How Islamic is al-Qaeda? The politics of Pan-Islam and the challenge of modernisation

This article investigates the contested ideology of al-Qaeda through an analysis of Osama bin Ladin’s writings and public statements issued between 1994 and 2011, set in relation to the development of Islamic thought and changing socio-political realities in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Challenging popular conceptions of Wahhabism and the “Salafi jihad”, it reveals an idealistic, Pan-Islamic sentiment at the core of his messages that is not based on the main schools of Islamic theology, but is the result of a crisis of meaning of Islam in the modern world. Both before and after the death of al-Qaeda’s iconic leader, the continuing process of religious, political and intellectual fragmentation of the Muslim world has led to bin Ladin’s vision for unity being replaced by local factions and individuals pursuing their own agendas in the name of al-Qaeda and Islam.

Socio-cultural Degeneration and State Patronage of the Arts: Mapplethorpe, Cultural Crisis, and the NEA

The goal of this paper is to investigate how the Untied States federal government, specifically through the National Endowment for the Arts, or NEA, has acted in the position of an arts patron in the past few decades. Specifically, this paper will focus on the past decade and a half since the 'arts crisis' of the late 1980s and the social and political backlash against the art community in the 1990s, which was only against ‘offensive’ art that was seen as morally and culturally corruptive. I explore the political, social, and economic forms the backlash took, particularly rooted in a perceived fear of degenerative arts as a corruption of and a catalyst for the eventual collapse of American culture and values. Additionally, I analyse the role the federal government played in ‘ameliorating’ the situation. I investigate how state arts patronage has affected and continues to affect both the concepts behind and the manifestations of art, as well as who is encouraged, sanctioned, or neglected in the production of art. To accomplish this, I explore how and why the federal government employs the arts to define and redefine morality and culture, and how does it express/allow the expressions of these through art.

Political Islam and human security

In the wake of the September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks, the academic and media commentaries on 'Islam the religion' and 'Islam the basis for political ideology' has received an unprecedented high level of attention. This book deals with such questions as the nature of Islamism, the impact of the 'war on terror' on militancy, and more.

Islam and political violence : Muslim diaspora and radicalism in the West

How do we engage with the pressing challenges of xenophobia, radicalism and security in the age of the "war on terror"? The widely felt sense of insecurity in the West is shared by Muslims both within and outside Western societies. Growing Islamic militancy and resulting increased security measures by Western powers have contributed to a pervasive sense among Muslims of being under attack (both physically and culturally). Islam and Political Violence brings together the current debate on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and the West and argues we are on a dangerous trajectory, strengthening dichotomous notions of the divide between the West and the Muslim world.

Gambling and corporate social responsibility (CSR) : re-defining industry and state roles on duty of care, host responsibility and risk management

During the 1990s, states embraced legalised gambling as a means of supplementing state revenue. But gaming machines (EGMs, pokies, VLTs, Slots) have become increasingly controversial in countries such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, which experienced unprecedented roll-out of gaming machines in casino and community settings; alongside revenue windfalls for both governments and the gambling industry. Governments have recognised that gambling results in a range of social and economic harms and, similar to tobacco and alcohol, have introduced public policies predicated on harm minimisation. Yet despite these, gaming losses have continued to climb in most jurisdictions, along with concerns about gambling-related harms. The first part of this article discusses an emerging debate in Ontario Canada, that draws parallels between host responsibility in alcohol and gambling venues. In Canada, where government owns and operates the gaming industry, this debate prompts important questions on the role of the state, duty of care and regulation ‘in the public interest’ and on CSR, host responsibility and consumer protection. This prompts the question: Do governments owe a duty of care to gamblers?

The article then discusses three domains of accumulating research evidence to inform questions raised in the Ontario debate: evidence that visible behavioural indicators can be used with high confidence to identify problem gamblers on-site in venues as they gamble; new systems using player tracking and loyalty data that can provide management with high precision identification of problem gamblers and associated risk (for protective interventions); and research on technological design features of new generation gaming products in interaction with players, that shows how EGM machines can be the site for monitoring/protecting players. We then canvass some leading international jurisdictions on gambling policy CSR and consumer protection.

In light of this new research, we ask whether the risk of legal liability poses a tipping point for more interventionist public policy responses by both the state and industry. This includes a proactive role for the state in re-regulating the gambling industry/products; instituting new forms of gaming machine product control/protection; and reinforcing corporate social responsibility (CSR) and host responsibility obligations on gambling providers – beyond self-regulatory codes. We argue the ground is shifting, there is new evidence to inform public policy and government regulation and there are new pressures on gambling providers and regulators to avail themselves of the new technology – or risk litigation

Object focused simultaneous estimation of optical flow and state dynamics

The framework of differential optical flow has been built upon to enhance the performance of motion estimation from optical flow. By coupling optical flow and object state parameters, an effective procedure for object tracking is implemented with the dasiaSimultaneous Estimation of Optical Flow and Object Statepsila (SEOS) technique. The SEOS method utilizes dynamic object parameter information when calculating optical flow for tracking a moving object within a video stream. Optical flow estimation for the SEOS method requires minimization of an error functional containing object physical parameter data. The convergence of an energy functional to a feasible or optimal solution set is not guaranteed. Convergence criteria is often assumed and not shown explicitly. Convergence of the SEOS method for both the Jacobi and Gauss-Seidel numerical resolution methods is evaluated.

Political Islam and human security

Summary: "In the wake of the September 11 and subsequent terrorist attacks, the academic and media commentaries on Islam the religion and Islam the basis for political ideology haves received an unprecedented high level of exposure and attention. The acts of political violence by extremist groups and the omnipresent war on terror have added fresh uncertainties to an already complex global order. Just as terrorism and counter-terrorism are locked in a mutually re-enforcing symbiosis, the sense of insecurity felt by Muslims and non-Muslims alike is mutually dependent and has the potential to escalate. This general assessment holds true for Muslims living in the Muslim world and beyond. The pervasive sense of being under attack physically and culturally by the United States and its allies has contributed to a growing unease among Muslims and re-enforced deep-seated mistrust of the ʻWestʼ. Public articulation of such misgivings has in turn, lent credence to Western observers who posit an inherent antipathy between the West and the Muslim world. The subsequent policies that have emerged in this context of fear and mutual distrust have contributed to the vicious cycle of insecurity. The present volume is anchored in the current debates on the uneasy and potentially mutually destructive relationship between the Muslim world and certain West countries. It brings together leading international scholars in this interdisciplinary field to deal with such inter-related questions as the nature of Islamism, the impact of the ʻwar on terrorʼ on the spread of militancy, the growing sense of being under siege by Muslim Diasporas and the many unintended ramifications of a security-minded world order. This volume deliberately focuses on these issues both at a broad theoretical level but more importantly in the form of a number of prominent case studies including Indonesia, Algeria and Turkey."--Publisher description.

Vulnerability, trade, financial flows and state failure in small island developing states

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are very different to other developing countries. Relative to GDP they have the highest levels of foreign trade and aid receipts of all developing countries. Remittances from abroad are a far more important source of income for SIDS, and some depend very heavily on export revenues. The quality of governance varies tremendously among SIDS, they are over-represented among countries classified as fragile states and many are prone to state failure. These and other factors combine to make SIDS highly vulnerable to external economic shocks. Achieving development in SIDS is as a consequence an especially complex task that requires an understanding of the roles played by aid, trade, remittances and governance in these countries. This paper looks at these issues, along with providing various stylised facts about SIDS. In so doing it serves as a background and broad contextual setting for the papers that follow in this Special Issue on 'Fragility and Development in Small Island Developing States'.