Robert J. Brym

Suicide Bombing as Strategy and Interaction: The Case of the Second Intifada

Social scientists have explained the rise of suicide bombing since the early 1980s by focusing on the characteristics of suicide bombers, the cultural matrix in which they operate, and the strategic calculations they make to maximize their gains. We offer an alternative approach that emphasizes the interaction between Palestinian suicide bombings and Israeli government actions, analyzing the motivations, organizational rationales and precipitants for the 138 suicide bombings that took place in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza between October 2000 and July 2005. Using several sources, including Arabic newspapers, we find that much of the impetus for Palestinian suicide bombing can be explained by the desire to retaliate against Israeli killings of Palestinians; and that much of the impetus for Israeli killings of Palestinians can be explained by the desire to retaliate for suicide bombings.

From culture to power : the sociology of English Canada

There have been many dramatic changes in English Canadian sociology since the 1960s. 25 years ago the cultural values of Canadians were believed to be largely responsible for patterns of economic development, politics, and inequality. In the late 1980s these same features of social life are typically explained in terms of the way power is distributed in Canada. Brym and Fox attribute this change to the growing influence of various currents of Marxism and feminism in Canadian sociology. In this book they analyze the Marxist critique of conventional sociology in the 1970s and the feminist critique of Marxist sociology in the 1980s. In addition they document the findings of more than two decades of increasingly careful and sophisticated social resarch in Canada.

Social media in the 2011 Egyptian uprising.

This paper uses Gallup poll data to assess two narratives that have crystallized around the 2011 Egyptian uprising: (1) New electronic communications media constituted an important and independent cause of the protests in so far as they enhanced the capacity of demonstrators to extend protest networks, express outrage, organize events, and warn comrades of real-time threats. (2) Net of other factors, new electronic communications media played a relatively minor role in the uprising because they are low-cost, low-risk means of involvement that attract many sympathetic onlookers who are not prepared to engage in high-risk activism. Examining the independent effects of a host of factors associated with high-risk movement activism, the paper concludes that using some new electronic communications media was associated with being a demonstrator. However, grievances, structural availability, and network connections were more important than was the use of new electronic communications media in distinguishing demonstrators from sympathetic onlookers. Thus, although both narratives have some validity, they must both be qualified.

Public Welfare Expenditure in OECD Countries: Towards a Reconciliation of Inconsistent Findings

In this paper some of the reasons for inconsistent findings on the determinants of welfare expenditure and outcome in the advanced capitalist countries are examined. Particular attention is paid to the work of Harold Wilensky and John Stephens on the grounds that their research illustrates some key methodological and theoretical differences in this field. Several problems of conceptualization and measurement in their work are identified. Hypotheses are derived from their work and tested against data on seventeen OECD countries at five time points from 1960 to 1980. The conclusion is drawn that inconsistent findings in the field derive from different conceptualizations and operationalizations of key terms and, more fundamentally, from different conceptions of the welfare state.

Are Suicide Bombers Suicidal

Recent work by Ariel Merari argues that, while certain contextual factors increase the probability of suicide attacks, they do not explain why particular individuals become suicide bombers. Merari seeks to demonstrate that suicide bombers are motivated by an unusually high prevalence of depression and suicidal tendencies. This article questions the representativeness of Meraris sample. It raises the possibility that interviewer and contextual effects contaminated his findings. Finally, it presents evidence that challenges Meraris conclusions. This evidence is drawn from interviews with immediate family members and close friends of a 25 percent random sample of Palestinian suicide bombers who conducted attacks between 2000 and 2005. Based on their analysis, the authors question the value of a psychological approach to the study of suicide bombers and assert the importance of focusing on the political and social roots of the phenomenon.

Israeli State Violence during the Second Intifada: Combining New Institutionalist and Rational Choice Approaches

In attempting to explain Israels retaliatory policies toward Palestinian violence, new institutionalist and rational choice theories vie for dominance. This article argues that both approaches can contribute to understanding the severity of Israels response if they are viewed as nested explanations appropriate to different threat levels. The article makes its case using data from 74 interviews with senior Israeli counterterrorist experts (2006–07), counts of Israeli and Palestinian fatalities due to state and collective violence (1987–2007), and a database of collective violence events during the Second Intifada (2000–05). Institutional effects are evident at low threat levels, as new institutionalists predict, but these effects are overwhelmed at high threat levels, as rational choice theorists assert.

The Return of the Native: A Cultural and Social‐Psychological Critique of Durkheim's Suicide Based on the Guarani‐Kaiowá of Southwestern Brazil

This article argues that Durkheims theory of suicide is deficient because of its monocausal reasoning, its conception of suicide as an action without subjects, and its characterization of preliterate societies as harmonious, self-contained, and morphologically static. It shows that these deficiencies can be overcome by including cultural and social-psychological considerations in the analysis of suicide—specifically by including culture as a causal force in its own right and drawing links between social circumstances, cultural beliefs and values, and individual dispositions. The authors make their case by analyzing ethnographic and quantitative data on the preliterate Guarani-Kaiowá of southwestern Brazil, one of the most suicide-prone groups in the world.

The emigration potential of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Russia: recent survey results.

This paper reviews the factors that have recently elevated the emigration potential of Russia and Eastern Europe. It also assesses that potential in the light of a unique February 1991 survey of 4,269 respondents conducted in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Bearing in mind the volatility of the situation in the region, it is demonstrated that the proportion of adults wishing to emigrate from each of these countries in February 1991 varied from a low of 2 per cent in Lithuania to a high of 13 per cent in Poland. Total emigration potential from the region is estimated to have been between 10.2 and 16.7 million. An analysis of bivariate relationships shows that there were negligible rural-urban and educational differences between potential emigrants and others, while young men who were pessimistic about their countrys economic and political prospects tended more than others to desire emigration. A multiple regression analysis indicates that age and pessimism concerning democracy are the main factors that were independently associated with desire to emigrate.

Rational choice and the political bases of changing Israeli counterinsurgency strategy.

Israeli counterinsurgency doctrine holds that the persistent use of credible threat and disproportionate military force results in repeated victories that eventually teach the enemy the futility of aggression. The doctrine thus endorses classical rational choice theorys claim that narrow cost-benefit calculations shape fixed action rationales. This paper assesses whether Israels strategic practice reflects its counterinsurgency doctrine by exploring the historical record and the association between Israeli and Palestinian deaths due to low-intensity warfare. In contrast to the expectations of classical rational choice theory, the evidence suggests that institutional, cultural and historical forces routinely override simple cost-benefit calculations. Changing domestic and international circumstances periodically cause revisions in counterinsurgency strategy. Credible threat and disproportionate military force lack the predicted long-term effect.

Opportunity, Culture and Agency: Influences on Fatah and Hamas Strategic Action during the Second Intifada

Students of social movements dispute the causal weight they should accord political opportunities, political enculturation and human agency in influencing strategic action. They have made little progress advancing the debate on empirical grounds. The authors of this article reviewed English and Arabic newspaper accounts, read organizational histories and documents and interviewed key informants to explain variation in strategic action by the two main Palestinian militant organizations, Fatah and Hamas, during the second intifada or uprising against the Israeli state and people (2000—5). The authors show how perceived political opportunities and political enculturation influenced the strategic action of Fatah and Hamas leaders but find little independent effect of agency leading them to question whether recent claims about the supposed primacy of human agency in social movement strategic action may be exaggerated.