Search results for ""Author Rosemary H.T. O’Kane""

This two-volume set presents a comprehensive selection of some of the most significant published papers and articles on terrorism. The collection examines terrorism from a variety of perspectives, including state terror. Beginning with a section on concepts of terrorism, it first considers the causes and nature of regimes of terror. It then concentrates on terrorist groups in society and in a search for explanations, it investigates the relationship between terrorism and religion, the underlying causes for the rise of terrorist groups and the relation of these groups to new social movements. Psychological and rational choice explanations are also explored. Several articles study the organization of terrorist groups and their strategy and tactics. A final section deals with methods of counteracting terrorism.The editor has written an authoritative introduction which highlights the centrality to terrorism of the killing of innocents and draws important lessons from the topics covered in the collection.

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Terror, Force and States offers a new theoretical explanation of the nature and causes of terror states. The theory is developed through a critical examination of the works of Bauman, Weber, Arendt, Friedrich and Brzezinski, as well as through detailed case studies of terror regimes including Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia and Pol Pot's Cambodia.The view of force as a form of power is rejected by Rosemary O'Kane who carefully distinguishes between repressive and terror governments and, crucially, between totalitarian dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. The lessons drawn suggest that the Holocaust and modern genocide are not intrinsically related to modernity. Terror regimes, she argues, operate not through the state but from behind a state facade within a secret society. Economic crisis is given prominence in their explanation with the decisive explanatory factor argued to be the move from plans to substantive irrationality. Indeed it is the economic rationality of modern society, most particularly in respect of labour markets, which acts as the barrier to terror's rule.All those with an interest in politics, sociology, history and Holocaust and genocide studies will welcome this important book which generates a new theory of terror states.

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