Political terrorism and the size of government: A positive institutional analysis of violent political activity
Political terrorism has been described as violent political behavior primarily designed to generate fear in the community, or a substantial part of it, for political purposes.' Political terrorism is distinguished from revolution in that the immediate objective of terrorist acts is intimidation rather than the overthrow of the existing government. Terrorism is a form of political extortion. Positive theories of crime 2 and extortion 3 assume that individuals will act to maximize some objective function subject to existing social or legal constraints. However, there is no parallel to these positive approaches aimed directly at the subject of political terrorism. Existing literature (hereafter referred to collectively as traditional literature) is dominated by the writings of psychologists, sociologists, and historians. Within these works, political purposes are typically defined as ideological in nature. As a result, political terrorists are assumed to be ideological zealots, willing to kill and be killed in order to further 'the cause'. Within this context positive analysis becomes difficult. Few analysts can rationalize such extreme behavior. As a result, traditional studies are forced to search for typically unobservable psychological and socio-economic characteristics as explanations for violent behavior. Frequently cited causes of political terrorism are lack of self-esteem (Kaplan, 1978: 245), emancipation afforded women (Dobson and Payne, 1979: 51), economic and political alienation and relative depravation (Bassouini, 1975; Gurr, 1969 and 1970; Dollard et al., 1939; and Wilkinson, 1977). Terrorists are characterized as irrational (Wilkinson, 1977: 49) or insane (National Advisory Committee..., p. 20). The dominant theme in the existing literature is a call for expansion of
An Economic Study of U. S. Aircraft Hijacking, 1961-1976
ON May 1, 1961 a National Airlines aircraft en route from Miami to Key West was successfully hijacked and diverted to Cuba. Although aircraft hijackings had occurred in Eastern Europe and Cuba prior to that date, this was the first recorded hijacking of a U.S. registered aircraft.1 Seven more U.S. hijackings took place between 1961 and 1967 (see Table 1), followed by an unprecedented increase in the next five years. Between 1968 and 1972, 124 hijackings occurred, leading some observers to proclaim that hijacking had become a national epidemic.2 This surge of hijacking, however, came to an abrupt halt in 1973-one hijacking took place in that year and only ten more occurred in the next three years. A similar pattern of hijackings is
The Prevalence of Dietary Supplement Use among College Students: A Nationwide Survey in Japan
To clarify the prevalence of dietary supplement use among college students, we conducted Internet-based nationwide questionnaire surveys with 157,595 Japanese college students aged between 18 to 24 years old who were registrants of Macromill Inc. (Tokyo, Japan). Among the 9066 respondents (response rate 5.8%), 16.8% were currently using dietary supplements. The prevalence of dietary supplement use did not differ significantly between males (17.1%) and females (16.7%). However, it increased according to their grade (13.1% to 20.5%), and it was higher in medical and pharmaceutical college students (22.0%) compared to others (16.7%). The main purpose of dietary supplement use was for the health benefits in both males and females. Other reasons were to build muscle in males, and as a beauty supplement and for weight loss in females. According to the purpose of dietary supplement use, the most commonly-used dietary supplements were vitamin/mineral supplements in both males and females, then protein and weight loss supplements in males and females, respectively. Although most students obtained information about dietary supplements via the Internet, they typically purchased the supplements from drug stores. Of the students surveyed, 7.5% who were currently using or used to use dietary supplements experienced adverse effects, with no significant difference between genders (8.8% in male, 7.0% in female). In conclusion, the prevalence of dietary supplement use increased with grade among college students in Japan. Some of them experienced adverse effects. Education may be important to prevent adverse effects resulting from supplement use in college.