The Islamic State and the New Tribalism

This article focuses on the apocalyptic zeitgeist of the Islamic State through the lens of what we call the New Tribalism. It finds that IS emerged from the Al Qaeda (AQ) milieu, but soon split with AQ as the messianic excitement surrounding Al-Baghdadi and his teachings grew. In common with previous millennial/messianic movements in all three “Peoples of the Book”—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—IS soon evolved beyond the laws of the normative faith (antinomianism). We hold that for this reason, despite its claims of faith and fealty, IS has left the Islamic Umah behind, becoming a malign sectarian group of its own whose dynamism and successes are attracting a global audience and support from Muslims in almost every country. This helps to explain such abhorrent practices as forced conversion, sexual servitude, the destruction of historic artifacts, and mass executions. We find that the American invasion of Iraq was the vital first step in a series of events, which gave birth to IS. A thorough review of IS history and political culture traces these historic moments in time.     

Predatory versus developmental rule in Africa

Political economy predicts that national leaders opt for economic development when institutions encourage them to extend their time horizons. By contrast, leaders turn predatory if they feel at risk. Leaders are most able to bear risk right upon taking office, but this can be offset by a perception of high volatility in office holding or by concern about catastrophic losses. Political institutions can therefore discourage predation by fostering recurrent, predictable replacement of leaders without harsh payback for ex-leaders who acted developmentally. Cataloguing all national leadership transitions in Africa since 1960, the article demonstrates that electoral cycles, term limits and the prospect of judgement before international tribunals have lately led to declines in the volatility of top office holding and in the risk of catastrophic loss to the occupants. These new institutions have yet to establish full credibility, but they show promise of altering African leaders' risk assessments to encourage more developmental rule.     

UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION: AN ACTOR‐NETWORK PERSPECTIVE

Development projects are central to international development, yet the actual practice of their implementation is under‐researched. In particular, we know little about how practice affects project performance and about how politics is enacted within such projects. This paper investigates these knowledge gaps through analysis, using actor‐network theory (ANT), of a donor‐funded reform project in the Sri Lankan public sector. By analysing, using mobilisation, interaction and disintegration of the local and global actor‐networks that typically surround such development projects, the paper explains the project's trajectory. These actions represent the practice of politics that must, in turn, be understood in relation to network actor power: not through a static conception of ‘capacitive power’ but through the dynamic enacted concept of ‘associative power’. The paper concludes by reflecting on the contribution and limitations of ANT's local/global networks component in analysing development projects, and in providing insights for development project practice. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

诈术的双重视角分析

在诈骗罪中,被害人之所以上当受骗,源于行为人使用了诈术。1诈术即欺瞒,表现为行为人与被害人之间的一个互动过程。对于诈术的判断,需要结合行为人、被害人两个维度进行分析。从行为人方面看行为人的行为是否具有危害性,从被害人角度看被害人是否需要刑法来保护。只有从这两个方面考察都能得出肯定结论的,才是诈术,才能成立诈骗罪。结合两个维度来判断是否成立诈术的方法,可以为区分诈骗犯罪行为与民事欺诈行为提供思路。     

“独狼”恐怖主义伦理根源分析

个体化,随意化是"独狼"恐怖主义的典型特征,"边缘人群"的价值迷失是"独狼"恐怖主义滋生土壤,基于工具理性的美式反恐战略失去了道德的正当性,平等、包容、宽容、共生是恐怖主义的解毒剂。     

The Collective Nature of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Anders Behring Breivik and the Anti-Islamic Social Movement

Anders Behring Breivik, a lone wolf terrorist, killed 77 people in two terrorist attacks in Norway in 2011. This study uses framing theory from social movement studies to compare his Manifesto with the rhetoric of the anti-Islamic movement that inspired him. The anti-Islamic movement has a dual, and sometimes inconsistent, collective action framing. On the one hand, they portray Islam as an existential threat to the West and a warlike enemy; on the other, they promote peaceful and democratic opposition. The potential for radicalization is thus immanent. This case study reveals the importance of seeing lone wolf terrorists as acting from rhetoric embedded in larger social movements. It further demonstrates, in detail, the subtle and complex ways in which political narratives rejecting terrorism and political violence still end up inspiring such acts.     

外交承认的旧模式和新趋势

承认是外交、国际关系、国际法领域里一个古老的概念。在国际关系领域,承认一直被视作国家交往的前提条件,是否给予承认也因此成了一种政治资源。随着非国家行为体越来越多地参与国际社会进程,外交承认的原则已经在包容性和排他性两个极端之间发生重大的变化,欧盟的对外行为最能反映外交承认的新特征。但欧洲的创新没有取代传统外交,而只是增加了新层面。从长远来看,NGO和其他行为体参与国际社会对外交承认标准提出了挑战。     

Between Breivik and PEGIDA: the absence of ideologues and leaders on the contemporary European far right

In the aftermath of the Norwegian terror attacks of 22 July 2011, the question of agency with regard to the convicted perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, has frequently been discussed. Did he really act on his own? Were his actions self-directed? Was he, as a typical ‘lone wolf’, inspired by the prevalent far-right concept of ‘leaderless resistance’ or, simply, a blind tool, a string puppet pushed and pulled by dark forces, as some commentators have claimed? His cut-and-paste manifesto points to inspiration from ideas circulating in the European Counter Jihad Movement (ECJM), in itself a contradictory mix of ideological positions. A number of these ideas were given new life when the so-called ‘populist right-wing movement of indignation’, the Patriotische Europäer Gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes (PEGIDA) took to the streets of Dresden in the autumn of 2014. The driving force behind PEGIDA, Lutz Bachmann, with a past as petty criminal and doorman, is an unlikely front man for one of the most successful political initiatives in post-unification Germany. Comparing Breivik and PEGIDA, Önnerfors argues that the ECJM is part of the ‘third generation’ of right-wing discourse that is without a consistent world view, dominant leaders and prolific ideologues. Instead, in a new atmosphere of ‘politics of passion’ and ‘post-politics’, fuzzy ECJM ideology turns into a screen upon which diffuse uneasiness with current political affairs can be projected and channelled. Outside the scope of Önnerfors's article but worth noting is the considerable impact these developments have had on electoral support for right-wing populist parties such as the Front National in France, the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the Sverigedemokraterna in Sweden.     

Leaderless Resistance and the Loneliness of Lone Wolves: Exploring the Rhetorical Dynamics of Lone Actor Violence

“Leaderless resistance” and “lone wolf terrorism” are concepts that have steadily gained importance in the study of oppositional subcultures and terrorist groups, being used to describe the operational realities of a variety of terrorisms, from groups like Al Qaeda to Anders Breivik. In this article, I seek to describe leaderless resistance as a rhetorical construct, a meaning-conferring “ideology of effervescence” that lifts the spirits of both movement progenitors who advocate the strategy as well as incipient lone wolves who consider responding to their exhortations. Through an examination of the case of Wiebo Ludwig and the EnCana pipeline bombings of 2008–2009, I show how these rhetorics emerge in the interactions between activists and their political enemies. With this conception, we can (a) understand more fully the discursive/rhetorical dynamics involved in asymmetrical struggle, (b) problematize the acceptance of the organizational reality of leaderless resistance in the terrorism literature, and (c) question the assertion of some terrorism scholarship that refers to leaderless resistance and other ideologies of effervescence as hallmarks of the “new terrorism.”     

制度与行为者之间的关系－－印第安纳学派的新制度主义

本以制度与行为之间的关系为主，对在社会科学领域影响甚大的新制度主义中各学派的主要理论观点进行了梳理，并在此基础上，着重介绍了印第安纳学派的有关理论，该理论对于制度与行为之间的关系的认识颇具洞见，有助于科学地分析社会现象。