Diverse Sociopolitical Reactions to the 9/11 Attack and Associations with Religious Coping

Abstract

The September 11, 2001 (9/11) attacks in New York City and Washington, DC brought a historical terror to the United States. The aftermath of 9/11 will be felt for decades in the way Americans view the world and the national political sphere. Yet, it is unclear in what direction 9/11 impacted American sociopolitical reactions and how their styles of spiritual or religious coping in their general life might influence such reactions. On the basis of the literature on terrorism, we developed a scale of sociopolitical reactions to the 9/11 attacks using a student sample at three American universities. The results indicate that responses to 9/11 are diverse and patterns of sociopolitical reactions are associated with gender, years of education, religiousness, peritraumatic emotional response, being a veteran, being close to a 9/11 victim, concerns about future attacks, and two types of religious/spiritual coping. Our study calls for more research that investigates sociopolitical reactions and the role of faith matters in an era of international terrorism.     

American Criminology Meets Collins: Global Theory of Intellectual Change and a Policy‐Oriented Field1

Ideas from Randall Collins’s Sociology of Philosophies are applied to U.S. criminology, a policy‐oriented field and one case of differentiation out of a fragmented sociological discipline. Building on previous quantitative work, in‐depth interviews with eight prominent scholars provide the empirical material. As in philosophy, vertical network ties are important. Yet, they may take different forms, with consequences for the shape of horizontal networks and the nature of scholarship. Comparable to philosophy, horizontal network ties provide social capital and opportunities for interaction rituals that generate collective effervescence and emotional energy. Further, the nature of these interactions is dependent on the changing institutional environment in which they are embedded. Such institutional settings, themselves affected by changes in the political economy, also provide material resources, constituting dependencies that produce mediated effects and, in this policy‐oriented field, also direct effects on the nature of scholarship.     

The Moral Accounting of Terrorism: Competing Interpretations of September 11, 2001

Drawing on comparative case studies, the research elucidates competing constructions of justice, responsibility, and victimhood articulated in response to September 11, 2001 on three digital discourse fora in Brazil, France, and the United States. The research extracts the moral metaphors through which Brazilian, French, and American participants judge the terrorist acts. It contrasts the underlying moral accounting schemes employed to legitimize or delegitimize the use of terrorism on 9/11. Two contrasting standpoints on political violence and associated moral underpinnings are elucidated: the morality of retribution and the morality of absolute goodness (Lakoff 2002). One ideological faction uses the morality of retribution to hold the US accountable for inciting the terrorists to act. For these individuals, political violence can be seen as a form of action that upholds a binary framing of moral order in which all moral debts must be paid. By contrast, opposing camps employ the morality of absolute goodness to condemn the terrorists by arguing that terrorist violence is inherently unjustifiable, as it necessarily results in human suffering.

Immigration Policy Changes After 9/11

Abstract

Immigrants to the United States face new and significant challenges since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Within a dramatically short time national immigration policy has become oriented more to protecting Americans than welcoming people from other nations. Creation of the Department of Homeland Security, dismantling the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and tightening the rules and enforcement provisions for immigrants were changes designed, not to facilitate the immigration process, but to counter the threat of terrorism and preventing potential terrorists from entering the country. This article discusses the recent policy changes that have affected the immigrant community and reviews how professionals working with immigrants might address these changes to better help their clients.     

Masculinity and Fahrenheit 9/11

This paper aims to uncover Turkish Cypriot women's war experiences and integrate that knowledge into the public discourse. We argue that the omission of women's war experiences thus far has served to sustain the mutually reinforcing alliance between patriarchy and nationalism, which we call patriarchal nationalism. Building on feminist standpoint theory, deconstruction of the official and hegemonic ‘his'tory of war poses challenges to the stronghold of patriarchy and ethnic nationalism in society by engaging women in the re-construction of history. Narratives of twenty women from different regions and backgrounds revealed common experiences that have been systematically silenced, memories that have been socially forgotten but could not be erased despite the dominant discourse that has denied their existence for decades. These experiences defy images of the ethno-national Glorious Self, protected by heroic and righteous men, and the Villainous Other. They also identify types of insecurity and victimization that have been excluded from traditional, gendered definitions of security. As these narratives contest fundamental tenets of patriarchy and nationalism, their contributions to the reconstruction of ‘reality’ and history carry prospects for the transformation of both gender and ethnic relations.     

Radical/Critical Social Work with Young Offenders: Challenges and Possibilities

In the UK, particularly in England, youth crime is perceived as a serious social problem, which is always near the top of the political agenda. Since the early 1990s, ‘populist punitiveness’ (Bottoms, 1995), amounting to varying degrees of punishment and control, has been key for addressing the problem. This culminated in New Labour's flagship Crime and Disorder Act 1998 and thereafter increasing concern with anti-social behaviour. The Conservative-led coalition is continuing in this vein. It is a ‘get tough’ approach in which the role of social work has been sidelined. In this article, I argue that such an approach is counterproductive as evidenced by the riots of August 2011 in London and other major cities. Rather than notions of punishment and control being to the fore, attention should be paid to the social and economic conditions that shape young people's lives and behaviour. For social workers, this involves relationship building with young offenders and their families and this is where a radical/critical work practice comes in. It is an emancipatory practice, which resists the neoliberal present and has some vision of a more socially just and equal future world.     

Protest,Cyberactivism and New Social Movements: The Reemergence of the Peace Movement Post 9/11

This paper examines ways in which the Internet and alternative forms of media have enhanced the global, yet grassroots, political mobilization in the anti-war effort in the post 9/11 environment. An examination of the role of cyberactivism in the peace movement enhances our understanding of social movements and contentious politics by analyzing how contemporary social movements are using advanced forms of technology and mass communication as a mobilizing tool and a conduit to alternative forms of media. These serve as both a means and target of protest action and have played a critical role in the organization and success of internal political mobilizing.     

Global Governance and Universities: The Power of Ideas and Knowledge

Abstract

So as to advance understanding of global governance, one can pick up on Robert Cox's critical formulations. Best known for his insights on the interplay of material conditions, institutions, and ideas, he later developed his framework by giving greater weight to the ideational dimensions of intersubjectivity. Yet it is usually deployed with regard to the former phase of his work while the latter phase goes unnoticed or is neglected. Cox's more recent conceptualization may serve as a springboard for thinking afresh about global knowledge production and dissemination. His approach can be stretched by exploring specific spheres of authority at particular sites. Focusing on universities as one of them, this article suggests a research itinerary that maps clusters of agents and guides empirical digging into how these structures operate. A complex of actors and processes, detailed in the findings, is redesigning global knowledge governance. The connective tissue in a cross-continental web of educational restructuring is gradually spreading. Cox's theorization may be fruitfully expanded to analyze this dynamic.     

Pursuing Political Persuasion: War and Peace Frames in the United States after September 11th

Despite the prominence of framing analysis in social movement research, the ways that power-holders and challengers attempt to persuade the general public remain under-theorized. We develop a multidimensional typology of what content producers frequently anticipate will make their frames potent. Moreover, we argue that several contextual factors influence which of these dimensions are emphasized in frames. To assess these propositions, we conducted an analysis of statements issued by President Bush and 10 US peace movement organizations following the September 11th attacks. Both sides touched upon all dimensions. President Bush's statements took advantage of discursive and emotional opportunities in crafting messages supportive of war and repression. Illustrating their strategic nature, PMO statements either appropriated or rejected dominant discourses for any single dimension. While peace groups took advantage of emotional opportunities, oppositional cultures curtailed their use of discursive opportunities. Lacking democratic legitimacy and rational legal authority, peace groups devoted a higher proportion of text to establishing the empirical credibility and the moral authority of their claims. The study advances social movement theory by highlighting the interplay of culture, power, and agency in the production of public collective action frames.     

Perceived family impact of volunteering among reintegrating post-9/11 Veterans

Family issues are common among returned post-9/11 Veterans. Traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression are each independently related to divorce whereas community ties and social support are protective factors for the family during reintegration. Evidence from elders on the benefits of one intervention, community volunteering, may indicate “spillover effects” of these benefits into the family. Few measures exist to assess the impact of military Veteran volunteering on the family. The authors report (1) an adaption of a benefits measure from elders to Veterans, (2) its preliminary reliability and validity, and (3) differences among subgroups. Reintegrating post-9/11 Veterans (N = 346) who completed a 6-month, stipended volunteer program were surveyed. Perceived impact of volunteering on the family was assessed after completion of the program using an 11-item self-report measure. Rank-based nonparametric tests were used to detect significant differences among subgroups. Preliminary findings support the scale’s adaptation to Veterans, internal consistency, and construct validity. At least one perceived family impact indicator differed significantly (p < .05) between subgroups based on demographic and psychological factors. Veterans in this civic service program perceived that their volunteering may have affected their families.     

Voices of 9/11 First Responders: Patterns of Collective Resilience

The aim of the ethnographic research reported here was to increase knowledge concerning the values and social and emotional characteristics of 9/11 responders in order to benefit others in subsequent manmade disasters. The research is based on a series of in-depth interviews conducted with ground zero first responders; firefighters, police officers, fire and police chaplains, and media persons. The materials that emerged from the study indicate that psychodynamic concepts, such as post-traumatic stress, may be too individualistically formulated to take into account the significant factors that acted as the basis for the resilience of these responders.     

(Dis)unity and Diversity in Post-9/11 America

Drawing inspiration from the work of Robin M. Williams Jr., I map out the complexities of ethnic and racial relations in the contemporary United States by focusing on the impacts of 9/11—particularly in relation to immigration policy. Because the attackers entered the country through regular immigration channels (i.e., as foreign students) the U.S. government has introduced policies to enhance border security, restrict immigration, increase the surveillance of immigrant populations, and more actively enforce immigration policy. These national-security-related immigration policies, however, are exacerbating existing tensions and producing new sets of ethnic and racialized conflicts in the United States. In this article, I first provide an overview of the key national-security-related immigration policies that were passed in the wake of September 11, 2001. Then, I review some of the recent sociological literature, as well as draw from my own preliminary research in the State of New Jersey, to illustrate the social impacts of these policies on ethnic and racial relations. I conclude with an outline of the ways the sociology of ethnic and racial relations specifically, as well as other subfields of the discipline, might approach analyses of social conflict in the contemporary United States, post–September 11.     

Freedom,necessity, judgement Trilling,Arendt and '9/11 liberalism'

Abstract

This article examines the thought of Hannah Arendt and Lionel Trilling in order to explore some core ideas crucial to past and present framings of liberal politics. More specifically, their interpretations of Herman Melville's novella Billy Budd are situated in their cold war context and the strengths and limits of each are discussed. This context – and the place of Arendt's and Trilling's Melville-inspired understandings of the notions of 'freedom', 'necessity' and 'judgement' within it – are then finally pressed into the service of an analysis of contemporary political questions. The article closes by arguing that the predicament of contemporary liberalism is, given some of the moral and political issues raised since 9/11, in some ways analogous to that confronted by the 'Cold War liberalism' associated with Arendt and Trilling. The intelligence, perspective and appreciation of complexity that characterize their work provide an example that liberals, whatever their position on the 'war on terror', can ill afford to ignore.     

Ambiguous Loss Research,Theory, and Practice: Reflections After 9/11

This article contains an overview of three decades of research, theory development, and clinical application about ambiguous loss. Although the work includes both physical and psychological types of ambiguous loss, the focus is the aftermath of 9/11 (September 11, 2001), when the World Trade Center collapsed following terrorist attacks. On the basis of her previous work, the author was asked to design an intervention for families of the missing. She reflects on what she learned from this unexpected test and presents new propositions and hypotheses to stimulate further research and theory that is more inclusive of diversity. She suggests that scholars should focus more on universal family experience. Ambiguous loss is just one example. Encouraging researchers and practitioners to collaborate in theory development, she concludes that research‐based theory is essential to inform interventions in unexpected times of terror, and in everyday life.     

The Hiroshima memory complex

The atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 is one of the most powerful global memories. While the literature on global memories has greatly expanded in recent decades, Hiroshima remains surprisingly understudied. In addressing this lacuna, this paper develops a new theoretical prism for the study of global memories. It argues that the Hiroshima memory cannot be understood in isolation, but rather as the hub in a broader memory complex. This complex is the result of symbolic dialogues that connect Hiroshima with such different events, situations, and memories as Nanjing, Pearl Harbor, the Cold War, and so on. The paper demonstrates how these dialogues have been forged, often in the context of substantial controversy. While distinctly sociological in orientation, the paper takes its main theoretical inspiration from cultural, literary, and history scholars such as Jan and Aleida Assmann, Sebastian Conrad, Astrid Erll, Ann Rigney, Michael Rothberg, Aby Warburg and Mikhael Bakhtin.     

Singapore's Malay-Muslim minority: Social identification in a post-‘9/11’ world

Fundamental within Singapore's modernisation push ‘From Third World to First’ was the long-term strategy of establishing a Singapore identity based on multiracialism, multilingualism, multiculturalism and multireligiousity (the ‘4Ms’). But while wholesale landscape changes have largely removed earlier associations between ethnicity and residence, government promotion of a shared Singapore identity has been frustrated by the lagging educational and socio-economic achievements of Singapore's Malay minority. Prior to the events of ‘9/11’ government concern had centred on the growing popularity of private Islamic schools, or madrasahs, which in the government's view could affect educational standards in the city-state. However, following the destruction of the World Trade Center government attention was quickly shifted to the promotion of ‘racial harmony’ and Singaporeans were urged to ‘get to know your neighbours’ in a tacit admission that 40 years of ‘racial’ assimilation had yet to produce ethnically integrated, cross-cultural community spirit. Subsequent events, particularly the arrest of local Jemaah Islamiyah operatives and the destruction in Iraq, have impacted most strongly upon Singapore's Malay-Muslim community and posed challenges to its identity within a multicultural society.     

Ranking terrorists in networks: A sensitivity analysis of Al Qaeda's 9/11 attack

All over the world, intelligence services are collecting data concerning possible terrorist threats. This information is usually transformed into network structures in which the nodes represent the individuals in the data set and the links possible connections between these individuals. Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to keep track of all individuals in the resulting complex network. Therefore, Lindelauf et al. (2013) introduced a methodology that ranks terrorists in a network. The rankings that result from this methodology can be used as a decision support system to efficiently allocate the scarce surveillance means of intelligence agencies. Moreover, usage of these rankings can improve the quality of surveillance which can in turn lead to prevention of attacks or destabilization of the networks under surveillance.The methodology introduced by Lindelauf et al. (2013) is based on a game theoretic centrality measure, which is innovative in the sense that it takes into account not only the structure of the network but also individual and coalitional characteristics of the members of the network. In this paper we elaborate on this methodology by introducing a new game theoretic centrality measure that better takes into account the operational strength of connected subnetworks.Moreover, we perform a sensitivity analysis on the rankings derived from this new centrality measure for the case of Al Qaeda's 9/11 attack. In this sensitivity analysis we consider firstly the possible additional information available about members of the network, secondly, variations in relational strength and, finally, the absence or presence of a small percentage of links in the network. We also introduce a case specific method to compare the different rankings that result from the sensitivity analysis and show that the new centrality measure is robust to small changes in the data.     

Orientalism and ‘saving’ US state identity after 9/11

The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 11 September 2001 (9/11) radically destabilized the US sense of self and thus necessitated a particular reassertion of state identity that pivots violently on gender and race. This identity draws upon hypermasculinity, a religious code of ethics and the constitutive differences between Self/Other necessitating the persistent and forceful coding, interpretation and targeting of particular actors and politics as Islamic fundamentalist. In particular, 9/11's post-traumatic space requires US participation in an orientalist project that institutionalizes gendered and racialized violence through the infantilization, demonization, dehumanization and sexual commodification of the ‘Other’. The US state project to ‘save’ its identity intertwines religion, ideology and conflict so as to permanently etch within the American psyche a fear/loathing/paternalism regarding the ‘Orient’ abroad and within. This article proposes a feminist theoretical framework for empirically understanding and recognizing orientalism's logic in US state identity making.