Friday, 16 October 2009

A Sociological Understanding

Ever wondered how suicide attacks by Islamist movements can be explained?

Domenico Torsini ("A Sociological Understanding of Suicide Attacks") suggests that they

"... can be explained by following the consequentialist version of rationality, however modified (P1+P2+P3+P4+P5/P5'+P6/P6'). To begin with, we have to focus on the political and cultural context in which organizations act (Bloom, 2005; Elster, 2006; Gambetta, 2006b; Pape, 2006). This means that the situational mechanisms made up of the influence exercised by specific political opportunities and resources on emergent organizations have to be clarified (Della Porta, 1995; Della Porta and Diani, 2006; Hafez ..."

Well, maybe not ...

PS: Thank you, Trevor, for letting me know about this.

1 comment:

Trevor Wilson said...

Brilliantly useless.

I made mention of this in a presentation once, people sat mutely. They were so polite, and unwilling to give the above the scorn it deserves.