Political opposition,external threats,and elite responses: analyzing domestic security policy in post-Rose Revolution Georgia

In the years since the 2003 Rose Revolution, the popularly elected leadership of the Republic of Georgia has responded to organized protests with a variety of repressive tactics. These reactions suggest that former challengers to authoritarian elites may utilize similar methods of retaining power during crisis periods. Yet, the alleged involvement of agencies of the Russian Federation in fomenting domestic instability has also occupied a central position in the national security policies of the outgoing Saakashvili government. These conditions both preceded and were reinforced by the South Ossetia War of August 2008. This article proposes a theoretical model that represents the intervening effect of interstate conflicts on state–society relations in Georgia from 2003 to present. It presents several hypotheses and possible indicators, data sources, and techniques for analyzing the interaction between characteristics of opposition groups, external threats, and the domestic security practices of contemporary Georgian political elites.     

Does counterterrorism spending reduce the incidence and lethality of terrorism? A quantitative analysis of 34 countries

Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, the US government increased its counterterrorism (CT) funding and created several Federal Agencies such as the Department of Homeland Security; Transportation Security Administration; and National Counterterrorism Center. Similarly, the 7 July 2005, London bombings also compelled the British government to increase its CT funding. These examples illustrate a phenomenon that when states experience terrorism, they dramatically increase public safety spending in order to reduce or eliminate the incidents of and casualties resulting from acts of terror. Using statistical data collected from 34 countries covering nine years, this article examines recent CT spending increases. Critically, the authors explore whether recent public safety expenditures can measurably reduce the number of domestic and international terrorist attacks. The implications of their findings should be salient for policy-makers’ assessments of their countries’ current CT strategies and policies concerning their respective Intelligence and Security Communities.     

Tabular aids for fitting weibull moment estimates

Moment estimators for the parameters of the Weibull distribution are considered in the context of analysis of field data. The data available are aggregated, with individual failure times not recorded. In this case, the complexity of the likelihood function argues against the use of maximum-likelihood estimation, particularly for relatively large sets of data, and moment estimators are a reasonable alternative. In this article, we derive the asymptotic covariance matrix of the moment estimators, and provide listings for BASIC computer programs which generate tables useful for calculation of the estimates as well as for estimating the asymptotic covariance matrix using aggregated data.