Assessing the Risk Posed by Terrorist Groups: Identifying Motivating Factors and Threats

While terrorist organizations have been analyzed for their motivations and tactics, little has been done to develop a systematic understanding of what makes some groups more dangerous than others. Knowing what makes some groups more threatening than others, or what conditions can influence a single group to become more or less of a threat, would help governments to prioritize resources during counterterrorism efforts. Using an approach similar to Ted Robert Gurr's assignment of a risk score to identify impending minority group rebellion, this article develops and tests a set of terrorist organizational characteristics. A two-phased approach is used. First, the authors identify key characteristics that could be anticipated to drive groups to be more active or deadly. The characteristics were identified and measured for terrorist groups for 1990–1994. The authors test group characteristics against subsequent group violence intensity from 1995 to 1999. Findings indicate that some group characteristics, such as religious ideology and group size, are important to understanding a group's relative level of violence. Though the study focused on a relatively short period of time, the findings indicate that a more comprehensive study of the impact that group characteristics have on violence levels would be a worthwhile undertaking.     

Rehabilitating the Terrorists?: Challenges in Assessing the Effectiveness of De-radicalization Programs

Renewed interest on how and why terrorism ends has emerged in parallel with increased visibility of some new and innovative approaches to counterterrorism. These are collectively known, whether for good or bad, as “de-radicalization programs.” However, and despite their popularity, data surrounding even the most basic of facts about these programs remains limited. This article presents an overview of the results of a one-year pilot study of select de-radicalization programs and investigates critical issues surrounding assessment of their effectiveness and outcomes. We argue that Multi Attribute Utility Technology (MAUT) may offer promise for future empirical assessment of what we prefer to designate “terrorism risk reduction initiatives.” Perhaps less obviously, and until more data surrounding the efficacy of such initiatives becomes available, MAUT may also provide a conceptual basis for planning, evaluating, and guiding the development of future such initiatives and may have the unanticipated consequence of facilitating progress by encouraging greater exploration of efforts to change behavior from other contexts.     

检察官起诉裁量权的外部控制及其反思——以国际刑事诉讼为视角

在国际刑事诉讼中,检察官起诉裁量权的外部控制不可或缺,而单纯的外部控制却凸显范围有限、效果不佳、成本高昂等局限与不足。与单纯的外部控制相比,内部控制具有主动性、自律性的特点,且这种内部监督和控制的限度还与国际刑事法治的境界相契合。在当前检察官的起诉裁量权广泛存在且业已渗入非缔约国司法领域的情况下,只有将基于内外因辩证关系原理指导下的双重控制有机结合起来,才能防范裁量权滥用,促进实现裁量正义,保证国际刑事诉讼中检察官裁量权的公正行使。     

Symposium Introduction: Local Responses to ‘Austerity’

This introduction to the symposium sets out the context for local government in the United Kingdom at the current time. It outlines the scale of the reductions in funding since 2010, showing how uneven these cuts have been across the country and the reasons for this. It also describes the increased exposure to risk of both local government and of the citizens and communities it serves. The central question for the papers which follow is how local government is responding to these twin challenges. The papers provide insights from a number of detailed studies of individual authorities, exploring the strategies adopted to manage in response. The analyses focus on the distributive consequences for individuals and communities, but they also reflect on the wider consequences for local government itself. A particular concern is whether local responses are changing as austerity moves from its initial to its later phase.     

Public Sector Risk Financing: Exploring the Potential Use of Weather Derivatives by Fire and Rescue Services

The floods of 2007, experienced across much of England, resulted in local authority organisations, including Fire and Rescue Services, mounting large-scale responses and incurring additional and unexpected expenditure. Although central government activated funding schemes, some local authorities fell below the thresholds set and had to absorb the additional costs. This raised a question of what alternative methods were available to allow these local authority organisations to finance such unexpected costs. Weather derivatives are widely used in certain sectors to manage the financial risk that arises from undesirable weather conditions and the objective of this research is to explore the reactions of an FRS towards the use of these financial instruments in managing additional costs, such as those arising from the 2007 floods. Our findings suggest that a combination of risk-aversion, lack of specific financial knowledge and comfort with the status quo seem set to stifle development of weather derivatives as an innovation in public sector risk financing. However, this exploratory study suggests that the method has some merit and is at least worthy of further examination.     

When can external actors influence democratization? Leverage,linkages, and gatekeeper elites

This article engages in the flourishing debate on the external dimension of democratization by proposing a theoretical model of when external actors can influence democratization. The argument takes its departure in a critical assessment of existing structural contributions. It is argued that structural approaches are useful in explaining interregional differences in external influence, but have difficulties coping with cases that do not adhere to the overall structural pattern – that is, with intraregional differences. To deal with these problems, I turn to Levitsky and Way's renowned framework of leverage and linkage, and argue that their theory, giving primacy to structures, is not entirely valid. The structural determinants (linkages) that constitute the basis of their explanation are not non-amenable as they claim, but can be influenced to a great extent by what I term the gatekeeper elites of the target country. That is, I claim that domestic elites should not only be perceived as mere objects of external influence, as they are in the structural accounts, but rather as gatekeepers that actively facilitate or constrain ties to external actors. Hence, to fully understand when external actors can influence democratization, we need to breathe dynamism into the structural accounts by carefully evaluating, not just leverage and linkages, but also elite agency.     

我国知识产权质押法律风险及防范

从制造型经济向创新型经济转变的过程中广大的中小型企业无疑是一支不可小觑的力量,由于自身资金的匮乏使其在资金方面更加倚重于金融机构的借贷。中小型企业所拥有的最大财富是知识产权而非不动产,知识产权质押融资由此成为主要的融资方式。知识产权质押作为一种相对新型的融资方式区别于传统的以不动产为抵押物向金融机构融资的方式,在发达国家或地区已经成为一种普遍的融资方式,但是在我国知识产权质押的融资方式却没有得到广泛的应用。造成这一现象的根本原因在于知识产权质押所固有的法律上的风险,因此本文将全面分析知识产权质押法律风险,并在此基础上构建有效规避风险的防范机制。     

Risk and the limits of governance: Exploring varied patterns of risk‐based governance across Europe

Risk‐based approaches to governance are widely promoted as universally applicable foundations for improving the quality, efficiency, and rationality of governance across policy domains. Premised on the idea that governance cannot eliminate all adverse outcomes, these approaches provide a method for establishing priorities and allocating scarce resources, and, in so doing, rationalise the limits of what governance interventions can, and should, achieve. Yet cursory observation suggests that risk‐based approaches have spread unevenly across countries. Based on a comparison of the UK, France, and Germany, this article explores the ways in which, and why, such approaches have “colonised” governance regimes in the UK, but have had much more limited application in France and Germany. We argue that the institutionally patterned adoption of risk‐based governance across these three countries is related to how entrenched governance norms and accountability structures within their national polities handle both the identification and acceptance of adverse governance outcomes.     

‘Bumps in the Road Ahead’: How External Actors Defuse Power-Sharing Crises

ABSTRACT

Power-sharing is a governance approach favoured by external actors for building state capacity and legitimacy in post-conflict societies. Yet it can be unstable and crisis-prone, compelling external actors to guide cross-community cooperation. Why and how do external actors seek to maintain power-sharing and prevent its collapse when operational difficulties emerge? We explore the distinction between ‘light touch’ and ‘heavy hand’ techniques and the motivations of external actors in defusing power-sharing crises. We find a trade-off between the short-term value of crisis management (‘putting out fires’) and the long-term objectives of sustainable local arrangements and external exit (local actors ‘going it alone’).     

企业外部互补性资产及其管理能力研究

本文在追溯互补性资产的概念起源及基本内涵基础上定义企业外部互补性资产,并界定了企业外部互补性资产管理能力的构成.企业外部互补性资产管理能力可被分解为如下能力:①建立或剥离企业外部专用性互补资产的能力;②组织企业外部专用性互补资产的能力;③协调企业外部专用性互补资产的能力.进一步分析认为企业外部互补性资产管理能力是一种在温和变化环境中企业完成具体战略和组织过程的动态能力,是具有动态和运营二元目的与多重变异的能力.