarchists’ desire for dramatic signs of vindication, the authorities’ and the public's fears of a vast anarchist conspiracy and the media's hunger for sensational news combined to create the mirage of a powerful terrorist movement sweeping through nations and across the world.     

Political Participation Online: The Replacement and the Mobilisation Hypotheses Revisited

This article discusses the state of political participation online more than ten years after the Internet's great popular breakthrough as an everyday medium. Denmark is used as a case study to critically re‐examine the frequently discussed replacement and mobilisation hypotheses on behalf of the Internet. The pure replacement hypothesis is rejected. Instead, it is found that the Internet still supplements rather than replaces other media, even among heavy Internet users. The Internet is one among several media used by ‘media omnivores’, and political participation online supplements rather than substitutes offline participation. More interesting, the mobilisation hypothesis is partly confirmed. Even though some online participation patterns resemble traditional ones, it seems as if the Internet finally is starting to mobilise younger generations. Further, traditional predictors behind political participation, efficacy and social capital seem to have less impact on online political participation. In the end, these findings are related to more overall discussions on the democratising potential of the Internet.     

Mass Media and Party Divergence in Multiparty Systems

Does the mass media affect the dispersion of the policy positions of political parties? In this article it is argued that the mass media polarize parties' policy positions because vote‐seeking strategies are more viable if party policy positions are clearly communicated to the electorate and because a vote‐seeking strategy corresponds with parties taking a distinct policy position away from the median. Hence, the main hypothesis is that party policy position dispersion is larger with more mass media penetration. In order to test this argument, a novel dataset on party positions and mass media penetration in 267 Danish municipalities in 2004 is utilized and a new measure of the dispersion of policy positions in multiparty systems is constructed. The analysis corroborates the article's main hypothesis.     

The Intelligence Requirement of International Mediation

This article explores the intelligence requirement of international mediation, a topic that is ignored in both the literature on conflict resolution and the literature on intelligence. A mediator's strategies and tactics ought to be informed by a deep understanding of the parties' internal calculations about the conflict and its resolution. Intelligence is needed to gain this understanding because the parties typically do not reveal their sensitive deliberations to outsiders. United Nations mediation teams should have a monitoring and analysis unit that endeavours to meet this need and reduce the ignorance that commonly afflicts international mediation.     

Decrements in Miranda Abilities: An Investigation of Situational Effects via a Mock-Crime Paradigm

Programmatic research has made important advances during the last decade in understanding how cognitive and psychological variables affect Miranda comprehension and reasoning. However, the effects of situational stressors are largely overlooked in determining the validity of Miranda waivers. As the first systematic investigation, this study uses a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design on 123 undergraduate participants to examine the effects of being apprehended via a mock crime (i.e., stealing a watch from a Plexiglas case) paradigm on Miranda comprehension and reasoning. Besides the mock-crime condition, the mode of advisement (oral or written) and the length of the warning (124 vs. 228 words) were also investigated. When compared to controls, the mock-crime scenario produced moderate to large effects (ds from .58 to .75) on both Miranda recall and subsequent reasoning. In addition, oral advisements resulted in non-significant trend for decrements in Miranda recall. No main effects were observed for length and no significant interactions were found. Interestingly, specific components (e.g., right to counsel and free legal services) were generally more affected than the more familiar first two components (i.e., right to silence and evidence against you). Within the crime-scenario condition, participants with substantially increased state anxiety predictably performed more poorly than those participants whose state anxiety remained relatively stable. Directions for future research and the implications of these findings on our understanding of Miranda abilities are discussed.     

Esophageal injury in fatal rear-impact collisions

Neck injuries resulting from motor vehicle collisions (MVC), often referred to as whiplash trauma and injury, often demonstrate little or no evidence of significant tissue damage. In rare instances, however, serious injury to the anterior neck organ injuries can result from such trauma. The present study describes esophageal injury associated with rear-impact collisions, based on a unique case report, review of the scientific literature and a query in the National Automotive Sampling System (NASS) database of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The Medline search and present case study totaled five cases of rear-impact collision-related serious esophageal injury (laceration or rupture). In the four published cases all patients survived, whereas in the presented case study, the patient died due to mediastinitis and sepsis. The NASS query revealed an additional three cases out of a total of 55,926 investigated crashes. All three cases were associated with fatalities. Although no anatomical or bioengineering studies have presented data on the behavior of the esophagus during rear-impact whiplash loading, sudden tensile and/or compressive forces is the likely explanation of injury, often in combination with a local fracture of a vertebral body. In these 8 cases significant esophageal injury carried a substantial (50%) risk of mortality. Clinicians should be aware of the potential for significant complications in the whiplash trauma-exposed patient who complains of chest pain, mid-thoracic pain, discomfort in the neck and throat, respiratory distress, or hoarseness. For those forensic specialists involved in whiplash cases these study results highlight the need to consider esophageal injuries as a rare but potential consequence of whiplash trauma.     

Ticking Bombs and Moral Luck: An Analysis of Ticking Bomb Methodology

In this paper, I take up the task of further examining the ticking bomb argument in favor of the use of torture. In doing so, I will focus on some recent scholarship regarding ticking bomb methodology introduced by Fritz Allhoff. I will then propose a set of ticking bomb variations which, I believe, call into question some of Allhoff's conclusions. My goal is to show that ticking bomb methodology is misguided in its attempt to justify torture insofar as its proponents seem to ignore certain nonconsequentialist factors that are latent in the various types of uncertainty in real-world ticking bomb cases. Once this fact is recognized, I claim, the normative claims about torture that follow can be denied by appealing to it. I then argue that, even if we grant a certain level of uncertainty within the ticking bomb argument, torture is not justified. Rather, the implementation of torture, even if it yields positive results, is nothing more than a case of moral luck. In other words, the supposed "success" of torture in the ticking bomb cases lies entirely outside the agent's control. Thus, if the outcome of the use of torture is in no way controlled by the agent, then the agent's actions cannot be justified by appealing to that outcome.     

Releasing managed care's chokehold on healthcare providers

This article addresses the imbalance of power between managed care organizations and physicians regarding the content of treatment information given to patients. The author provides a thoughtful discussion surrounding informed consent issues in a managed care environment, and how managed care organizations maintain their control over physicians. The author concludes by offering varied and insightful methods to even out the disparity of power.     

Brahmā: An Early and Ultimately Doomed Attempt at a Brahmanical Synthesis

In this paper, I argue that, by comparing certain passages from the early Buddhist sūtras and the Mahābhārata, we can find evidence of a late- to post-Vedic “Brahmanical synthesis,” centered on the conception of Brahmā as both supreme Creator God and ultimate goal for transcending saṃsāra, that for the most part did not become a part of the Brahmanical synthesis or syntheses that came to constitute classical Hinduism. By comparing the Buddhist response to this early conception of Brahmā with the way in which Brahmā is treated in certain sectarian portions of the Mahābhārata, I then argue further that the Buddhist critique of Brahmā as supreme deity was in part conceded by the Brahmanical tradition, and sectarian accounts of supreme godhead sought to reconcile pravṛtti and nivṛtti values more subtly than the crude juxtaposition offered by the earlier Brahmanical synthesis offered by Brahmā. The result was that Brahmā was relegated to an inferior position as a fully saṃsāric demiurge, a narrative found first in certain parts of the Mahābhārata and then continued throughout most of the Purāṇas.