Does Proximity Encourage Tolerance and Less State-Centrism?: Dismissing Monolithic Chinese Youth Perception of Terrorism and Security in a Comparative Regional Study

After 9/11, the exact perception among young Chinese of terrorism and security is little known to the world. What are their views and how are they formed? Are there any obvious differences in perception between young Chinese in different parts of China? What causes this disparity, if there is any? Are these differences intentionally created by the Chinese party-state top-down, or are they only nurtured in a bottom-up, decentralized manner? Using primary research findings obtained from original quantitative surveys and qualitative analyses, this article attempts to offer an empirical answer to these questions. The article is arranged in three sections. The first provides a review of the literature on the topic and describes the research methodology used. The second offers an analysis of our survey findings on how university students from two different cities, Shanghai and Xi'an, evolve distinctive perceptions about terrorism and security. The third section explains the framework used to analyse our findings, which can be summarized as “the nearer, the more tolerant and the less state-centric” towards terrorist-related topics. A conclusion suggests the possible roles of—and wake-up calls for—the Chinese state and the media in light of these disparate perceptions.     

Books reviews

Jeffrey Kaplan and Leonard Weinberg, The Emergence of a Euro‐American Radical Right, New Brunswick, NJ and London: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Pp.248. $52 (cloth); $22 (paper). ISBN 0 8135 2563 2 (cloth); 0 8135 2564 0 (paper).

Chuka Onwumechili, African Democratization and Military Coups, Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 1998. Pp.121. $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 0–275–96325‐X.

R. Falkenrath, R. Newman and B. Thayer, America's Achilles’ Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998. $22.50. ISBN 0–262–56118–2.     

Pre-war Post-war Planning: The Phoney War,the Roosevelt Administration,and the Case of the Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations

The Advisory Committee on Problems of Foreign Relations (ACPFR) of Franklin D. Roosevelt's State Department first met in late December 1939 and operated until early Summer 1940. Its previously overlooked deliberations, chaired by the dynamic Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, are important in three related areas. First, the ACPFR was an early marker of the Administration's later post-war planning, notably the Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy. Second, a remarkable swath of issues were discussed surrounding the ongoing conflict, prospects for its end, and the shape of the post-war world, particularly regarding Europe and the consequences of a German victory. The third area of ACPFR importance is in illuminating our understanding of the Roosevelt Administration's thinking on the conflict during the complex atmosphere of the Phoney War. The analysis concludes that although the fruits of Committee's effort would be indirect, they were nonetheless important in later post-war planning efforts that contemplated a breadth of options for the post-war world before American lives were put in harm's way.     

An appreciation of Alvey Adee

Diplomatic histories identify an early cold war “paradigm shift” as restoring the troubled Anglo–American “special relationship.” However, an integrated analysis of Second World War and post-war Iran suggests continuity in ideologically based Anglo–American differences on the reconstruction of the postwar world economic periphery, and that this was the defining context for crucially elusive relations during successive crises to come. The Americans had embraced Iran as an exemplar of “new deal internationalism,” being as much opposed to competing British neo-imperialist political and economic models there as to Soviet encroachments. They continued to identify autonomous British policies and interests antipathetically during the early cold war period and beyond, not merely out of economic self-interest, but at crucial moments disavowing geopolitical realpolitik. This perplex also determined during future crises of British power, in Iran and throughout the Middle East, that US interests would shift to new relationships, whenever having to decide, with indigenous peripheral actors rather than neo-imperialist European allies, precluding institutionalized, comprehensive Anglo–American partnership, which Britain had hoped would preserve and extend its role as a regional power.     

Lebanese Christians'Attitudes Toward Israel and the Peace Process

The objectives of this article were (1) to examine what Lebanese Christians think about peace with the Jewish state, not what their officials say about it; (2) to determine whether Lebanese Christians have a distinct position that separates them from their Muslim counterparts vis-à-vis the peace process and normalization of relations with Israel. The findings revealed that Lebanese Christians accept different forms of interaction with Israelis. However, most respondents support peace with Israel, clearly oppose the idea of confrontation with the Jewish state, and call for a unilateral peace treaty with their southern neighbor. Most Lebanese Christians view peace as a major reshuffling force capable of restoring their lost politcal role in the country.     

Fatah al-Islam in Lebanon: Anatomy of a Terrorist Organization

The objective of this study is to provide through an in-depth investigation of the Fatah Al-Islam organization, emergence, programs, and external links, and the inner operation of this underground Salafi-jihadi group. By divulging secret confession statements to the public, it has uncovered many of the mysteries that surrounded the evolution and goals of the group. On the other hand, and more important, it has examined the application of certain conventional approaches to the study of terrorist behavior. The findings, based on the biographies of FI terrorists, seem to negate much of the advanced explanation about political violence. Economic destitution, poverty, lack of education, young age, and marital disruption for instances do not determine adherence to the group. Members of the jihadi group of FI stem from a diversified occupational background, not lacking in education, mature, married, and influenced by various motivations, specifically religious dogma.     

Reflexive Governance and European Company Law

The use of reflexive forms of governance is growing within the EU, in particular as the open method of coordination (OMC) is applied to a wider range of contexts. Reflexive approaches view diversity of laws and practices across the Member States as the basis for experimentation and mutual learning within the overall process of European integration. Company law, however, seems to be an exception to this trend: recent activity in this area has mostly taken the form of 'hard law' harmonisation through directives, coupled with the stimulation of regulatory competition through judgments of the European Court of Justice concerning freedom of movement, most notably the Centro s case. The deliberations of the European Corporate Governance Forum barely qualify as a 'company law OMC' because of the limited space allowed for 'learning from diversity'; instead, differences in the laws of the Member States are seen, in the discourse of the Forum, as 'distortions of competition'. In the area of labour law, by contrast, a degree of functional convergence and a coordinated raising of standards have recently been achieved by the dovetailing of the OMC with social policy directives. The contrasting experiences of labour law and company law suggest that reflexive or experimentalist approaches to European governance can be effective when they operate so as to complement mechanisms of harmonisation and regulatory competition, rather than being presented as alternatives to them.