Re: Transnational Terrorism (Stemplowski, editor)

It's unfair of me to comment without ever having seen the book. But 
going by the selected quotes, it's hard to see what of the world 
system perspective is informing the various pieces, except perhaps 
that from Escude ;) Indeed, it would appear, from the quote from the 
editor, that the (implicit?) framing idea of TnT ties it to Islam and 
Muslim societies. Moreover, why do I have this niggling sense, from 
the various quotes, that the perspective is unremittingly, at least 
heavily, Euro-American? Perhaps stated most explicitly in the quotes 
from Escude, Bolechow and Laquer.

Could we have a quote from the book, at least the editor, as to what 
is meant by TnT? And the various instances of such TnT. Does, e.g., 
the Comintern fall within their framing device?

kj khoo


At 8:12 PM -0500 15/3/02, g kohler wrote:
>New book:
>
>Ryszard  Stemplowski (editor),
>Transnational Terrorism in the World System Perspective
>Warsaw: The Polish Institute of International Affairs, 2002
>ISBN 83-915767-4-4
>
>to give the gist of the book, here is one quotation per author, authors
>in order of appearance in the volume --
>
>Stemplowski (Editor)
>p7 "Trans-national Terrorism (TnT) is a resultant of uneven development
>(. . .), the Middle East conflict, peculiarities of the relationship
>between religion and the state, internal rift in the Muslim societies,
>communications and transportation globalisation"
>
>Bergesen and Lizardo
>p19 "Today's struggles between militant Islamic terrorists in the Middle
>East and the United States share similarities with past periods." -
>e.g., situation of the Balkans and Europe.prior to World War I
>
>Derluguian
>p28 "To the best of my knowledge, no serious theory of terrorism has
>been ever attempted. Perhaps this is because the experts on terrorism
>are mostly a variety of criminologists working closely with the
>governmental police and intelligence bureaucracies."
>
>Denemark
>p62 "Economic upswings and downswings are prime causes of ethnic
>violence, a form of conflict in which terror plays an unfortunately
>large role."
>
>Escude
>p94 "Regaining hegemony through successful exploitative domination, in
>the right place and at the right time, might indeed be the duty of the
>United States towards a human species that could not survive a crisis of
>hegemony in the context of the new era and its novel threats."
>
>Fox
>p114 "Religious terrorism is at least in part a product of the world
>system."
>
>Debski, Foks, Gorka-Winter
>p130 "As the fight against terrorism requires the activity of many
>citizens, such contacts may give rise to a further strengthening of ties
>even between societies that hitherto have shown mistrust to one
>another."
>
>Bolechow
>p153 "Today the key question is how we can fight the threat without
>destroying the values that prove the identity and success of open
>societies."
>
>Adamishin
>p166 ". . . fair and democratic world order creation. And this, to my
>mind, will be the best means to fight international terrorism."
>
>Laqueur
>p182 "If in the recent past the nuclear balance could act as a
>deterrent, it will be much more difficult to find deterrents in the
>future."
>
>GK