Protecting vulnerable cities: the UK's resilience response to defending everyday urban infrastructure

The events of September 11 2001 in New York and Washington, and of July 7 2005 in London, have ushered in a new era in protective counterterrorist planning within UK urban areas. With the mode of terrorist attack now encompassing the possibility of no‐warning suicide attacks, and target selection now often being seen as related to crowd density, a variety of public places such as sports stadiums, shopping centres, light rail systems, and nightclubs now have to consider ‘designed‐in’ counterterrorism measures. As such the UK has developed a national counterterrorist strategy (CONTEST) which is constantly revised, and one strand of which focuses on protective security measures. In the context of this ‘Protect’ strand of policy, and the increased targeting of crowded places by international terrorist groups, this article outlines the recent attempts to design‐in counterterrorism features to the urban landscape while paying attention not just to their effectiveness and robustness, but also to their acceptability to the general public and impact upon the everyday experience of the city. The article also addresses how the need to consider counterterrorism has affected the practices of built‐environment professionals such as spatial planners. Reflections upon how this aspect of counterterrorism policy might develop in the future are also offered.     

NARRATORS OF THE ARCTIC: IMAGES AND MOVEMENTS IN NORTHLAND NARRATIVES

While the use of public policy to construct a Canadian identity has been established in the literature, what is less well understood is whether national identity, once established, might shape Canadians' feelings about these same public policies. This article examines the extent to which citizens' national identities influence their pride in Canada's social security system, and how this relationship may be changing over time. Using data from the International Social Science Programme's 1995 and 2003 National Identity Modules, the article argues that citizens' national identities help explain the contours of social security attitudes in Canada, and that this relationship persists despite significant policy change in the field. Additionally, the paper suggests that political actors may successfully increase public support for their social security policies by “framing” them in ways that appeal to citizens' definitions of Canada.     

The persistence of authoritarianism as a source of radicalization in North Africa

September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks across the globe have led to an increased emphasis on security issues among political leaders globally. While this preoccupation with security has not led to the abandonment of democracy promotion efforts, there is no doubt that initiatives that have the demise of authoritarianism as their core objective, have become less of a priority in recent years, with spending on projects seemingly unrelated to security issues and the 'war on terror' declining, and pressure on heads of state to embark on democratization processes weakening. This article contends that the relieving of pressure on heads of state to introduce democratic reforms is detrimental to the desired goal of increased security, given that the radicalization of Islamists is closely related to the prevalence of authoritarianism. In short, it is argued that there is reason to believe that the West's tendency to allow violations of basic democratic principles, and failing to employ genuine pressure for regime change in the various MENA states, which are actively partaking in the 'war on terror' on the side of the US, is counterproductive in the longer run. While it is impossible to predict when terrorism committed by radicalized Islamists will end, and it is almost certain that terrorist attacks will recur in the future and that we have to learn to live with the risks, it is possible however to do something about the scale and frequency of such incidents. This article argues that through positive democracy promotion resulting in real democratization, it is indeed possible to obtain increased security.     

Ten years on: Obama's war on terrorism in rhetoric and practice

Ten years after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001, the United States remains embroiled in a long‐term struggle with what George W. Bush termed the existential threat of international terrorism. On the campaign trail, his successor as US President, Barack Obama, promised to reboot the ‘war on terror’. He claimed that his new administration would step back from the rhetoric and much of the Bush administration policy, conducting a counterterrorism campaign that would be more morally acceptable, more focused and more effective—smarter, better, nimbler, stronger. This article demonstrates, however, that those expecting wholesale changes to US counterterrorism policy misread Obama's intentions. It argues that Obama always intended to deepen Bush's commitment to counterterrorism while at the same time ending the ‘distraction’ of the Iraq War. Rather than being trapped by Bush's institutionalized construction of a global war on terror, the continuities in counterterrorism can be explained by Obama's shared conception of the imperative of reducing the terrorist threat to the US. The article assesses whether Obama has pursued a more effective counterterrorism policy than his predecessor and explores how his rhetoric has been reconstituted as the actions of his policy have unfolded. By addressing his policies toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, Guantánamo Bay and torture, the uses of unmanned drone attacks and domestic wire‐tapping, this article argues that Obama's ‘war’ against terrorism is not only in keeping with the assumptions and priorities of the last ten years but also that it is just as problematic as that of his predecessor.     

Explaining State Budget Punctuations: Policy Transparency,Political Institutions,and Electoral Incentives

What factors cause policies experiencing long periods of stability to be interrupted occationally by a short period of large changes? This study argues that electoral incentives might influence the search, supply, and processing of information on constituency issues, as well as the associated cognitive or institutional frictions, and thus determine the presence and variation of punctuated policies. This article develops and evaluates this claim within a systemic framework consisting of policy transparency, political institutions, and electoral incentives. For the purpose of identifying policy punctuations, this research uses the Generalized Pareto Distribution in the Extreme Value Theory. This study analyzes budget spending data collected from FY 1988 to FY 2008 for all 50 American states. This study finds that greater policy transparency is associated with larger spending stability. By contrast, greater gubernatorial competition is more likely to produce extreme spending changes. Electoral incentives shaped by public preference and political term limits have a profound impact on nonincremental policy changes. The impact of policy transparency is conditional on public preference, while that of electoral competition and legislative professionalism is moderated by political term limits. Particularly, a transparent policy consistent with public preference and legislative professionalism with term limits are more likely to give rise to punctuated policies, while gubernatorial (legislative) competition leads to less punctuated changes when governors (legislators) are subject to term limits.     

Technology,strategy and counterterrorism

For as long as there has been technology (the application of science and innovation) and for as long as there has been strategy (the use of forces and resources to achieve political goals) there has been a relationship of sorts between these two preoccupations. This article inquires into the nature of the technological–strategic relationship which governments, such as that in the UK, draw upon as they confront international terrorism. To what extent has the historical technostrategic dynamic remained relevant and useful, and where has new thinking been required? The article suggests that a new and more complex understanding of the technology–strategy relationship is emerging in the context of counterterrorism. The challenge facing government is to maintain a technological edge against its terrorist adversary, without exaggerating the adversary's capability, and while ensuring that its counterterrorism strategy pursues a coherent and persuasive political goal.     

Security journalism and ‘the mainstream’ in Britain since 7/7: translating terror but inciting violence?

News reporting of terrorism, in the form of security journalism, faces a set of challenges to the functions it serves as a result of both its own practices and the changing practices of news consumers. Security journalism performs some predictable functions, namely the regular delivery of representations of terrorist threats to a presumed national (and international) audience through coverage of Al‐Qaeda leaders’ speeches, bomb attempts, criminal trials, and ‘radical’ protests in Britain, among others. Security journalism offers a consistent repackaging of jihadist media productions from one context and language to another. For example, in reducing jihadist texts to short clips of an angry gesticulating man security journalism is prohibiting public understanding of their persuasive potential by cutting any political, religious or sensual appeals. This article presents original data from interviews with British Muslims familiar with jihadist materials that suggest mainstream media reporting may contribute to radicalization in ways not sufficiently appreciated by journalists, policy‐makers and the public. Interviewees report that any news depicting Muslim suffering activates and reinforces frustrations and grievances, whether the source is a mainstream media outlet or Al‐Qaeda's media wing. Mainstream media may unintentionally contribute to a more enduring but diffused resentment a priori to the existence of jihadist media; as one participant says, ‘I am already convinced’.     

‘Beyond anything we have ever seen’: beheading videos and the visibility of violence in the war against ISIS

This article examines the role of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria's (ISIS's) beheading videos in the United Kingdom and the United States. These videos are highly illustrative demonstrations of the importance of visual imagery and visual media in contemporary warfare. By functioning as evidence in a political discourse constituting ISIS as an imminent, exceptional threat to the West, the videos have played an important role in the re‐framing of the conflict in Iraq and Syria from a humanitarian crisis requiring a humanitarian response to a national security issue requiring a military response and intensified counterterrorism efforts. However, this article seeks to problematize the role and status of ISIS's beheadings in American and British security discourses by highlighting the depoliticizing aspects of reducing a complicated conflict to a fragmented visual icon. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for further attention to how the visibility of war, and the constitution of boundaries between which acts of violence are rendered visible and which are not, shape the political terrain in which decisions about war and peace are produced and legitimized.     

State production of cultural nationalism: political leaders and preservation policies for historic buildings in France and Italy

Although cultural and political nationalism have often been treated as separate, recent studies argue that they are linked because the state produces policies such as promotion of cultural heritage to further nation building. The article examines the conditions that favour national political leaders adopting policies to protect historic buildings for aims of political nationalism. It compares France and Italy, focusing on the period after 1870. It finds that in both countries, national political leaders have introduced extensive protection of historic buildings when faced with major challenges such as war, regime change or pressures from localism or supporters of cultural nationalism as part of wider strategies to build and reinforce the nation state. But Italy extended protection earlier and more deeply than France, suggesting in a later nation state with strong inherited cultural nationalism but major political weaknesses and, national political leaders may introduce earlier, more far‐reaching and more layered legal protection than in states created earlier and with fewer weaknesses.     

EU counterterrorism strategy: value added or chimera?

Europe did not wake up to terrorism on 9/11; terrorism is solidly entrenched in Europe's past. The historical characteristics of Europe's counterterrorism approach have been first, to treat terrorism as a crime to be tackled through criminal law, and second, to emphasize the need for understanding the ‘root causes’ of terrorism in order to be able to prevent terrorist acts. The 9/11 attacks undoubtedly brought the EU into uncharted territory, boosting existing cooperation and furthering political integration—in particular in the field of justice and home affairs, where most of Europe's counterterrorism endeavours are situated—to a degree few would have imagined some years earlier. This development towards European counterterrorism arrangements was undoubtedly event‐driven and periods of inertia and confusion alternated with moments of significant organizational breakthroughs. The 2005 London attacks contributed to a major shift of emphasis in European counterterrorism thinking. Instead of an external threat, terrorism now became a home‐grown phenomenon. The London bombings firmly anchored deradicalization at the heart of EU counterterrorism endeavours.     

The Role of Public Opinion in US and Canadian Immigration Policies

Considering that the United States and Canada are neighboring North American countries with fairly similar liberal democratic political cultures, their immigration policies are noticeably different. While US policies prioritize family reunification, Canadian policies favor labor demands and employability. This difference reflects the varying degrees to which the public influences their respective immigration policies. Examining contemporary immigration policies of the United States and Canada, this paper compares the role of public opinion in each, and argues that public opinion plays a more prominent role in immigration policies in the United States than it does in Canada. This observation is due in part to the partisan nature of the US political structure and to the cohesiveness among immigrants, particularly Latinos. Canada, in contrast, favors a policy of multiculturalism that empowers immigrant groups and limits individual groups’ capacity and inclination to dominate policy decisions.     

Nationalism,religion, and abortion policy in four Catholic societies

Over the last decade, a growing number of scholars have tackled the changing relationship between national identity and social policy. In this article, we explore the relationship between abortion policy and the historical and political construction of national identity as it relates to religious norms and symbols. Focusing on two main cases, Ireland and Poland, Catholic societies in which abortion rights are severely restricted, we argue that, in political discourse and institutions, a strong relationship between the Catholic Church and national identity helps opponents of abortion enact and maintain such restrictions in the name of religious norms embedded in strong claims about national identity. After exploring these two main cases, we briefly turn to Spain and Québec, Catholic societies that, in recent decades, have witnessed a secularisation of their national identity correlated to a liberalisation of abortion rights. This suggests that, at least in Catholic societies, the decline of a religious national identity is likely to favour a liberalisation of abortion rights.     

The costs and consequences of drone warfare

One of the distinctive elements of President Barack Obama's approach to counterterrorism has been his embrace of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to target terrorist operatives abroad. The Obama administration has used drones in active theatres of war, such as Afghanistan, but it has also dramatically increased the number of drone attacks launched by the CIA in other countries, such as Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia. The conventional wisdom on drone warfare holds that these weapons are highly effective in killing terrorist operatives and disabling terrorist organizations, while killing fewer civilians than other means of attack. This article argues that much of the existing debate on drones operates with an attenuated notion of effectiveness that discounts the political and strategic dynamics—such as the corrosion of the perceptions of competence and legitimacy of governments where drone strikes take place, growing anti‐Americanism and fresh recruitment of militant networks—that reveal the costs of drone warfare. Focusing particularly on drone use in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the article suggests that the Obama administration's counterterrorism policy operates at cross‐purposes because it provides a steady flow of arms and financial resources to build up governments whose legitimacy it systematically undermines by conducting unilateral strikes on their territory. It concludes that the US embrace of drone technology is a losing proposition over the long term as it will usher in a new arms race and lay the foundations for an international system that is increasingly violent, destabilized and polarized between those who have drones and those who are victims of them.     

Kings,chieftains and public cult in pre‐Christian Scandinavia

The article addresses the question of the performance of pre‐Christian public cult by political leaders in early medieval Scandinavia. This question is traditionally discussed within the larger theoretical frame of sacral kingship in early medieval Scandinavia. In this article, the key contemporary evidence is presented and discussed with the conclusion that the sources do not show political leaders performing pre‐Christian public cult. Instead, the evidence shows that political leaders participated in private religious rituals whose performance, however, was not connected with political leadership per se.     

Agency Evolution, New Institutionalism, and 'Hybrid' Policy Domains: Lessons from the 'Greening' of the U.S. Military

Neoinstitutionalists applying the logic of rational choice institutionalism have leavened our understanding of public agency design and evolution in the domestic and national security policy domains. This paper seeks to advance theory building in empirically grounded ways by assessing the explanatory power of an important theoretical perspective (rational choice institutionalism), in an understudied "hybrid" policy domain where domestic and national security aims interact (domestic environmental policy and national security policy), and in an organizational type (the U.S. military) that has drawn scant attention from students of bureaucracy in political science, public administration, or public management. Analysis of three major efforts to green the U.S. military suggests that the patterns of politics accompanying agency evolution involving hybrid policy domains differ from domestic and national security domains in ways that limit the generalizability of rational choice institutionalism.     

Cadence,war and security

An increased incidence of attack has been identified as a major characteristic of the new threat posed by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. This article considers what such a change means for Western national security systems by examining how different parts of the system change over time. It becomes evident that Western national security systems are structured on an assumption of comparatively slow state-based threats. In contrast, terrorist franchises operate at a faster pace, are more 'lightweight' and can adapt within the operational and capability cycles of Western governments. Neither network-centric warfare nor an improved assessment of the threat, called for by some, offers a panacea in this regard. Rather, it is clear that not only do Western governments need to adjust their operational and capability cycles, but that they also need a greater diversity of responses to increase overall national security resilience and offer more tools for policy-makers.     

Liminal condition as constant situation,the Israeli Jerusalem municipality, 1948-1955

The capital city is the place where political entities are represented in national space. This space acts as a mediating force between society, the nation, and the outside world, and it is very important for the development of a system of visual national symbols. The political leaders, national and local, are those who shape the capital city. Therefore, examining the relationship between municipal and national political systems in Jerusalem sheds light not only on local history but on national developments and the perception of Jerusalem as the capital in the national psyche. The years 1948-1955 were a very chaotic time in the annals of Jerusalem, Jerusalem became a city divided between Israel and Jordan in a semi-state of war that turned permanent despite the armistice agreements. Israel’s national leaders remained ambivalent about Jerusalem as capital city despite the rhetoric of figures from across the political spectrum. Their ambivalent attitude influenced the relationship with the Jerusalem Municipality. The article addresses the subject of the relations between the national government and the municipal political coalition in Jerusalem from 1948 to 1955.     

Positive Returns and Equilibrium: Simultaneous Feedback Between Public Opinion and Social Policy

This paper pushes forward political research from across disciplines seeking to understand the linkages between public opinion and social policy in democracies. It considers the thermostatic and the increasing returns perspectives as pointing toward a potentially stable set of effects running between opinion and policy. Both theoretical perspectives argue that opinion and policy are reciprocally causal, feeding back on one another. This is a general argument found in opinion‐policy literatures. However, much empirical research claims to model “feedback” effects when actually using separate unidirectional models of opinion and policy. Only a small body of research addresses opinion‐policy endogeneity directly. In this paper I consider an opinion‐policy system with simultaneous feedback and without lags. I argue that there is a theoretical equilibrium in the relationship of opinion and policy underlying the otherwise cyclical processes that link them. Given that available cross‐national data are cross‐sectional and provide limited degrees of freedom, an ideal theoretical model must be somewhat constrained in order to arrive at empirically meaningful results. In this challenging and exploratory undertaking I hope to open up the possibility of a general system of effects between public opinion and social policy and how to model them in future research. I focus on social welfare policy as it is highly salient to public interests and a costly area of government budgets, making it an area of contentious policymaking. Social policy is also a major part of the thermostatic model of opinion and policy, which was recently extended to the cross‐national comparative context (Wlezien & Soroka, 2012) providing a critical predecessor to this paper because identification of equilibrium between public opinion and social policy in any given society is greatly enhanced through comparison with other societies. This counterfactual approach helps to identify opinion‐policy patterns that may not change much within societies, but can be seen as taking on discrete trajectories between societies.     

Lost in translation: why Nigeria's police don't implement democratic reforms

The transfer of democratic values and practices such as community‐based policing to African police forces is a key aspect of western aid and security policies, yet the cultural transmission on which it depends is not fully understood; the ways in which African officers respond to theories and practices imported from western societies has yet to be assessed critically. Further, despite decades of international support for police reform and re‐education, there is little evidence to support the assumption that the skills, technologies and procedures associated with western policing can act as an effective channel for the transmission of democratic values. This article uses the Nigerian police's response to both externally funded and internally generated reform projects to address a question with implications for policy transfer more generally: what explains the uneven transmission of politically sensitive forms of knowledge? It discusses how imported ideas and practices are received by Nigerian officers and political elites, and how they are transformed having been filtered through local interests and dispositions. It shows that even when the process of reform is accepted, the political will required to ensure its effective implementation is not. Democratic practices do not travel well because recipients respond to imported practices in an adaptive manner, integrating aspects of donor understanding and indigenous realities.     

Non-governmental Organizations in Africa: Can They Influence Public Policy?

As non-governmental organizations (NGOs) accumulate experience at implementing development projects, they sometimes attempt to increase their influence by engaging in policy advocacy. This article analyses the organizational conditions under which national NGOs in Africa have been able to influence the formulation of agricultural and rural development policies. Case studies are presented of three African NGOs that have sought, with varying degrees of success, to represent the ‘voice’ of the rural poor to policy-makers. Comparative analysis of these cases leads to the conclusion that policy advocacy is most likely to be effective in organizations that have several key characteristics: an homogeneous membership, a federated structure, a focused programme, informal ties with political leaders, and a domestic funding base.