Chinese democracy: The lessons of failure

China's experiments with democracy in this century were few in number, short in duration, and limited in their democratic characteristics. Democratic institutions malfunctioned in numerous ways. Nine sets of causes for the failure of Chinese democracy can be suggested: ideology, internal and external war, military intervention, Chinese political culture, underdevelopment, a peasant mass, flaws in the design of Chinese constitutions, moral failures by democratic politicians, or the lack of transactional benefits for military‐based elites in the process of democratic transition. Each of these factors is reviewed critically with an eye to its possible lessons.     

Toward a Behavioral Model of “Homegrown” Radicalization Trajectories

This research note presents a dynamic risk assessment model of homegrown terrorists. The model was tested in a study of convicted “homegrown” American terrorism offenders inspired by Al Qaeda's ideology. The New York Police Department model developed by Silber and Bhatt was chosen as the basis for creating a typology of overt and detectable indicators of individual behaviors widely thought to be associated with extremism. Twenty-four specific cues associated with each stage of radicalization were used to code and estimate the sequencing of behaviors and the duration of the average radicalization trajectory. Sixty-eight cases have been analyzed thus far. A decision was made to publish the initial results when it became apparent that the model was an effective tool for the evaluation of terrorist offenders.