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.     

Women’s experiences of peacebuilding in violence-affected communities in Kenya

Despite the attention to gender and conflict in empirical positivist peace research, and the interest in local agency in recent peacebuilding literature, women’s understandings and lived experiences of peacebuilding are not necessarily well accounted for. This article, drawing on interviews, focus groups and observation research with 57 female victims/survivors of post-election violence in Kenya, provides an ethnographic study of women’s largely informal peacebuilding activities, ranging from mediation and dialogue to economic empowerment. It analyses women’s constructions and ways of making sense of being peacebuilders, demonstrating that, while participants employed dominant gender frames, they exerted considerable transformative agency in their communities. It argues that their ‘gendered responsibility for peace’ at community level is simultaneously empowering and disempowering. The research aims to increase understanding of the gendered nature of peacebuilding and the ways in which women exercise peacebuilding agency through a focus on their own voices and lived experiences.     

A Model for Female-Perpetrated Domestic Violence

Child abuse often coexists with intimate partner violence. However, limited studies incorporate both phenomena in a single study. Moreover, the examination of female-on-male violence is an important development. Hence, an intrinsic case study of domestic violence is presented to provide insights regarding the nature and impact of female-perpetrated violence. The research approach was qualitative and demonstrated that a model for abusive behavior seems to be similar for both sexes. The data revealed theoretical trends such as the reality of an intergenerational transmission of violence into adulthood, as well as abusive partners presenting with borderline traits.     

‘Are We Still Running?’: Violent Migration to Violent Refuge

For most foreign nationals of African origin who lived in South Africa during 2008 and 2015, this period will be remembered with horror and fear. These were the years when South Africa’s growing culture of xenophobia matured into mass deadly violence. This violence has been widely reported in the press and is the subject of much scholarly engagement. The pre-migration life stories of many who take refuge in South Africa are laden with violence but such narratives are less well known and reported. The forces at home that propel migration are frequently excessively violent and traumatic. Once in South Africa, many migrants experience further violence and vulnerability in their places of refuge, as in 2008 and 2015. The violence fuelling migration and characterising refuge are thus tragic combinations of multiple forms of physical, symbolic and structural violence. In identifying repeated cycles of trauma, dehumanisation and vulnerability, this article discusses the pleas of migrants for better understanding, formal recognition and support from South African citizens and the government. Finally, the role of peace education, including healing interventions, for creating greater justice and harmony between foreign nationals and their host communities is discussed.     

Vigilante justice and informal policing in post-Euromaidan Ukraine

During and after the Euromaidan, the Ukrainian society experienced an emergence of non-state groups that combined elements of civic activism and paramilitarism. They operated independently from the state and often used extra-legal violence to restore law and order, deliver justice, and protect Ukraine from external and internal threats. Their conduct closely resembles vigilantism. This article draws on the body of criminological and sociological research on vigilantism in order to understand the diverse landscape of vigilante groups in post-Euromaidan Ukraine. It explores the complex relationship between the most representative vigilante groups, the Ukrainian government, and the political and business elites; analyzes the legal boundaries of vigilantism in Ukraine; and discusses the outcomes of vigilante justice for democratic consolidation, rule of law, and human rights. This article offers a new paradigm for theorizing popular mobilization in Ukraine and sheds light on important dimensions of the formation of an informal system of policing and justice.     

Violent Punjab,quiescent Bengal,and the partition of India

Why did the Punjab bear the brunt of the mass violence and the migration that accompanied the partition of India? This paper makes the case for analytical eclecticism by showing that the following three explanations – centred respectively on democratisation, nationalism, and ideas; the commitment problem; and the security dilemma – account for the violence/migration in the different stages in the run-up to the partition of India. Instead of arguing that ‘everything mattered’, this paper elucidates the complex causality at work by demonstrating how these factors interacted with one another during the different stages leading to India’s partition.     

家庭暴力的法律分析

家庭暴力是古今中外家庭中常见的一种带有普遍性的丑恶现象,是一个全球性的问题.家庭暴力是指家庭成员中的一方对另一方施暴的行为,在我国有渐次多发的趋势,给正常的家庭关系造成了严重的损害,现已成为社会稳定的重要杀手.在对家庭暴力行为进行道德上的谴责与法律上的防治、惩戒之外,我们应制定专门的反家庭暴力法,纳入刑法体系,以期在预防、制止和惩治家庭暴力,构建和谐社会方面发挥应有的作用.     

从和谐的视野看亲密关系的冲突——家庭暴力与女性犯罪

家庭是社会的细胞,构建和谐家庭是构建和谐社会的基础。但在当前中国,许多家庭中男女两性并未达到真正的平等与和谐。男性对女性的家庭暴力及其所引发的女性犯罪就是这种两性冲突的极端反映。制止家庭暴力、预防女性犯罪、建构和谐家庭,是我们成功建构和谐社会的基石。     

暴力文化对青少年的危害及其治理对策

随着社会的进一步发展,文化中的"异质"——暴力文化,在商业性舆论导向以及整个社会对之炒作的情势下,似有愈演愈烈之势。这对处于文化需求高峰期、经验不足、辨别是非和抵制消极影响能力差的青少年产生了极为不良的影响,受暴力文化影响而发生的悲剧屡见不鲜。这就需要全社会通力合作,形成预防暴力文化侵蚀青少年的安全网,从多个渠道、多个方面对此问题予以解决。     

The Impact of Timing of Exposure to Violence on Violent Behavior in a High Poverty Sample of Inner City African American Youth

A growing body of research has linked exposure to violence to violent behavior, but few studies have examined the impact of the timing of exposure to violence on violent behavior among inner city, minority youth. Theoretical insights derived from developmental psychology and psychopathology (DPP) and Agnew’s general strain theory (GST) give contrasting accounts of whether exposure to violence has a short term or long term impact on violent behavior. Five waves of data collected from African American youth living in twelve high poverty inner city neighborhoods was used to examine how the timing of exposure to violence over a four year time period impacts year five violent behavior. Multivariate results support GST’s contention that more proximal exposure to violence has a larger impact on violent behavior. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings for adolescent development in high poverty settings are discussed.