Given the contradictory reality of a well-developed human rights and humanitarian regime alongside extensive human rights abuses committed in the “Global War on Terror,” the dissertation asks how and why law has shaped contemporary security policy. Focusing on the American case over time, I examine this problem empirically by tracing the changing impact of both international and domestic legal and normative constraints on torture and interrogation, detention and trial, and surveillance practices, culminating in post-9/11 counterterrorism doctrine. I find that policy makers have increasingly violated rules with the adoption of controversial security and intelligence policies, but have simultaneously employed legalistic arguments to evade responsibility for human rights abuses. Using contrasting realist, decisionist, liberal, and constructivist accounts of the nature of state compliance with norms and law found in International Relations and legal scholarship, the dissertation theoretically explains this outcome and with it, law’s ability to moderate national security practice. In so doing, I propose an original reading of law as a permissive constraint, which challenges us to rethink paradigmatic assumptions in a way that accommodates both strategic and normative factors and recognizes the role of practice in giving content to rules.

Given the contradictory reality of a well-developed human rights and humanitarian regime alongside extensive human rights abuses committed in the “Global War on Terror,” the dissertation asks how and why law has shaped contemporary security policy. Focusing on the American case over time, I examine this problem empirically by tracing the changing impact of both international and domestic legal and normative constraints on torture and interrogation, detention and trial, and surveillance practices, culminating in post-9/11 counterterrorism doctrine. I find that policy makers have increasingly violated rules with the adoption of controversial security and intelligence policies, but have simultaneously employed legalistic arguments to evade responsibility for human rights abuses. Using contrasting realist, decisionist, liberal, and constructivist accounts of the nature of state compliance with norms and law found in International Relations and legal scholarship, the dissertation theoretically explains this outcome and with it, law’s ability to moderate national security practice. In so doing, I propose an original reading of law as a permissive constraint, which challenges us to rethink paradigmatic assumptions in a way that accommodates both strategic and normative factors and recognizes the role of practice in giving content to rules.

The aim of the present research was to investigate the issue of loss anxiety within the framework of disability and terror management theory. A questionnaire package was administered to 217 participants twice to examine the effects of mortality salience and disability salience. Besides mortality salience, paralysis salience was found to be effective. Highly conservative participants were becoming more conservative in the paralysis salience and mortality salience conditions. Content analysis was also conducted relating the participants&rsquo / accounts. It was concluded that death and disability were both inducing sadness for the participants. However, this sadness experience could have two different formats. The relation between experimental manipulations and global sadness accounts was not significant. However, the relationship between experimental manipulations and individual sadness accounts was significant. Participants in the mortality salience condition were experiencing less individual sadness than expected. In contrast, participants in the paralysis salience condition were experiencing more individual sadness than expected. It is concluded that death may not be the one and only fundamental fear as terror management theory suggests. Disability might be as fearful as death. A theoretical model is proposed for the alternative experimental manipulation in terror management theory studies. According to this conceptualization, an experimental manipulation could be successful if it satisfies the following three conditions: moderately fearful, highly imaginable/easily available and highly self-relevant. Any kind of loss which satisfies these conditions might result in cultural worldview defense. The threatening nature of disability might provide one more reason relating the importance of a disability-friendly environment.

<p>Abstract</p><p>This paper aims to determine the validity of the hypothesis that the effective and eloquent use of language can result in shaping beliefs and altering people’s perception of certain phenomena. In order to explore this hypothesis, a speech given by George W. Bush concerning the Iraq war is examined, followed by a brief study of two corpora, the Time Magazine Corpus and the Corpus of Contemporary American English, where the collocationpatterns of the words Iraq, evil and terror are examined. The paper starts by presenting the main concepts upon which this study is based, i.e. mental frames, the co-operative principle and conversational maxims and finally, various rhetoric devices. An analysis section follows, where George Bush’s speech is examined with the help of the concepts mentioned above and the analysis continues with the corpora-study. One of the conclusions drawn in this study is that, indeed, it is possible that language can be successfully used in order to achieve political means, and that there seems to be a shift in the American public’s perception of concepts such as Iraq and terror, visible in the use of language. However, it cannot be said with certainty whether the Bush Administration has managed to dominate public discourse, through a study as minor as this one.</p>

This paper is about the re-establishment of a professional, that is, a neutral perspective on terror; most research on terrorism is partisan in terms of biased culturalist studies on the ‘index patients’ of an international conflict. At the same time, there is very little research on the forms and functions of so called anti-terror measures which are commonly treated as acts of self-defence. In contrast to this, from a sociological point of view we find that it takes two to make the terror: an act of violence, and an act of labelling this violence as terror, too. Thus, we argue that Western societies should take full responsibility for their own perceptions, attributions, and actions within an international conflict system, instead of continuing to externalize these. Finally, we state that sociology has a demand for research on the applicability of the concepts of systemic therapy on the field of the intervention into stable inter-cultural conflict systems.

Gothic literature has a tradition of dealing with dark subjects, themes and motifs, as well as depicting fear in different shapes and forms. Dani Cavallaro describes dark fiction in terms of the "aesthetic of the unwelcome". The philosopher Edmund Burke separates the beautiful from the sublime and writes that everything that is capable of producing a terror of pain and death is a source of the sublime. In her essay "On the Supernatural in Poetry", Ann Radcliffe draws a clear line between the concepts of terror and horror and distinguished them as fundamentally different. In this essay, I define the terms horror and terror by following up the research surrounding Radcliffes statement. I begin with the concept of terror that Burke and other writers define as an elevated and positive feeling, then move on to account for the discussion surrounding Matthew Lewis' novel The Monk. It was considered pornographic, lewd and outright dangerous in its obscenity with blatant depictions of violence, gore and sex. Since Radcliffe and Lewis were contemporary I reckon that it is profitable to explore this tension further in my essay. From Radcliffe and Lewis I find out how the concepts of terror and horror have developed with time and how modern theorists conceive this distinction.

Stress at work, apart from back pain, is the second work- related health problem most often met in the European Union. 28 % of employees with that problem. Stress at work causes more than a quarter of work- related health disorders. Employees of all professions encounter with that stress at work. Teachers make no exception. They often feel emotional stress because of unsufficient social support, they encounter with heavy workload. Social insulation or social elimination, work unappreciated, threat making or disruptions of inviduality are situations that can be measured as negative behavior at work. Manifestations of negative behavior predispose emerging of psychological terror. Aim of the study: is to explore and evaluate frequency of stress and psychological terror experienced at work by teachers working at Kaunas City Gymnasiums and secondary schools, and also the factors that cause such stress. Methods: information has been gathered using questionnaires for 475 teachers at Kaunas City gymnasiums and secondary schools. Information given in the questionnaires has been evaluated statistically using SPSS 11.5 for Windows program. Results: it has been found that 25.5 % of teachers suffer from psychological terror at work. 3 % of respondents feel psychological terror daily or several times a week. 80.1 % of educators feel stress. 14 % of teachers feel much stress. Most of tested persons (67.7 %) have good health, 13.4 %- very good, 14 %- poor. No one told that his health is... [to full text]

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Terror management theory predicts that when people are reminded of their own mortality (mortality salience), they cling more strongly to cultural worldviews which provide them with a sense of security (Greenberg et al., 1986). For some people, this reaction to mortality salience also involves derogation of, and discrimination against, “other” people and cultures. An increasing tendency towards sensationalism in the news media has resulted in even more frequent reminders of vulnerability and death (e.g., terrorism, violent crime, health and safety concerns). In two experiments involving 868 introductory psychology students, the present research examined the extent to which their (a) support for authoritarian social policies relevant to Canada and (b) authoritarian attitudes in general are influenced by mortality salience. Specifically, right-wing authoritarianism, attachment security, and political orientation were measured in participants in both experiments. Participants were then prompted to think about either their own mortality or about another aversive experience having nothing to do with mortality. Next, participants were asked their opinions regarding authoritarian social policies (Experiment 1) and beliefs indicative of right-wing authoritarianism (Experiment 2). Multiple regression, analysis of variance, and t-tests revealed that individuals with (a) high pre-existing right-wing authoritarian attitudes and (b) conservative political beliefs increased their support for authoritarian social policies following mortality salience (Experiment 1). In contrast, individuals with (a) high attachment security and (b) moderate political beliefs decreased their support for right-wing authoritarian beliefs following mortality salience (Experiment 2), although the former relationship only approached statistical significance. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for the news media, for social policies and political opinions, and for social justice.

Der Pavor nocturnus (nächtlicher Angstschreck) ist eine zwei bis drei Stunden nach dem Einschlafen auftretende Parasomnie (schlafbegleitende Störung) im Vorschulalter. Die Prognose der 5-15 Minuten dauernden Episoden ist auch ohne spezifische Therapie sehr gut. Nächtliches Erwachen mit Angst und vegetativer Begleitreaktion wird erstmals kasuistisch bei einem Cocker spaniel beschrieben und lässt sich von allgemeiner Ängstlichkeit und anderen Formen aggressiven Verhaltens gut abgrenzen. Wie beim humanen Pendant hat die Störung offensichtlich eine gute Prognose und bedarf keiner speziellen Therapie. / The pavor nocturnus (night terrors) is a parasomnia (sleep associated disorder) in pre-school age occurring two to three hours after falling asleep. The prognosis of the episodes lasting 5-15 minutes is excellent even without specific treatment. Nocturnal awakening with anxiety and autonomic symptoms is presented for first time in a Cocker Spaniel and can be well separated from trait anxiety or other forms of aggressive behavior. Like the human equivalent the disorder obviously has a good prognosis and does not need particular treatment.