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"Provides English translations of court despositions taken between 1980 and 1982 from three repentant terrorists of the Italian Red Brigades. The terrorists decided to cooperate with the authorities in exchange for reduced sentences as promised by a special parliamentary law."--Preface.
These original essays describe the internal life of terrorist organizations in fascinating detail. They show how no description of terrorist behaviour is adequate without a grasp of the deep tensions that often characterize such groups, and an appreciation of how firmly implanted in our culture terrorist traditions have become, since the middle of the nineteenth century.
Identifies a variety of left and right-wing groups in America which might have a reason to be active terrorists in the future. A viable target for such groups is nuclear power plants.
From her perspective as both participant and observer, Barbara Epstein examines the nonviolent direct action movement which, inspired by the civil rights movement, flourished in the United States from the mid-seventies to the mid-eighties. Disenchanted with the politics of both the mainstream and the organized left, and deeply committed to forging communities based on shared values, activists in this movement developed a fresh, philosophy and style of politics that shaped the thinking of a new generation of activists. Driven by a vision of an ecologically balanced, nonviolent, egalitarian society, they engaged in political action through affinity groups, made decisions by consensus, and prac...
In the past two decades young people, environmentalists, church activists, leftists, and others have mobilized against nuclear energy. Anti-nuclear protest has been especially widespread and vocal in Western Europe and the United States. In this lucid, richly documented book, Christian Joppke compares the rise and fall of these protest movements in Germany and the United States, illuminating the relationship between national political structures and collective action. He analyzes existing approaches to the study of social movements and suggests an insightful new paradigm for research in this area. Joppke proposes a political process perspective that focuses on the interrelationship between t...
FIight, Flight, Mimic is the first systematic study of deceptive mimicry in the context of wars. Deceptive mimicry -- the manipulation of individual or group identity -- includes passing off as a different individual, as a member of a group to which one does not belong, or, for a group, to 'sign' its action as another group. Mimicry exploits the reputation of the model it mimics to avoid capture (flight), to strike undetected at the enemy (fight), or to hide behind or besmirch the reputation of the model group ('false flag' operations). These tactics have previously been described anecdotally, mixed in with other ruses de guerre, but the authors show that mimicry is a distinct form of decept...
"This report reviews recent developments and trends in international terrorism that could affect the safety and security of U.S. nuclear weapons research sites and production facilities. It is based on an examination of prior research findings and new evidence concerning the terrorist threat to U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. The findings suggest that the motivation, characteristics, and capabilities of potential adversaries have changed little in the past decade. However, two developments--a dramatic increase in state sponsorship of terrorism (i.e., sponsorship of terrorist groups by foreign governments) and a shift in emphasis within both the American and European anti-nuclear protest movements from energy to weapons--may necessitate some revisions in nuclear facility defense requirements."--Rand Abstracts.
Lofland brings his wealth of knowledge about social movements and collective behavior to this sociological study. His analyses reveal a peace movement with organization, culture, and tactics quite different from those of the 1960s and 1970s. The radicals of the 1980s were "polite protesters," more likely to turn to the politics of interest groups and lobbyists than to that of involved demonstrations and flag burnings.
Terrorists engage in propaganda and rhetoric, even though they prefer the power of deed over word. They use a wide variety of mechanisms of moral disengagement to convince themselves of the rightness of their actions, a necessary prerequisite for taking up arms. The articles collected together in this excellent volume focus on the rhetoric and propaganda used by insurgent terrorists to justify their resort to violence. The volume includes a thoughtful introduction which summarizes the main findings of the literature, drawing attention to the many different kinds of terrorist propaganda and the underlying similarity between them.