The Strategic Model of Terrorism Revisited

Author(s):  
Max Abrahms

The dominant paradigm on terrorism is what I call the Strategic Model of Terrorism. This model posits that perpetrators of terrorism attack civilians because of the unmatched effectiveness in pressuring government concessions. The strategic model is rooted in bargaining theory, which emphasizes how under anarchy escalating signals the will and ability to punish the target for non-compliance. Over the past decade, however, empirical research has found that neither escalating to terrorism nor with terrorism helps non-state actors to coerce government concessions. In fact, terrorism increases the odds that target countries will dig in their political heels and go on the offensive. These empirical findings raise important questions about why people use terrorism given the negative political return.

Author(s):  
Didier Fassin

Over the past few decades, most societies have become more repressive, their laws more relentless, their magistrates more inflexible, independently of the evolution of crime. In this book, using an approach both genealogical and ethnographic, distinguished anthropologist Didier Fassin addresses the major issues raised by this punitive moment through an inquiry into the very foundations of punishment. What is punishment? Why punish? Who is punished? With these three questions he initiates a critical dialogue with moral philosophy and legal theory on the definition, justification, and distribution of punishment. Going against the triumphing penal populism, this investigation, based on ten years of empirical research on police, justice, and prison systems, proposes a salutary revision of the presuppositions that nourish the passion for punishing and invites readers to rethink the place of punishment in the contemporary world. The theses developed in the volume are discussed by the criminologist David Garland, the historian Rebecca McLennan, and the sociologist Bruce Western, to whom Fassin responds in a short essay, asking, What is a critique of punishment?


1989 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry E. Cushing

Distinct parallels exist between the historical evolution of scientific disciplines, as explained in Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and the historical evolution of the accounting discipline. These parallels become apparent when accounting's dominant paradigm is interpreted to be the double-entry bookkeeping model. Following this interpretation, the extensive articulation of the double-entry model over the past four centuries may be seen to closely resemble the “normal science” of Kuhn's theory. Further parallels become apparent when Kuhn's concept of the disciplinary crises that precede scientific revolutions is compared to developments in the accounting discipline over the past 25 years. This portrayal of accounting's evolution suggests an uncertain future for the accounting discipline.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronli Sifris ◽  
Tania Penovic ◽  
Caroline Henckels

The past two decades have seen significant reforms in abortion law throughout Australia. From the perspective of advancing women’s reproductive rights, the most significant abortion law reforms have been the decriminalisation of abortion, removal of impediments to accessing medical abortion, the imposition of an ‘obligation to refer’ on medical practitioners with a conscientious objection to abortion, and the introduction of safe access zones around abortion clinics. This article focuses on the introduction of safe access zones as a key legal reform that has been implemented across Australia to support and promote women’s reproductive rights, drawing on empirical research conducted by the first and second authors and discussing this research in the context of the recent High Court decision confirming the constitutionality of safe access zones.


2020 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dinh Minh Thu

Washback, i.e., test effects on teaching and learning, has been emerging as an attractive research topic in language training and assessment for over the past 20 years for its significant implications of test validation and fairness for both policy-makers and practitioners. Presently, it deserves more Vietnamese researchers' interest in the context of the enactment of the National Foreign Language Project 2020 (extended to 2025), which puts language assessment as a key innovation requirement. Washback operates either positively or negatively; i.e. promoting or inhibiting learning. Teachers are considered the precursor in the washback mechanism. There is only one washback model on the washback effects on teachers, which is proposed by Shih (2009). This paper aims to critically browse other washback models besides Shin’s (2009) to generate a washback framework on teachers' perceptions and practices. Previous empirical washback research on teachers in and beyond Vietnam is, then, investigated in alignment with the aspects illustrated in the framework to point out achievements and gaps in the field. A qualitative approach of document analysis of over forty studies of differing types, i.e. books, dissertations and articles, has been adopted to reach the research aim. The discussion is divided into two major parts, including the washback models pertaining to teachers to scaffold a model for teachers' perceptions and practices, and the results in empirical research in terms of the aspects mentioned in the model. Findings show that washback on teachers' perceptions ranges from perceptions of the test itself, students' language ability, teaching contents and methodology to teachers' professional development. Plus, washback on teachers' practices concerns their selections of teaching contents and methodology in class as well as their involvement in professional development. The element of professional development can be considered a new light in the reviewed washback model. This has a significant meaning by raising teachers' awareness of developing themselves professionally. The current paper expects to contribute to elaborating the scenario of washback research for interested researchers, practitioners and policymakers not only in but beyond the context of Vietnam.


Sententiae ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 29-45
Author(s):  
Oleh Bondar ◽  

In the book “Freedom of the Will”, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) put forward a strong ar-gument for theological fatalism. This argument, I suppose, can be considered as the universal basis for discussion between Fatalists and Anti-Fatalists in the 20th century, especially in the context of the most powerful argument for fatalism, introduced by Nelson Pike. The argument of Edwards rests upon the following principles: (a) if something has been the case in the past, it has been the case necessarily (Necessity of the past); (b) if God knows something (say A), it is not the case that ~A is possible (Infallibility of God`s knowledge). Hence, Edwards infers that if God had foreknowledge that A, then A is necessary, and it is not the case that someone could voluntarily choose ~A. The article argues that (i) the Edwards` inference Kgp → □p rests upon the modal fallacy; (ii) the inference „God had a knowledge that p will happen, therefore „God had a knowledge that p will happen” is the proposition about the past, and hence, the necessarily true proposition“ is ambiguous; thus, it is not the case that this proposition necessarily entails the impossibility of ~p; (iii) it is not the case that p, being known by God, turns out to be necessary. Thus, we can avoid the inference of Edwards that if Kgp is a fact of the past, then we cannot freely choose ~p. It has also been shown that the main provisions of the argument of Edwards remain significant in the context of contemporary debates about free will and foreknowledge (Theories of soft facts, Anti-Ockhamism, theories of temporal modal asymmetry, „Timeless solution”). Additionally, I introduce a new challenge for fatalism – argument from Brouwerian axiom.


2011 ◽  
Vol 204-210 ◽  
pp. 350-353
Author(s):  
Xiao Guang Lu ◽  
Jian Qun Zhu ◽  
Meng Ying Fan

According to the second economic census data of Jiangsu Province, this paper firstly uses PCA-HCA model based on provincial cities data to classify economic regions. And then, it uses BLR-HCA model to reclassify the economic regions based on counties data. Finally, it comes to the conclusion that the past regional classification ways of Jiangsu Province need to be updated. The research on regional economy is dynamic and timely, while deepening the division of labor and finance is an effective way to develop Jiangsu’s regional economy.


2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 125-145
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Kretek-Kamińska ◽  
Aneta Krzewińska

This article describes changes in student–teacher relations in the context of academic institutions and variation in methods of teaching. On the basis of empirical research (interviews conducted currently among employees of Polish institutions of higher learning and analysis of source materials concerning the past) the authors advance the thesis that the figure of the mentor—which was once associated with scholarship and academic institutions—has ceased to have meaning for contemporary scholars. Instead of mentors, persons who are called “quasi-mentors” have appeared; they act temporarily as guides for young scholars and most often perform only one of the functions formerly fulfilled by mentors (for instance, organizers of academic life, seekers for research funds, promoters of doctoral theses, etc.). The authors consider that these alterations have been caused by general processes of economic, technological, political, and axiological change.


Author(s):  
Franco Cortese

This chapter addresses concerns that the development and proliferation of Human Enhancement Technologies (HET) will be (a) dehumanizing and a threat to human dignity and (b) a threat to our autonomy and sovereignty as individuals. Contrarily, HET can be shown to constitute the most effective foreseeable means of increasing the autonomy and sovereignty of individual members of society. Furthermore, this chapter elaborates the position that the use of HET exemplifies—and indeed even intensifies—our most human capacity and faculty, namely the desire for increased self-determination (i.e., control over the determining circumstances and conditions of our own selves and lives), which is referred to as the will toward self-determination. Based upon this position, arguably, the use of HET bears fundamental ontological continuity with the human condition in general and with the historically ubiquitous will toward self-determination in particular as it is today and has been in the past. HET will not be a dehumanizing force, but will rather serve to increase the very capacity and characteristic that characterizes us as human more accurately than anything else.


Author(s):  
Justine Buck Quijada
Keyword(s):  
The Past ◽  

Chapter 6 narrates a shamanic initiation and describes the family history that is produced in the process of diagnosing the initiate’s shamanic calling. In Yuri’s initiation we see the stakes of embracing one historical genre over another. For Yuri, whose father is Buryat and his mother Russian, whether or not he accepts a shamanic genealogical genre of the past is a matter of life or death for him and his family. This chapter illustrates the kind of relationships to the past that shamanic practices can build, and shows how engaging with historical genres can transform conceptions of self for post-Soviet subjects. The shamanic genre critiques the kind of self, the New Soviet Person, that Soviet modernism sought to cultivate. Through the process of diagnosing a calling and initiation, the aspiring shaman remakes themselves into porous subject, subjected to the will of their ancestors.


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