Between Law and Culture: Rwanda's Gacaca and Postcolonial Legality

This article recounts a clash between an establishment international nongovernmental organization (NGO), Amnesty International, and the government of Rwanda over the meaning of international human rights norms in a postconflict society. It offers a critical perspective on the mainstream human rights community's due process critique of Rwanda's gacaca— a system of over ten thousand local judicial bodies modeled on a precolonial communal dispute resolution the Rwandan government introduced to process the over one hundred twenty thousand suspects crowding its prisons following the 1994 genocide. This moment of norm contestation offers a lens to broader problems facing the human rights regime. It argues that Amnesty International's legalistic approach to the gacaca prevents it from appreciating its unique postcolonial hybrid form, and that other approaches, such as the one adopted by Penal Reform International, are perhaps better models for human rights praxis in the developing world.     

Pro-Government Militias and the Repertoires of Illicit State Violence

Most studies of pro-government militias (PGMs) take a narrowly functionalist approach. This article sees PGMs as the product of broader processes of state formation and regime dynamics that generate distinctive repertoires of violence. The article uses a cross-national dataset to shows that low state capacity is singularly correlated with the appearance and activity of all forms of PGMs. Once militias are active, they tend to endure even after initial conditions change, suggesting a strong measure of path dependence in how states PGMs evolve. Democracy curbs the activity of semi-official PGMs but not informal ones. Different authoritarian regime sub-types have varying propensities for militia activity. These findings have major implications for efforts to address state frailty.     

Divergent Paths to Martyrdom and Significance Among Suicide Attackers

This research used open source information to investigate the motivational backgrounds of 219 suicide attackers from various regions of the world. We inquired as to whether the attackers exhibited evidence for significance quest as a motive for their actions, and whether the eradication of significance loss and/or the aspiration for significance gain systematically differed according to attackers’ demographics. It was found that the specific nature of the significance quest motive varied in accordance with attackers’ gender, age, and education. Whereas Arab-Palestinians, males, younger attackers, and more educated attackers seem to have been motivated primarily by the possibility of significance gain, women, older attackers, those with little education, and those hailing from other regions seem to have been motivated primarily by the eradication of significance loss. Analyses also suggested that the stronger an attacker’s significance quest motive, the greater the effectiveness of their attack, as measured by the number of casualties. Methodological limitations of the present study were discussed, and the possible directions for further research were indicated.     

ADOLESCENTS' VIEWS ON THE FAIRNESS OF PARENTING AND FINANCIAL ARRANGEMENTS AFTER SEPARATION

Interviews were conducted with 60 young people aged 12–19 in Australia, concerning their views about parenting and financial arrangements after separation. Half the young people reported that they had no say at all in where they would live after separation. A quarter said they were never able to see their nonresident parent when they wanted to. There was a strong relationship between young people's perceptions of the fairness of the parenting arrangements and the extent to which they were allowed to participate in making those arrangements. Half said that they did not have enough time with their nonresident parent. Having a continuing and meaningful relationship with both parents and with siblings was very important to them. More than a third favored arrangements of spending equal time with each parent. The young people were also very concerned with issues about fairness between first and second families, both in terms of time availability and financial provisions.     

A simple checklist,that is all it takes: a cluster randomized controlled field trial on improving the treatment of suspected terrorists by the police

Journal of Experimental Criminology - When it comes to interviewing suspected terrorists, global evidence points to harsh interrogation procedures, despite the likelihood of false positives. How...