Foreign Terrorist Fighters: managing a twenty-first century threat

In the aftermath of the Arab uprisings Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) have emerged as a significant security challenge. Since the 1980s and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan the notion of a ‘foreign fighter’ has been closely linked, if not synonymous, with those ideologically or religiously motivated individuals who have travelled to join conflicts in Islamic lands. This article will explore the contemporary FTF movement, offering a comparison of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Syria in the contemporary period. It will explore the international community’s expansive responses to the challenge of FTFs, with special focus on the role of the United Nations.     

Developing the meat grab

‘Meat grabbing’ describes actually existing land deals undertaken for industrial meat production, either directly in the form of animal housing and stocking (confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs), or indirectly in the form of monocrop grain and oilseed production for livestock feed. Meat grabbing is also a concept for analyzing the relationships between industrial meat regimes, food security politics and the global land rush, relationships which have not yet been sufficiently considered in research or in policy. Using China's reform-era meat revolution as an analytical case, this paper proposes meat grabbing as a concept with three broad goals: (1) to show how industrial meat complicates notions of food security and of food security land grabs, (2) to incorporate social inequalities and environmental injustices into the conceptualization and measurement of land deals and (3) to expand dispossession's domain to include relationships between people and agroecosystems. This is an initial exploration of the content and framing of meat grabs, intended to synthesize its core features and raise questions for further study.     

The Effects of Blaming Others for Legislative Inaction on Individual and Collective Evaluations

Legislators commonly blame others for gridlock. We posit that legislators may engage in this type of rhetoric to minimize the individual reputational risks associated with legislative inaction or to boost the relative standing of their party. In a series of six survey experiments, we find that blaming others for inaction undermines voters’ evaluations of individual legislators who engage in this rhetorical strategy. This effect is particularly pronounced among out-partisans and independents. However, blaming rhetoric can also enhance the standing of the blamer’s party relative to the opposing party across all groups (including out-partisans), in large part by undermining the reputations of these other actors. Ultimately, we show that when an individual legislator engages in blaming rhetoric, the immediate net electoral effects are null. This suggests that coordinated efforts by a party to blame opponents may improve the party’s relative standing, while imposing few costs on those engaged in blaming.     

高绩效人力资源管理系统与员工创新行为 ：建言行为的竞争机制研究

如何促进员工的创新行为对组织的发展至关重要。本研究通过多源、多时点调研方式,对我国技术型企业的人力资源部门负责人及其下属员工进行问卷调查,探讨了组织实施的高绩效人力资源管理系统对员工创新行为的影响,并检验了促进性建言与抑制性建言的竞争性中介作用及心理安全感的调节作用。研究结果表明：组织实施的高绩效人力资源管理系统对员工创新行为有显著正向影响;促进性建言和抑制性建言在高绩效人力资源管理系统与员工创新行为间表现出部分中介作用;心理安全感调节了高绩效人力资源管理系统与促进性建言之间的关系;同时,心理安全感还调节了促进性建言对高绩效人力资源管理系统与员工创新行为关系的中介作用。     

新冠肺炎疫情期间公安法医应当加强尸体甄别和个体防护

因鉴定体制特点,公安法医除参与尸体有关的现场勘查工作外,还需进行尸体检验工作。在此过程中,可能面对很多风险,受伤和中毒等事件时有发生。然而,国内公安法医对新冠肺炎等传染病流行期间死亡的尸体如何甄别进行尸体检验鉴定,对现场勘查及尸体检验工作的防护只有少量规定,且内容不够详尽。本文对法医在现场勘查中遇到的尸体及尸体检验中实验室建设、职业现状、风险评估及防范措施等进行了论述。最后,建议出台相关的制度规定等具体约束规范措施,以保障公安法医现场勘查及尸体检验工作的顺利进行,以解除基层鉴定机构和鉴定人的后顾之忧。     

Does fertiliser use improve household welfare? Evidence from Ghana’s cocoa industry

This article analyses welfare impacts of fertiliser adoption using data collected from 838 cocoa farm households in the four key cocoa-producing regions in Ghana. Using propensity score matching (PSM), the study indicates that application of fertiliser leads to significant gains in farm yields, farm income, consumption expenditure, consumption expenditure per capita, and value of productive farm assets. The article concludes that cocoa-specific programmes such as Cocoa High Technology (Cocoa Hi-tech), initiated to intensify the application of improved farm technologies such as fertiliser, should be strengthened through effective and efficient management systems.     

新中国70年国家安全观的演变:认知、内涵与应对

新中国成立以来,面对国内外安全环境的变化,中国实现了由传统安全观向总体国家安全观的演变,显著体现在安全环境研判、安全内容认知和安全维护手段三个方面。中共十八大以来,中国在安全方面频繁推出新理念、新方案和新举措,中国的安全能力不断增强,国际安全影响日益增加。在安全观方面,中国先后提出了总体国家安全观、亚洲新安全观、亚太安全观等理念,实现了安全观的变革与创新。安全环境研判方面,对国内安全的认知更加全面系统、对周边安全的认知更加统筹协调、对国际安全认知更加注重“中国作为”;安全内容认知方面,认知内容日益丰富,兼顾传统安全与非传统安全,统筹国家安全与人民安全;安全维护手段方面,不断完善国家安全体系、加强国家安全能力建设和推进国际安全合作。回顾新中国七十年国家安全观的演变,历经安全实践的锤炼,已经形成了一些基本经验,主要体现在安全环境研判需考虑内外因素并注重其联动性、坚持核心安全需求的底线和安全维护手段要以和为贵、文攻武备。展望未来,其重要启示在于中国的国家安全观要注重安全需求与安全能力之间的平衡,将安全能力建设视为至关重要的任务,不断促进安全维护手段的多样性和灵活性。     

美国国家安全情报传递机制论析

作为世界上情报体系最为发达的国家,美国国家安全情报机制一直以来备受各方关注。九一一事件催生了美国情报体系全面而彻底的改革。经过十多年的努力,美国情报界实现了从机构林立的分散体系到由国家情报总监办公室领导的有机整体的重大转型。从总体机制来看,美国情报界现已形成情报机构一体化与任务一体化的双轮驱动体系,其情报传递网络不仅涵盖领导、协调、执行三个层级间的纵向传送,而且包括不同情报机构之间的横向协调,基本实现了情报整合与信息共享。美国国家情报总监办公室成为名副其实的美国情报界统领,其下设的反恐、反扩散、反情报和网络情报中心构成了美国国家安全情报分类传递机制的四大支柱。通过比较,四大分类传递机制中最为成熟的是反恐中心,其次是反情报与安全中心,再次是网络威胁情报整合中心,最后是反扩散中心。由于各类情报机制自身发展程度的不同,其改革过程中所面临的挑战也不一样。美国国家安全情报传递机制的改革“瓶颈”既有发展不足导致的结构性困境,也有外部安全环境变化带来的挑战。此外,特朗普政府上台后的一系列政策举措使得美国国家安全情报体系的发展方向呈现出新的态势。     

Terrorist violence and the enrollment of psychology in predicting Muslim extremism: critical terrorism studies meets critical algorithm studies

Discourse on terrorist violence has long facilitated an especially liberal form of securitisation. Originally evoked in reference to anarchists and communists, a rational consideration of terrorist violence, inaugurated by the concept, asks for deferred judgement about the nature of, or reasons behind, violence related to terror on the premise that state and international legal norms governing the legitimate use of violence fail to circumscribe the proper capacities of the state to regulate and explain terrorism. Where sovereign powers along with their military and civilian instruments of coercion are deemed unable to regulate violence effectively, analysts of terrorist violence and their readership are invited to consider and cultivate new sensibilities. Beginning in the 1980s, studies by psychologists found renewed urgency among a growing cadre of interdisciplinary terror experts who found religion, Islam especially, a key variable of analysis. I situate their contributions in a longer history of secular and racialising discourse about terrorist violence. Central to this history are practices of reading, translating, interpreting and archiving texts. Evidence for the argument is based on the analysis of an algorithm that allegedly predicts the likelihood of terrorist strikes by counting words spoken by al-Qa?ida leaders and correlating their frequency with over 30 psychological categories.     

Adoption model to assess the user acceptance of smart card technology

Smart card technology is one of the most recent computer revolutions, making its way world-wide into the hands and wallets of everyone. Today smart cards are used all over the world as personal identification cards for corporate building security systems and personal computer equipment access control. Governments, financial services, transportation, telecommunications, healthcare, education, retail and many other industries are planning to or already using smart cards as a means of providing better security and improved services to its customers and users. Understanding the factors that influence user acceptance of information technology is of interest both to researchers in a variety of fields as well as procurers of technology for large organizations. The purpose of this study is to develop an acceptance model and evaluate the user acceptance of smart card in Iran. A pilot study is conducted and a total of 46 questionnaires were distributed among the master students in field of computer science （information security and software engineering） at University Technology Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur. The measurement items in the questionnaire asked about their awareness and acceptance of smart cards, and the initial findings are presented and discussed.