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
Large deformations of thin-walled circular tubes under transverse loading—II: Experimental study of the crushing of circular tubes by centrally applied opposed wedge-shaped indenters
Abstract The behaviour of aluminium and mild steel tubes of 2 in. dia., 0.064 in. thickness and of lengths ranging from 2–24 in. loaded centrally by opposed wedge-shaped indenters is examined. Three modes of deformation are identified and analysed on the basis of plastic work considerations. Reference is also made to the behaviour of a very thin-walled tube of diameter to thickness ratio equal to 190.
Experimental study of the rolling torus load limiter
Abstract A series of rolling torus devices were constructed and tested and their behaviour compared with the theories which have recently appeared in the literature. It is concluded that, in order to estimate the operating force, consideration must be given to the contribution from rolling friction as well as that due to torus inversion.