Beyond Territory and Scarcity: Exploring Conflicts over Natural Resource Management
| Author | Helga Malmin Binningsbø |
| DOI | 10.1177/002234330604300613 |
| Published date | 01 November 2006 |
| Date | 01 November 2006 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
response. Francisco argues that massacres can
produce a ‘repression backlash’ that ultimately
weakens states. Zwerman and Steinhoff argue that
groups sometimes seek out repression to provoke
the state into actions that will delegitimate state
authorities. Johnston and Ferree, in separate
essays, focus on speech acts as challenges to
regimes and identify ridicule and social stigmati-
zation as forms of ‘soft repression’. Koopmans
shows how the public discourse either permits or
blocks states from using violent repression on
certain challengers, while Ball shows how media
distortions make it difficult to get good numbers
on government repression. The volume closes
with a valuable debate in which Tilly presents four
plausible and empirically well-supported mechan-
isms for explaining social protest. Lichbach chal-
lenges this by presenting ten highly convincing
mechanisms by which military action against
terrorist-harboring states will reduce terrorist
mobilization, and then ten equally convincing
mechanisms by which it will increase it. Lichbach
argues that it is devilishly difficult to specify
which mechanisms will be activated and dictate
outcomes in any specific circumstances. This
volume gives us many mechanisms of protest/
repression dynamics to consider and advances
considerably our understanding of those
dynamics.
Jack A. Goldstone
Engene, Jan Oskar, 2004. Terrorism in
Western Europe: Explaining the Trends Since 1950.
Cheltenham & Northampton, MA: Edward
Elgar. 200 pp. ISBN 1843765829.
Based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, this
book describes a major events dataset on terror-
ism in Western Europe (TWEED) covering the
period 1950–95. In a time when much focus is
on transnational terrorist threats, Engene reminds
us that terrorism in Western Europe has primarily
been conducted by domestic groups. The number
of groups and countries involved is considerable.
Of the 18 countries covered, only 2, Iceland and
Finland, never experienced any form of terrorism.
A total of 188 different terrorist organizations are
identified. The data are compiled from a single
source of information, Keesing’s Record of World
Events. Keesing’s produces brief reports of politi-
cal events globally, based on a broad set of
primary news sources. Interestingly, the overall
trends in terrorism in Western Europe seem to
follow global trends in armed conflict incidence.
From low levels of terrorism in the 1950s and
1960s, the number of terrorist events increased
dramatically from the early 1970s and through
the 1980s. After the end of the Cold War, the
number of events and, eventually, active organiz-
ations and countries affected started to decline.
While Engene does not provide exact numbers
beyond 1995, he concludes that the declining
trend continues up to recent times with terrorism
primarily affecting countries with protracted
ethnic conflicts, such as Spain, France and the
UK. Another interesting trend is that there has
not been the general increase in right-wing ter-
rorist violence in the past decade that was pre-
dicted by many observers. Engene concludes that
ethnic heterogeneous countries seem to have a
greater risk of terrorism and that ‘ideological ter-
rorism’ is more likely in countries with social and
political injustices.
Henrik Urdal
Gausset, Quentin; Michael A. Whyte &
Torben Birch-Thomsen, eds, 2005. Beyond Terri-
tory and Scarcity: Exploring Conflicts over Natural
Resource Management. Uppsala: Nordic Africa
Institute. 218 pp. ISBN 9171065407.
Gausset, Whyte & Birch-Thomsen have edited a
volume consisting of nine case studies from
Africa. The chapters discuss the shortcomings of
a neo-Malthusian understanding of the relation-
ship between natural resources and population
growth in sub-Saharan Africa. By exploring
different locations in nine African countries –
Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Democratic
Republic of Congo, Ghana, Lesotho, Niger,
Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan – the contributors
show how people cope with challenges brought
about by population growth. While the common
view of Africa is of a continent plagued by
resource scarcity and conflict over resource access
due to increasing population density, this book
provides more complex knowledge on these
issues. The authors stress a move ‘beyond territory
and scarcity’, arguing a stronger emphasis on
social, political and cultural contexts surrounding
natural resources. Some chapters admit scarcity
challenges but emphasize various adaptation
strategies, such as seeking wage-labour oppor-
tunities in Lesotho and intensification and diver-
sification of crops in Nigeria. Other chapters
discuss conflicts that appear to be over resources
BOOK NOTES 753
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