也门恐怖活动近况与美国的反恐对策

2009年下半年以来,也门基地组织的恐怖活动对国际社会尤其对美国造成了严重威胁,引起了国际社会的广泛关注。也门北部的胡塞主义者叛乱和基地组织在也门的重新发展壮大,是国际反恐怖阵营的主要关注点。由于经济落后、社会不稳等因素,再加上传统的尚武文化,也门很难在短期内摆脱恐怖主义问题的困扰。虽然美国面临来自也门的严重恐怖主义威胁,但由于受困于伊拉克和阿富汗战场,美国不可能在也门开辟反恐第三战场。     

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.     

Risking the rural: nature, morality and the consumption of unpasteurised milk

The BSE crisis, concern over genetically modified foods, and E. coli and Salmonella food scares have prompted widespread public disquiet over food safety. For consumers, this has led to a demand for new ‘safer’ foods which are usually ‘local’, ‘natural’ and/or organic. Research into reactions to food risk has to a large degree focussed on this ‘quality turn’. In doing so, there is a danger of failing to fully problematise risk and providing a dualistic appreciation of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ natures, rather than exposing nature's fluid and multiple identities. Moreover, it suggests that consumers always attempt to minimise risk and do not challenge the need to change their behaviour. Instead, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from an English village, the paper uses a case study of unpasteurised milk to analyse why rural consumers continue to buy foods labelled by official scientific discourses as ‘risky’. The paper argues that food risks in rural areas are configured by a concern to protect a rural identity from one implicated in scientific discourses of safety. These identity-related definitions of risk are also constructed by various moral behaviours which are integral to the process of becoming rural. In particular, the paper shows that these moral behaviours include establishing relations with specific forms of nature, maintaining community relations and adopting rural knowledgeabilities which together configure food safety and define rural status.     

Gender and housing : The provision of accommodation for young adults in three Mexican cities

The literature on gender and housing is oddly distorted, for it is dominated by research on households which are ‘women-headed’, even where the majority of women may live in households conventionally regarded as being headed by men. This literature shuns the ‘traditional’, male-headed, nuclear household and regards ‘non-traditional’ households as being those headed by single mothers or women living alone. The first part of this paper argues that it is important not to restrict discussion of gender and housing to the problems facing single mothers or women living alone, because there is a danger of rendering the majority of women, once again, invisible.Equating ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ households with ‘nuclear’ and ‘women-headed’ households, respectively, confuses structure with headship and overlooks cultural variations in what constitutes a ‘traditional’ household — the nuclear household is not necessarily the traditional norm. The second part of this paper explores a little-documented housing arrangement in which large numbers of women are involved in urban Mexico: sharing. ‘Sharing’ occurs when two or more households occupy the same plot of land; one household owns the plot, allowing the other(s) to live there rent-free. Sharing mostly involves the adult sons or daughters of the plot owners, and may be regarded as a variation on the extended household structure. Sons are more likely to be allowed to bring their wives to their parents' home, whereas daughters are more likely to leave. Women living with their in-laws lack security of tenure and there is often conflict between wives and members of their husband's family of origin, particularly their mothers-in-law.The anthropological literature has identified gender relations as the source of conflict between women in extended households. Sharing reduces the potential for conflict by giving the younger household greater autonomy. Furthermore, concern for their daughters' welfare leads many parents to offer accommodation to married daughters as well as sons. Single mothers, however, are more likely to live as part of their parents' household than to share. In this respect, the nuclear household norm is reinforced, since sharing seems to be a privilege accorded only to those who are married.     

DETERRENCE,PREEMPTION, AND PANIC: A COMMON‐ENEMY PROBLEM OF TERRORISM

A game‐theoretic analysis of terrorism examines interactions between a terrorist organization and multiple target countries. It considers both preemption and deterrence as counter‐terrorist policies. Damage from terror includes material costs and resultant fear. Fear effects lead to different equilibria and implications for counter‐terrorism policies. The model identifies conditions under which greater preemption may be the rational response to an increase in terrorism, that is, it analyzes the merit of the dictum “offense is the best defense.” It also examines the characteristics of cooperative behavior among target countries in dealing with the threat of terrorism. (JEL C72, D74, F52, F53, H41)     

也门恐怖活动近况与美国的反恐对策

2009年下半年以来,也门基地组织的恐怖活动对国际社会尤其对美国造成了严重威胁,引起了国际社会的广泛关注。也门北部的胡塞主义者叛乱和基地组织在也门的重新发展壮大,是国际反恐怖阵营的主要关注点。由于经济落后、社会不稳等因素,再加上传统的尚武文化,也门很难在短期内摆脱恐怖主义问题的困扰。虽然美国面临来自也门的严重恐怖主义威胁,但由于受困于伊拉克和阿富汗战场,美国不可能在也门开辟反恐第三战场。     

Confidence and action: a comment on Barbalet

John Maynard Keynes is widely recognized as one of the greatest economists of the 20^th century. For a growing number of his interpreters, Keynes’s emphasis on uncertainty and on the psychological aspects of expectations about the future are among his most significant contributions. References to Keynes’s notions of confidence and animal spirits, for example, have increasingly appeared in the economic literature. In sociology, a stimulating recent book by Jack Barbalet (1998) tries to improve our understanding of social structure by redefining the role of emotions in social life. Barbalet also wants to correct what he understands as an insufficient attention to time on the part of social theorists. This double objective leads him to deal with confidence and some of Keynes’s ideas. His book represents a most valuable contribution to the sociology of emotions, time and uncertainty.The purpose of this paper is to comment on Barbalet’s discussion of confidence and the theory of action, and to contrast it with an alternative approach. Both Barbalet’s position and the alternative presented here involve an interpretation of Keynes’s theory of economic behavior under uncertainty, but go beyond doctrinal-historical issues and formulate original theoretical propositions. The present paper is intended as a positive contribution to the interaction between economists and sociologists interested in these issues. Barbalet’s book already represents an important step in this direction, for his social analysis considers, and incorporates insights from, the work of several economists, in addition to conveying well-founded criticisms of standard economic theory.As far as Barbalet’s interpretation of Keynes is concerned, the paper points out Keynes’s ambiguity regarding important issues and identifies interesting points of Keynes’s theory that Barbalet does not discuss or emphasize. The paper produces evidence against Barbalet’s equation of confidence and animal spirits in Keynes. It also shows that Keynes distinguished between expectations and confidence, a distinction not explicitly made by Barbalet. In addition, the paper enriches Barbalet’s discussion of Keynes’s monetary theory by relating uncertainty to the precautionary motive for liquidity preference.Moving from the history of thought to theory, the paper proposes an alternative analysis of confidence and action, and contrasts it with Barbalet’s approach. This alternative approach distinguishes between confidence and expectations, and suggests that these two elements are ultimately determined by three factors: knowledge, animal spirits (redefined as an optimistic disposition to face uncertainty) and creativity. The first two factors are seen as determinants of confidence through their influence on what is called uncertainty perception and willingness to face uncertainty (or uncertainty aversion). The paper is organized as follows. It begins by summarizing some aspects of Barbalet’s views on confidence, in section 1. It proceeds, in section 2, by presenting Barbalet’s interpretation of Keynes and discussing it. The next step is to present, in section 3, another theory of action in which confidence plays a crucial role. This alternative approach, which uses Keynes’s insights but goes beyond his work, is then contrasted with Barbalet’s views.     

Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists

The terms terror, terrorism, and terrorist do not identify causally coherent and distinct social phenomena but strategies that recur across a wide variety of actors and political situations. Social scientists who reify the terms confuse themselves and render a disservice to public discussion. The U.S. government's own catalogs of terrorist events actually support both claims .     

Understanding Violence in the School: Moral and Psychological Factors

Since violence was declared a health issue in the 1980s, the literature on violence has identified psychological and psychosocial factors which place youth at risk for violent behaviors. This paper reviews the psychological literature on violent youth, the impact of violence on youth predisposing them to violent behavior, including an exploration into parenting styles and the social climate of some schools in which violence is occurring. Preventative strategies involving primary, secondary and tertiary interventions to combat school violence and youth violence, in general, are considered.     

Risk-taking in entrepreneurs, compared to criminals and students: The role of uncertainty and stakes

Entrepreneurs’, college students’ and criminals’ risk-taking were compared in hypothetical bet situations. The level of uncertainty and the amount staked were varied in gain and loss situations. Potential profit motivates entrepreneurs to choose higher stakes, expected loss will prompt the avoidance of risk. In profit-making situations, college students’ strategies are different: Students’ decisions are more influenced by probability factors than by the amount staked. Risk-taking tendency of criminals is higher than that of the other two groups, without applying a consistent strategy in taking risk.     

Re-discovering the social: neo-liberalism and hybrid practices of governing in rural natural resource management

Since the 1980s, natural resource management (NRM) in rural Australia has been underpinned by rationalities and technologies of governing that constitute agricultural landscapes and resource managers in economically rational terms. While it is tempting to interpret these forms of regulation as part of a broad shift away from social forms of governing, this paper argues that ‘the social’ remains of crucial significance in understanding how both natural environments and the capacities of individuals to manage these environments are constructed. Drawing upon recent work in the Foucauldian-inspired literature on governmentality and, in particular, Stenson and Watt's (Urban Studies 36(1) (1999) 189–201) concept of hybrid governance, this paper examines how particular representations of ‘the social’ are assembled through strategies of NRM. Using the National Landcare Program (NLP) and Natural Heritage Trust (NHT) as examples, we consider how ‘social’ data is being incorporated into resource management strategies, and how this re-shapes both ‘the social’ and NRM as domains of governance. While the NLP and NHT incorporate concerns about social responsibility, they define these in terms of the capacity of individuals to respond to changing economic circumstances. This effectively defines land managers as socially and ecologically responsible only to the extent that they have the managerial capacities to pursue economically ‘rational’ practices. In concluding, we argue that hybrid practices of governing are indeed evident in NRM in Australia and that the concept of ‘hybrid governance’ requires further attention in understanding how rural spaces are made knowable and shaped as objects of knowledge.     

Trust and social capital in the regulation of lending activities

When a bank grants a loan, it takes the risk that the borrower will not honor his debt. To reduce this uncertainty, banks have created instrumental evaluation methods in order to try to evaluate the risk more objectively. An analysis of financial counselors’ practices shows the limits of these methods. To obtain information needed for the financial risk evaluation and to reduce the information asymmetry between bankers and borrowers, financial counselors integrate social networks to establish bonds of trust and to accumulate social capital. The quality of the social bond determines the quality of the gathered information and therefore the quality of the risk evaluation. Bank management is aware of the limits of instrumental methods and the importance of social risk evaluation. To improve their economic efficiency, they modify their work organization and their management practices so as to facilitate the emergence of a bond of trust and the accumulation of social capital by their financial counselors. The analysis of economic actors’ speech and behavior involved in activities of credit shows that behind the claimed altruism nature of the trust relationship exists an economic rationality whose social and temporal horizons of optimization differ from the model of the trade exchange seen in conventional economic theory.     

Positional information and preference aggregation

A new version of independence (I⁺) is proposed for social welfare functions based on the following notion of agreement. Two weak orders R and R’ on a finite set S agree on a pair {x,y}, denoted byif R|_{x,y} = R’|_{x,y} and [z R*x and z R*y for some z∈S] if and only if [z’ (R’)* x and z’(R’)*y for some z’∈S]. The last part says that x and y are strictly under z with respect to R exactly when x and y are strictly under z’ with respect to R’. Some examples and results on social welfare functions that satisfy (I⁺), Pareto, and nondictatorship are given.I am grateful for the comments and suggestions made by an anonymous referee on an earlier version of this paper.     

The syntax of ‘tactic(s)’ in public relations research

Strategies and tactics are foundational to the teaching of public relations, yet little scholarly reflection on the term ‘tactic(s)’ itself exists in our research. We content analyzed 30 years of research in Public Relations Review for references to the term ‘tactic(s).’ Our research reveals that of the 174 studies reviewed, 13% elaborated on the term, but none defined it. Moreover, the term ‘tactic(s)’ appeared more frequently with ‘strategies’ (31.5%) than in conjunction with ‘ethics’ (2%). We conclude our research note with a call for greater reflection on core concepts related to our public relations teaching and research.     

Unique crisis response strategies in sports public relations: Rugby league and the case for diversion

Sport is a unique ‘product’ in that most of its messages and images are conveyed through media coverage rather than through advertising or sales campaigns. While the coverage is usually positive, media interest becomes more problematic in high profile scandals which can be very damaging. In this paper, we propose that the culture of elite men's sport and its interdependence with mass media creates a situation in which sports public relations personnel have access to crisis communication strategies not previously specified in the existing literature. Based on textual analysis of media coverage of an Australasian men's rugby league salary cap scandal, we argue that, in certain situations, a sports organisation may draw upon a crisis response strategy that we term diversion in order to successfully limit the damage to the organisation's reputation. In particular, we suggest that the often intense ‘relationship’ that fans have with players may allow team sports to focus attention on players (and fans) as innocent victims with the result that negative publicity for the sport overall is reduced.     

Contesting the neoliberal project for agriculture: Productivist and multifunctional trajectories in the European Union and Australia

The liberalisation of agricultural trade is strongly contested as an international policy project. In the context of the current World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha trade round, concerns revolve around the implications of freer trade for rural livelihoods and environments. Analysis of this complex and morally charged issue offers important insights into the nature of resistance to the neoliberal agenda. This resistance has been expressed in terms of perceived threats to the ‘multifunctionality’ of agriculture and its ability to provide public environmental and social benefits. We focus specifically on Australia and the European Union (EU), key players in the WTO process but diametrically opposed in their embrace of, or resistance to, agricultural neoliberalisation. While the EU has sought to maintain trade barriers in order to protect both marginal areas and the market advantages derived from a heavily-subsidised, productivist agriculture, Australia relies on ‘competitive productivism’ – unsubsidised, highly productive agriculture – to win markets. There is nevertheless evidence that the compatibility of market rule with agri-environmental (and, to a lesser extent, social) sustainability is being contested in both Australia and the EU, particularly at the regional scale. The nature and terms of this contestation are different, however, given the radically divergent macro-economic and socio-political contexts in which it is being framed. The debate about the socio-environmental implications of market opening within the agriculturally protectionist environment of the EU is largely anticipatory and risk-averting, while in the already market-exposed Australian context it is increasingly compensatory and harm-minimising. In this paper, we argue that neoliberalisation as a policy agenda is reshaped in different states and regions through processes of resistance and accommodation arising from particular geographical, historical, political and institutional contexts, and as a response to crises.     

Vulnerabilities to Terrorism

Abstract

In recent decades the nature of the terrorist threat has changed from narrow nationalistic political goals to motives cultivating an apocalytic religious fanaticism. While traditional froms of terror continue seeking ethnic autonomy, poloitical independence, and control of criminal enterprises, the tactics of groups like al-Qaeda have come to dominate public attention. Historically, terrorist events and phenomena were designed to produce minimal casualties and maximum public exposure. Today, modern terrorists seek not to limit casualties but to kill as many people as possible. Brutal, large-scale violence is the point of their activities.     

Rural studies: Modernism, postmodernism and the ‘post-rural’

In response to Philo [(1992b), Neglected rural geographies: a review. Journal of Rural Studies8, 193–207), who calls for rural studies to take the study of ‘others’ more seriously, we argue the need to take postmodernism more seriously. The paper focuses upon the production of knowledge about rural areas by academics. In the narrative that we provide here, the ‘rural’ had a strong presence until Pahl's critique of the rural-urban continuum which both diminished the status of the rural and emphasised the role of class in shaping particular spaces. Newby and his colleagues applied class analysis to agriculture, likewise undermining the significance of the rural. Further applications of general social theory, such as the political economy and restructuring approaches, show how modernist rural studies seem to be fighting a losing battle to posit the indispensability of the significance of the urban-rural division as an explanation; articulating and rearticulating the divide within a whole range of processes: economic, social and cultural. Rural social scientists have woven this modernist narrative, but, as Philo shows, one effect has been the neglect of certain social groups, cultures and identities. However, in contrast to Philo, we argue that a rather fundamental reassessment of social scientific approaches to the rural is required if these ‘neglected others’ are to be satisfactorily considered. We believe a ‘sociology of postmodernism’ would offer a more reflexive perspective on the processes which give rise to ‘the rural’. We thus call for an end to the use of universal or global concepts such as ‘rural’ (or the ‘urban’) and for a concern with the way places are ‘made’. This will entail a focus on ‘power’ as certain actors impose ‘their’ rurality on others. We term this the study of the ‘post-rural’.     

Tamworth, Australia's ‘country music capital’: place marketing, rurality, and resident reactions

Since the 1970s, Tamworth has become well known as Australia's ‘country music capital’. Its annual Country and Western Music Festival has become the leading event of its type in Australia, attracting over 60,000 visitors every year. The festival, and country music more generally, have become central to the town's identity and tourism marketing strategies. This article discusses the social constructions that have surrounded Tamworth's transition to ‘country music capital’—of the ‘rural’, and of ‘country’—within the context of debates about the politics of place marketing. Textual analysis of promotional material and built landscapes reveals representations of rurality (or ‘senses of the rural’). In their most commercial form, representations of rurality converge on a dominant notion of ‘country’, quite different from the ‘countryside’ and ‘rural idyll’ in England. This dominant, or normative ‘country’ forms the basis of imagery for the festival, the Town's marketing strategy, and associated advertising campaigns by major sponsors. It is predominantly masculine, white, working class and nationalist. But links between musical style and discourses of place are complex. Colonial British histories, Celtic musical traditions and North American popular culture all inform ‘country’ in Tamworth, dissipating nationalist interpretations. Normative constructions also contrast with other, heterogeneous ruralities in Australia, that include the lived experiences of rural Australians, and on stage—in country music—where multiple ‘ruralised’ identities are performed. Even those who stand to benefit from place promotion have been uncertain about country music and ‘the country’, because of associated discourses of Tamworth as ‘hick’ and ‘redneck’. In the final section of the paper, reactions of residents to constructions of Tamworth as country music capital are discussed, via the results of a simple resident survey. In contrast to previous studies of the disempowering politics of place marketing, Tamworth residents were on the whole supportive of the new associations and images for the town, despite ‘hick’ connotations, as it has become a centre for ‘country’, and for country music. Reasons for this are explored, and resistances discussed. The result is a complex and entangled politics of national identity, gender, race and class, where meanings for place are variously interpreted and negotiated.