What explains the variation in terrorism within and across political regimes? We contend that terrorism is most likely to occur in contexts in which governments cannot credibly restrain themselves from abusing their power in the future. We consider a specific institutional arrangement, whether a state has an independent judiciary, and hypothesize that independent judiciaries make government com...

Title of Dissertation: STATE INSTABILITY AND TERRORISM Susan Fahey, Doctor of Philosophy, 2010 Dissertation directed by: Professor Gary LaFree Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice I explore the relationship between political instability and terrorism in this dissertation, using the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which contains both domestic and transnational terrorism. I use the Pol...

Broadly speaking, ‘terrorism’ is regarded as extremely violent behavior by what is normally considered to be a minority subgroup of society. The value system in which terrorism is imbedded is not universally shared within the larger society from which it emanates. Terrorists form a movement that pursues a cause defined by its aims which, in turn, are defined within a value framework that may be...

T terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 concentrated minds on the potential of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), combining a timeless tactic with the most destructive weaponry. Th e margins of international tolerance of non-compliance with the WMD nonproliferation and disarmament norms and obligations narrowed dramatically after that date. Affi rming WMD proliferation as a thre...

The present study assessed the degree to which probabilistic reasoning performance and thinking style influenced perception of risk and self-reported levels of terrorism-related behavior change. A sample of 263 respondents, recruited via convenience sampling, completed a series of measures comprising probabilistic reasoning tasks (perception of randomness, base rate, probability, and conjunctio...

When the subject of terrorism is discussed in the context of international law, the issue inevitably arises of how to define ‘terrorism’. A substantial number of international conventions have been agreed which deal with various aspects of terrorism, but in all these conventions terrorism is defined in a way that is specific to the subject-matter of the particular convention. No universal defin...

The ubiquity of contemporary terrorism defines the evilness of banality. A typical terrorist profile does not exist; it’s atypical character of this vile phenomenon that chills human rationality. This article briefly unravels the dynamics of terror and its implications. Un-separated terrorism and counter-terrorism destroy the climate for civil transformation. Our counterproductive interventions...

Emergency situations such as biological or chemical incidents require prompt decision making. There are however only a limited set of formally declared procedures and principles of how to tackle such incidents. The aim of the paper is to introduce specific techniques of conceptual modelling that form a framework of decision making during emergency situations. The paper will present an ongoing r...

In today's world the increased potential of terrorist attacks places unique burdens and consequences on health care workers. Hospitals and hospital personnel must now be prepared to react immediately to such events. They must also implement, in advance, policies to protect their own health care personnel while providing care to victims. In this review, we discuss the four major forms of mass ca...

An accident or a deliberate terrorism attack releasing hazardous chemicals will create chaos, confusion, and seeming unpredictability that complicates the emergency response. Clinicians are challenged to urgently treat patients needing care, even before a chemical is confirmed. Emergency response planning that focuses on preparing for predictable challenges to the health care system and applies...