COMMON DRIVERS OF TRANSNATIONAL TERRORISM: PRINCIPAL COMPONENT ANALYSIS

This article applies principal component analysis to decompose transnational terrorism during 1970–2007 into common (worldwide) and idiosyncratic (country‐specific) factors. Regardless of alternative thresholds and filtering procedures, a single common factor is related to individual countries' transnational terrorist events. Based on a conventional criterion, Lebanon's transnational terrorism is the key common driver of global transnational terrorist incidents. With a more conservative criterion, four additional countries—United States, Germany, Iraq, and the United Kingdom—are core countries in explaining cross‐sectional correlation across 106 countries' transnational terrorism. The analysis shows that there is a marked cross‐sectional dependence among transnational terrorist incidents worldwide. (JEL C38, H56)     

何以不“团圆”——论鲁迅、张恨水小说的悲剧结局

结局是整体艺术的一个重要环节,是作者思想的凝聚,是探索作家创作意图和衡量作家艺术功力的一个重要标志,一部好的文学作品总有一个精心设计的结局。在中国古代小说中,主人公常常依赖偶然的因素获得悲喜逆转的大团圆结局,鲁迅和张恨水对于小说结局的处理抛弃了这种大团圆模式,热衷于以悲剧收场。他们认为,作品应该扎根于真实的土壤之中,结局要符合人物性格和故事情节发展的客观逻辑,大团圆结局并不是真实的人生体验。而悲剧因为更能调动情绪所以更易震撼人心。虽然二人都摒弃了大团圆结局,但背后的思考却有殊异:鲁迅在对结局的思考中纳入了对于"瞒与骗"、喜好大团圆的国民性的批判以及个人"走"的生命哲学,而张恨水则更多的是从现实人生和读者的猎奇心理入手,从精妙的艺术情节的构思中对结局进行布局。无论如何,二人的艺术构思及对结局的处理都在无形中对读者造成了一定的影响。