Mistaken Attribution: The United States and Inter-Korean Relations

The US-South Korea alliance has been one of the most successful relationships to be forged out of the Cold War era. Since the June 2000 inter-Korean summit, however, one area of consistent friction between the two countries has been over North-South relations. In this article, Victor Cha, associate professor of Government and D.S. Song-Korea Foundation Chair in the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, argues that a key dynamic at play is one of perception, involving errors of attribution. Allied complaints about the other are heard, but attempts to address these complaints are dismissed by the counterpart as having been determined by the situation rather than by volition--that is, disposition. This results in mutual frustration. Since the "axis of evil" appellation attached to North Korea by US president, George Bush, both sides have interpreted North Korean behavior as confirming their own convictions on how to proceed. Despite rhetoric to the contrary, the result has been a dichotomy in the way the two governments approach inter-Korean relations.     

On the victims of terrorism and their innocence

Contrary to common usage, neither ‘victims’ nor their ‘innocence’ are necessary to the definition of the term ‘terrorism’. Though the primary targets ‐ as distinguished from audiences ‐ of most terrorist actions are people, and if the aim of the terrorists is to sow unreasoning fear, then symbolically important non‐human targets such as unmanned power sources, unoccupied government buildings and the like may serve the same purpose. Moreover, given that ‘victims’ are chosen for the shock value their death or injury may have, their ‘innocence’ (or even ‘guilt') may be incidental or even irrelevant to the violence visited upon them. A definition of ‘terrorism’ that focuses, generically, on its targets rather than on their qualities offers a more normatively neutral approach to the problem.     

Reviews and notes

Visions of Emancipation: The Italian Workers’ Movement since 1945, by Joanne Barkan. New York: Praeger, 1984.

Socialism in History: Political Essays of Henry Pachter, edited by Stephen Eric Bronner (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).

The Anatomy of Job Loss: The How, Why and Where of Employment Decline. Doreen Massey and Richard Meegan. (N.Y.: Methuen, 1982. Pp. viii + 258.)

Shutdown at Youngstown: Public Policy for Mass Unemployment. Terry F. Buss and F. Stevens Redburn. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983. Pp. xv + 219.)

The Fight Against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill Closing. Staughton Lynd. (San Pedro: Singlejack Books, 1982. Pp. xx + 244.)

Critical Studies in Organization and Bureaucracy. Frank Fischer and Carmen Sirianni, eds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1984.

The Politics of Terrorism. Michael Stohl, ed. 2nd ed., rev. and expanded. New York and Basel: Marcel Dekker, 1983. 473 pp.

The State as Terrorist: The Dynamics of Governmental Violence and Repression. Michael Stohl and George Lopez, eds. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984. 202 pp.     

Identity and democracy in the Baltics

The purpose of this essay is to consider the probable impact of issues related to ethnic and cultural identity on democratization in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Particular attention will be given to the demographic make‐up of the Baltic states, which are home to a high percentage of Slavs (mostly Russians but also Belarusians, Poles, and Ukrainians), and to those factors which affect how these Slavs and the majority Baits: (1) identify themselves; and (2) identify with the new states in which they find themselves. The key question is the degree to which civic democracy can prosper in a newly emerging multi‐ethnic state. The answer is important not only for the Baltic states but also for the other new multinational states that have emerged from the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe in the past few years.     

A COMPARISON OF CRIME REPORTAGE IN TWO NIGERIAN NEWSPAPERS: DAILY TIMES AND NEW NIGERIAN

This study compares crime reportage in the two major newspapers in Nigeria, Daily Times and New Nigerian, from August 1 to October 31, 1983, utilizing a content analysis methodology. The Daily Times (jointly owned by the Government and the private interest) exceed the New Nigerian (totally owned by the Government) in total crime reports, average daily reports, average number of lines per report and the ratio of space-utilization for crime vs. non-crime reportage. It is likely that newspapers totally owned and controlled by the government, e.g., New Nigerian, are less likely to publish crime reports in general and political crimes in particular than newspapers owned and controlled in part by the private sector, e.g., Daily Times. Both newspapers covered political crimes more frequently (36 percent of total reports) than any other type of crime and its subcategory “riots and demonstrations” comprised 44 percent of all political crimes. This finding reflects Nigeria's problems of neo-colonization and ethnic, religious, political, economic and regional heterogeneity, resulting in a series of violent coups and counter-coups since the country's independence in 1960.