Terrorism: Reducing Vulnerabilities and Improving Responses U.S.-Russian Workshop Proceedings (2004) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Roots of Terrorism
Roots of Terrorism
Pages 168-175
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 168... ...
That led into a major Moscow symposium that considered not only Russian and former Soviet Union ethnic violence but also some comparative dimensions of the subject. Later, this was followed by candid and productive exchanges with senior officials in the governorate of Nizhny Novgorod, and with members of a conflict early warning network that had assembled and was functioning there.
|
From page 169... ...
The restive members of this group, with behavior ranging from periodic threat and tension to fairly continuous, lowlevel hostilities, were the subject of an earlier interacademy collaboration (reported on in Balancing and Sharing Political Power in Multiethnic Societies: Summary of a Workshop, 1993)
|
From page 170... ...
· What about center-periphery power imbalances within Russia and extending to successor states of the former Soviet Union? · To what extent are "objective" conditions of the affected population-poverty, un- or underemployment, corruption, confiscatory tax codes or other governmental malfeasance, educational shortcomings -- factors that, on the one hand, may precipitate or intensify violence but, on the other hand, may also be constructively addressed to keep it under control?
|
From page 171... ...
High fertility places heavy demands on resources for growth and general well-being, with the high proportion of children and very young resulting in high dependency ratios, adverse pressure on educational systems, high unemployment, poor prospects for stable family formation, and regressive distribution of incomes -- but at the same time, wide exposure to high expectations through media. Nondemocratic regimes are characteristic in many such societies, repressing even moderate forms of political opposition and thus opening doors to more radical, more effectively conspiratorial ones.
|
From page 172... ...
Moreover, the perception of injustice or the threat of cultural loss, and their frequently less than oneto-one correspondence with "objective reality," can have major community impacts that escape the notice of outside observers. In contrast with what we are experiencing with modern terrorism, most ethnic conflicts fortunately do not normally involve implacable hostilities or merciless attacks upon the fabric of civil society.
|
From page 173... ...
Our own contribution comes from engagement in dialogue, not from any misapprehension that such dialogue will be directly determinative of policy: Our presence supports efforts to maintain broader comparative perspectives, to explore the widest possible range of alternatives, and to maintain a concern for long-term outcomes as well as immediate ones and for human rights issues. We believe additionally there is something highly constructive in the example of the effectiveness of the cooperation between U.S.
|
From page 174... ...
. In addition, behavioral and social science findings also figure in the comprehensive Academy report of the committee cochaired by Lewis Branscomb and Richard Klausner, Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism (2002)
|
From page 175... ...
NOTES 1. Project on Conflict and Reconstruction in Multiethnic Societies, Office for Central Europe and Eurasia, Policy and Global Affairs, the National Academies.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.