Definition of Terrorism

Monday, October 13, 2008

I unfortunately don't have time to elaborate on this post because of some other projects, but I just came across this jewel in a Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definition_of_terrorism#United_Nations) and I had to share it:

"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought" (Schmid, 1988)


Impressive. Best definition I have seen by far. More to follow on this topic.

Liberal Peace Theory

Friday, October 10, 2008

As always, wikipedia is the best place to start.

The only way to constructively examine this theory is by first defining what democracy is.

http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm

This is an interesting rating system, but at least one aspect makes me feel that whatever guidelines they go by are flawed. France from 1960-1969 scores 5 on the scale while only 6 and above are considered democracies.

Funny enough, Russia and Georgia both score 7s during their conflict.

http://dvn.iq.harvard.edu/dvn/dv/cow

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_possible_exceptions_to_the_democratic_peace_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:List_of_possible_exceptions_to_the_democratic_peace_theory

The IR Reader's Creed

Thursday, October 9, 2008

This will be edited later:

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