James M. Lutz

REGIONAL LEADERSHIP PATTERNS IN THE DIFFUSION OF PUBLIC POLICIES

The possibility that the American states will emulate the policy adoptions of their neighbors has been suggested in the literature on policy outputs of the states. The present study compares times of adoptions for 47 policies for all pairs of neighboring states and identifies the regional leaders present. The patterns of regional leadership changed over time, becoming less pronounced from the pre-World War I era, to the period between the wars, to the post-World War II era. Still, there were distinctive patterns of regional leadership, and cuetaking among the American states is a factor in the spread of policies.

Terrorism and tourism in the Caribbean: a regional analysis

ABSTRACT Previous studies have found evidence that terrorism negatively impacted tourism in individual countries, but studies with larger number of countries have found less evidence for this negative linkage. The Caribbean tourist area provides an excellent region for a more nuanced analysis of the effects of terrorist on tourist visits. Evidence from analyses of selected Caribbean countries that rely on tourism indicated that terrorism did not affect tourist visits before the twenty-first century. After 9/11, however, there were indications that territories suffering from terrorism had reductions in visits by tourists. This significant event did influence tourist visits to the Western Hemisphere in the aftermath of this major terrorist event. There were also indications that foreign investment, which is linked to the tourism sector, was negatively affected after 9/11. In at least some cases there are regional effects on tourism from terrorist attacks.

1940–1980: McCarthyism, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Left

When World War II ended, a variety of terrorist groups was in operation in the United States. Some types of terrorism were similar to those that had existed in the past while others were relatively new to the country. McCarthyism and related activities, which gained impetus from the cold war, were in some respects a repeat of the Red Scare. The perceived dangers, in the case of McCarthyism, were related to the global conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union rather than just the fear of the presence of radical dissidents in some domestic organization. The civil rights struggle for greater equality for black Americans provoked violent responses from white supremacists. The Ku Klux Klan reappeared for a third time and joined with other groups in using violence to prevent the achievement of racial equality. The inequality between blacks and whites also led to riots and protests in the ghettos and to some use of terrorism by black nationalist groups. The U.S. presence in Indochina resulted in an upsurge in leftist opposition that eventually ended in violent campaigns as members of the left, especially the young, sought to indicate their opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam and Southeast Asia in general. U.S. foreign policy during this period started becoming a reason for terrorist attacks.

Conclusion:Two Hundred and Fifty Years of Terrorism in the United States

The previous chapters have indicated that in the relatively short history of the United States, many groups have chosen to use terrorism as a means of achieving their political objectives. The extent of such terrorism has been greater than commonly thought by most casual or even not so casual observers. As one observant analyst put it, the idea that terror came to American in 2001 or 1995 is ludicrous, given the nation’s experience with this type of political violence.1 Notwithstanding this background, one study of modern terrorism still noted that the Puerto Rican FALN “was the most prolific terrorist organization in U.S. history” because of the number of attacks (130) that it launched.2 Clearly this Puerto Rican nationalist group, however, was not the most active group in the nation’s history. That distinction (hardly an appropriate word) probably belongs to the Ku Klux Klan of the 1860s or the 1920s rather than to the FALN. We do not have accurate counts on how many attacks were launched by official branches of the KKK in either period, but it is obvious that either the 1860 or the 1920 version accounted for more than 130 incidents! It is possible that the Molly Maguires or the nativist groups in Philadelphia before the Civil War or a number of other groups might also have been responsible for more attacks.

Before the Civil War: Mob Violence in Jacksonian America

The period from the Whiskey Rebellion to the end of the Civil War was an era in which the new country with a new government and constitution was undergoing a period of consolidation. The Civil War was, in many ways, the final act for this consolidation. This period, often referred to as the Jacksonian era, represented increasing public inputs in the political process, and it witnessed a variety of violent actions and a greater reliance on terrorism by groups in the United States than did the previous colonial and revolutionary periods. Confrontations between settlers and Indians continued, but there were now instances of the overt reliance on terrorism to accomplish the goals of the settlers. Racist violence increased with the appearance of campaigns of attempted ethnic cleansing. The Mormons were persecuted for their unusual religious beliefs and for attempts to isolate themselves from other groups. Antimigrant and anti-Catholic feeling were prevalent and peaked in this period with the formation of the Know-Nothing Party (or American Party). Overt reliance on terrorism became most obvious in many respects in the battles between proslavery and free soil groups in Kansas in the 1850s. In this period, much of the violence and terrorism involved actions by mobs that were mobilized to deal with or deter groups that were seen as threatening to the country or society.

From the Civil War to World War I: Racism, Labor Disputes, and Anarchism

The period after the end of the Civil War terrorist violence saw not only the continuation of old forms of terrorist violence but also the appearance of new types. Discrimination and racism persisted and so did the attendant violence. Attacks on Hispanics, freed slaves, and the Chinese continued; so did anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic feeling. The Ku Klux Klan and similar organizations appeared in the former Confederate states, and they relied on campaigns of terrorist violence to achieve their political objectives. Industrialization brought in its wake labor disputes, which at times became violent. These confrontations between management and workers also brought state authorities into the fray. Anarchism appeared in Europe in late nineteenth century, as a protest against inequality among different classes. While anarchist violence was much more prevalent in Europe in this period, a few important instances of anarchist violence did tale place in the United States.

Into the Twenty-First Century: International and Domestic Attacks

The last twenty years of the twentieth century and the first years of the twenty-first century saw some changes in the types of groups willing to use terrorism. The period was a witness to some dramatic terrorist attacks: the destruction of a federal office building in Oklahoma City by a domestic terrorist, which killed more than a hundred people; the attacks against U.S. embassies in East Africa that killed hundreds; the first attempt to destroy the World Trade Center; and, of course, the September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington DC, which killed thousands. The activities of black nationalist groups, the New Left, and the JDL were fading from the scene, although Puerto Rican nationalists continued their attacks throughout this period. While the remnants of some old right-wing groups remained active, new violent groups on the right, which advanced racist and anti-Semitic doctrines, came on the scene. Emigre groups, including the anti-Castro Cuban organizations operating out of the United States, became less active. New domestic groups including those opposed to abortion and those seeking to defend the environment or the rights of animals, that were willing to use violence in pursuit of their causes became active. Situations abroad involving U.S. foreign policies were increasingly linked to terrorist activities.

The Colonial Era: Rebellion and Dissent

The colonial period in what was to become the United States was an era in which violence was all too common. There were numerous conflicts between settlers and Indians, some of which were part of the conflicts between Great Britain and other European colonial powers. In the colonies there were extralegal attempts to resolve political disputes through armed confrontations among colonists, divided on issues of political policy, political control, or religion. At times elections to colonial assemblies turned violent. Violent agitation against the Crown preceded the American Revolution; and Shays Rebellion and the Whiskey Rebellion occurred early in the history of the creation of the new country. Though not all of the violence from the colonial era qualifies as terrorism, some of it certainly does.

Terrorism: Concepts and Causes

Terrorism became a topic of great interest in the United States for the general population, politicians, and academics after the September 11 attacks. Since that tragic day terrorists and terrorism have been analyzed, publicized, and sensationalized. Much of the writing on terrorism since September 11 has treated the topic as if it were something new and relatively foreign to the history of the United States. But terrorism is not all that new a phenomenon, and it has not been all that unusual in the nation’s history. It is important to put such an event in a broader context. The attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon were clearly inspired from abroad and were part of a larger campaign of violence against the United States and the West in general. In many ways they were significantly different from previous acts of terrorism, but it would be a mistake, however, to let this singular event obscure the historical patterns that indicate that most of the terrorism in the United States, as terrorism in other countries, has been of domestic origin. The activities of the Ku Klux Klan (in the 1860s, the 1920s, or the 1950s) and the bombing of the Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 are among the prominent examples of such domestic terrorism, even though they are not the only ones.

The Interwar Years:The Red Scare to Fascism

At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States had begun to change because of massive waves of immigration, the acquisition of overseas territories (and attendant responsibilities) as a consequence of the Spanish-American War, and increasing urbanization and industrialization. In the Philippines, the United States faced a guerrilla insurgency, first from Filipinos seeking to create an independent state and then from the Muslim Moros in the southern part of the colony, seeking to separate from the rest of the territory. The acquisition of the Philippines and the consequent guerrilla warfare, however, did not lead to any campaigns of terrorism. In Hawaii, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, and Cuba, a de facto protectorate for a number of years, opposition to the American presence was not violent at this time. American military involvement or interference in Mexico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua during or after World War I involved fighting, but did not bring any terrorist violence to the United States itself. Domestically, the Indian population had already been forced onto reservations or assimilated (more or less) into the general population, thereby ending over two hundred years of conflict.