Ideological Rigidity and Flexibility of Secular and Religious Terror Groups: The Case of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Hamas

This article explores the ideological rigidity of secular and religious terror groups. Analyzing leaflets disseminated by two Palestinian groups during the First Intifada, it examines if and how each shifted its identity and goals in response to repression, political shifts, or resource changes. The results suggest that while similar catalysts led to ideological reformation among the secular and the religious group, the extent of ideological change within the religious group was more limited. The article argues for the need to disaggregate ideological analysis further in order to identify more subtle shifts, alterations, and omissions, in the positions held by religious terror groups, moving past the exploration of if such changes exist in ideological templates and instead focusing on the extent and type of alterations the different groups allow.     

Public school adjustment of delinquent boys after release from a juvenile corrective institution

This paper concerning the public school adjustment of delinquent boys after release from a juvenile corrective institution is based on research data obtained as part of a followup study. Seventy-two percent of the 94 teenage boys in our sample returned to school in the community, but over three-fourths of them dropped out. Although we examined several factors associated with the boys' post-release school adjustment, we focused our inquiry on the small group of 14 boys who completed high school. A few personal and social factors were related to public school outcome, i.e., whether the boys graduated or not. However, we also found that all the boys who finished high schol had received some suppoprt from a structured environment or from interested people in contrast to a majority of the boys who dropped out. None of the boys who graduated was involved in antisocial behavior while in school and only two, or 14%, had gotten into serious legal trouble during the 3-year followup period in comparison to 40% of the boys who dropped out and 50% of those who never attended school after release.Received Ph.D. from University of Houston in 1956. Currently Clinical Psychology Fellow at The Menninger Foundation. Major interest is in child and adolescent psychology.Graduate work, sociology, University of Kansas. Major interest is in juvenile delinquency.     

Social psychological risk factors,delinquency and age of onset

Based on data from the 2014 Communities that Care Youth Survey (CCYS), the authors examine the association between risk factors of tenth graders and age of onset (never, 14 or older, 13 or younger) of three antisocial behaviors/delinquency (got arrested; carried a handgun to school; and attacked someone with the intent of seriously hurting them). Risk factors are under four domains: family, community, school, and peer. The age of onset and risk literature are discussed. The purpose of this research is to examine what risk factors are associated with age of onset. Individual risk factors under the peer domain had the strongest association with all three antisocial behaviors.     

Learning from innovation: implications of an integrated development project in Chiapas,Mexico

This is a case study of an integral local development project combining elements of agro-ecology, fair trade, and risk-conservative finance, operated in partnership between a grassroots organisation and a promoter organisation. We conclude that insurance is a key element in the transition from a traditional rural household economic unit to a family enterprise. We reflect on the need for (and limits of) development projects to meet the complexity of structural poverty. The text concludes with an exhortation to value experimentation in development practice, with ethical responsibility, and in terms that can be shared in the larger public arena.     

Armies of God,Armies of Men: A Global Comparison of Secular and Religious Terror Organizations

This article compares the violent activity of secular and religious terror organizations. Utilizing data compiled by the Global Terrorism Database cross-referenced with secondary and primary sources regarding the degree of religious components embedded in organizations’ ideologies, it tests the violent patterns of activity carried out by organizations guided by predominantly secular, secular/religious, and religious ideologies, between the years 1970 and 2012. The findings confirm that a) religious ideology correlates with specific, more deadly, attack tactics and violent patterns; and b) the degree of religious components within terror organizational ideology should be tested along a spectrum: the more religious an organization is, the more attacks it tends to carry out, and the deadlier its attacks become.