Reading jihad: Mapping the shifting themes of Inspire magazine

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s Inspire magazine has received attention within Western academia and media for its role in inspiring and instructing a series of homegrown terrorist attacks. Reporting on the magazine often characterises it as a Western-centric instrument of jihadi discourse. This characterisation, while broadly accurate, is in need of refinement. Using a modified version of Jennifer Attride-Stirling’s method of thematic network analysis, this research visualises and analyses the narrative themes contained within fourteen issues of Inspire magazine. It demonstrates that the magazine’s narrative extends well beyond the Western world. In reality, Inspire’s themes centre not only on the West and its Muslim populations, but on local politics and broader religious issues. The magazine’s thematic focus has also shifted over time—particularly in response to (a) political volatility in the Middle East and North Africa, (b) the killing of prominent jihadists, and (c) the execution of successful individual jihad operations. Throughout these periods of change, Inspire struggled to maintain focus on its anti-Western narrative and proved easily distracted by local issues and the “martyrdom” of Al Qaeda leaders. Understanding Inspire’s thematic landscape and its shifting character prove important in understanding and responding effectively to its jihadi discourse.     

Beyond Boom and Bust: External Rents,Durable Authoritarianism,and Institutional Adaptation in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan

Drawing on recent critiques and advances in theories of the rentier state, this paper uses an in-depth case study of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to posit a new “supply and demand” approach to the study of external rents and authoritarian durability. The Jordanian rentier state is not exclusively a product of external rents, particularly foreign aid, but also of the demands of a coalition encompassing groups with highly disparate economic policy preferences. The breadth of the Hashemite coalition requires that the regime dispense rent-fueled side payments to coalition members through constructing distributive institutions. Yet neither rent supply nor coalition demands are static. Assisted by geopolitically motivated donors, the Hashemites have adapted institutions over time to tap a diverse supply of rents that range from economic and military aid to protocol trade, allowing them to retain power through periods of late development, domestic political crisis, and neoliberal conditionality.

Localizing Peacebuilding: The Arizona Market and the Evolution of U.S. Military Peacebuilding Priorities in Bosnia

ABSTRACT

This article examines peacebuilding localization, in particular how encounters with local contexts and actors shape external peacebuilders' priorities and practices. My vehicle for exploring this dynamic is the rapid emergence of a massive black market in northeast Bosnia, the ‘Arizona’ market, which developed on territory controlled by U.S. peacekeeping forces. I argue that the military's relationship with the market contributed to a shift from an initially minimalist, peacekeeping-centric, conception of the peacebuilding process toward the embrace of broader post-war political and economic initiatives, and identify three factors that influenced its unfolding in the case of Arizona: adaptation, embeddedness and place.     

An Examination of Bullying Roles and Moral Disengagement Using Latent Analysis

ABSTRACT

Bullying persists as a concern in schools, including the question of why some children bully. One idea differentiating bullying roles (e.g., bully, victim, bully-victim) is that some individuals are morally disengaged, or able to disconnect their moral understanding and behavior. The present study examined types of bullying involvement and moral disengagement. To address the methodological debate within the bullying literature, the present study used latent analysis. The findings revealed that bullying and victimization behaviors vary by degree of involvement. The present study found that moral disengagement was related to students’ degree of participation in bullying; students in the bully-victim class had the highest levels of moral disengagement, followed by students in the victim class, social victim class, and outsider class. Further research should explore moral engagement as a strategy to enhance anti-bullying efforts.     

Disaggregating the dependent variable in policy feedback research: an analysis of the EU Emissions Trading System

Policy Sciences - The literature on policy dynamics has long argued for a better conceptualization and measurement of the dependent variable (“policy”), but this fundamental point has...     

Humans Are Animals,Too: Critical Commonalities and Differences Between Human and Wildlife Forensic Genetics

Wildlife forensics has recently been recognized among the wide variety of forensic science disciplines. This review compares human and wildlife DNA forensics, which use the same genetic tools, but often for far different purposes. Human forensic genetics almost invariably attempts to identify individual perpetrators involved in a given crime. Wildlife forensics often determines whether a crime has occurred. In addition to techniques familiar in human laboratories, like individual matching with STRs, wildlife analysts may be asked to determine the taxonomic identity, geographic source, or sex of evidence items, or the familial relationships or minimum number of individuals among a group of samples. This review highlights the common questions, legal framework, databases, and similar validation requirements to foster understanding between disciplines. Based on this understanding, human and wildlife DNA practitioners may work together and learn from each other in order to elevate the discipline of forensic genetics.