Cornell International Affairs Review - Volume 04, Number 2 (Spring 2011)
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Decentralization Examined: Conditions Dependent Path Towards SuccessIbeanusi, Nenna (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Item Adapt-Qaeda: Analyzing the Relationship Between Ideology, Organizational Transformation, and the Exploitation of Information TechnologyChhabra, Sandeep S. (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)This paper traces and analyzes the organizational evolution of al-Qaeda from the late 1980s to the present day. It notes that al-Qaeda initially exhibited a hierarchical system and then adopted a hub network approach. Following 9/11 and the U.S assault in Afghanistan, the environment surrounding al-Qaeda was drastically altered, and thus organizational changes became necessary. Employing the concept of a “dune” organization to explain the unique and fluid organizational features al-Qaeda currently exhibits, this paper argues that al-Qaeda strategically chose to exploit the Internet and other information technologies in order to overcome its organizational and tactical limitations. This exploitation of information technology has led to the widespread and unfiltered transmission and reception of its ideological principles. Although recent cases demonstrate the emergence of “lone wolves” radicalized by al-Qaeda’s Internet activities, the broader ramifications of al-Qaeda’s exploitation of the Internet and other technologies for mass mobilization and operational considerations remain unclear.Item The Key Drivers of Human Security Discourse and the Challenge to RealismJames, Stephen (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Item The New Geopolitics: Why Nuclear Weapons No Longer Serve U.S. InterestsBurt, Richard (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Item Divisive Economic Device? Understanding China's Choice to Create a Sovereign Wealth FundYost, Felicty M. (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Item Mass Killing: Politics By Other Means?Chao, Brian (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Mass killing (often carried out in the form of genocide) offends the sensibilities of many people around the world. It is considered a “crime against humanity,” such is its barbarity and ruthlessness. When it occurs, the question often asked by both victims and bystanders is, “Why?” I argue in this paper that mass killing is not, as is often portrayed, the result of primal bloodlust or racism. Through an examination of the Third Punic War, the Boer War, World War II, and the Rwandan genocide, I show that mass killing is actually carried out as a rational means to a political end; that is, it is simply politics by other means. If mass killing is a combination of politics and lethal violence, however, can it be called war? I argue that mass killing, while bearing similarities to and often occurring simultaneously as warfare, is nonetheless different from war because it does not require multiple sides actively fighting each other, as war does.Item Cornell International Affairs Review: Spring 2011Cornell International Affairs Review, Editorial Board (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Item The Problems of Former USSR: Citizens in Russian-Latvian RelationsPakhorukov, Konstantin (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)Item The Odd Couple: Modernization and Democratization in Southeast AsiaAnderson, Nicholas (Cornell University Library, 2011-05-01)