Using the concept of chronocentrism, the doctrine that what is current must somehow be superior to what went on before, that ideas, scholars and scholarship inevitably become stale and discredited over time, the author argues the rise and attraction of nodal governance and nodal security fits the definition of chronocentrism. The recent ‘discovery’ of a multitude of (semi-)public agencies and private sector actors performing police functions neglect the fact that many of these agencies and actors have a long standing history (sometimes more than a century) and have been subject of many academic studies. Moreover, these studies are richer in their theoretical foundations because of the explanations they give for different functions, goals, interests, cultures and operational styles of public policing, administrative policing and private policing than much of the current language. In many ways nodal governance and nodal security are new labels for ongoing processes of gradual interweaving of different forms of policing. For this reason the use of these concepts is useful in two ways. First, for policy makers and practitioners. For them the new concepts seem to have a function as a motivational strategy. For instance, what was called increasing cooperation in the justice system (ketensamenwerking) and public-private cooperation in the eighties and nineties are revitalized using new labels. Second, nodal governance and nodal security, in the academic community ‘forces’ us to rethink the very notion of policing. Policing increasingly takes place in hybrid organizations and processes in which boundaries between public administration, public policing, regulatory agencies and private security are blurring.

In recent years it has become popular in political discourse and academic literature to talk about the blurring boundaries between transnational terrorism and organized crime. In addition, the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 have instigated a debate on the link between transnational terrorism and state failure. This article scrutinizes this so-called ‘black hole’ thesis and its relationship to the crime-terror nexus by addressing the political significance of such conceptual blurring within an international context that is increasingly characterized by uncertainty and uncontrollable risks.

This article analyzes the so-called political-criminal nexus in Italy, that is, the relationships of exchange and collusion between politicians and civil servants, on the one hand, and members of organised crime - and specifically Southern Italian mafia - groups on the other. Its main thesis is that the political-criminal nexus in Italy finds nowadays no parallel in any other Western, developed nation, with the possible exception of Japan. The extraordinary intensity of Italy's political-criminal nexus is related to the specificity of Italy's organised crime. This is discussed in the first section of the article. The following ones briefly sketch the evolution of the political-criminal nexus since Italy's Unification in 1861 and then focus on the last thirty years. The recognition of the recent law enforcement successes is complemented by a discussion of the factors that favour the perpetuation of mafia organisations and the political-criminal nexus in the future.

In this article we deal with the role of government in encouraging the decline of radical movements. We use the survey of factors promoting decline reported by Demant et al. (2008a). This overview will be further developed regarding the factor ‘official policy strategies’ on the basis of certain concepts taken from discourse analysis, adapted to counterterrorism and deradicalization strategies by De Graaf in 2009. The question posed is: ‘Which “narrative” can the government tell to encourage the decline of radical groups?’ We will therefore not address the different practical measures in this field, but focus instead on the perception of these official measures by the radicals. We will illustrate this process by means of a case-study: the deradicalization of South Moluccan youths in the 1970s. We will furthermore draw some lines to deradicalization of Jihadist radicals after 2001, also in the Netherlands.

In dit artikel worden vijf arresten uit de periode van december 2007 tot april 2009 besproken. Deze vijf arresten hebben gemeen dat zij alle betrekking hebben op het nationale cultuurbeleid en de bescherming van de taal en de pluriformiteit. Uit de analyse van de vijf besproken arresten blijkt dat het inroepen van het cultuurbelang in het Gemeenschaprecht anno 2008/2009 in principe niet leidt tot een alternatieve toepassing van het Gemeenschapsrecht. Slechts met betrekking tot gerechtvaardigde culturele, taal- of pluriformiteitsgerelateerde eisen die een ‘inherent’ bevoordelend effect hebben, zoals een taaleis ter bescherming van de nationale of officiële taal, of de plicht lokaal nieuws te brengen ter bescherming van de pluriformiteit, wordt een bijzondere positie geaccepteerd. In dergelijke gevallen is immers onvermijdelijk dat marktdeelnemers die in de betreffende lidstaat zijn gevestigd gemakkelijker aan de gestelde eisen kunnen voldoen dan marktdeelnemers die daarbuiten zijn gevestigd.

In deze bijdrage worden verscheidene mogelijkheden voor de burger om te ageren tegen weigeringen om een betaalrekening te openen behandeld. Tevens wordt ingegaan op de beschikbaarheid van betaaldiensten als zodanig en de initiatieven die de Europese Commissie op dat terrein ontplooit.

In een redactioneel artikel geeft de redactie een toelichting op het tijdschriftnummer in kwestie.

Radicalization and terrorism remain areas of special interest in terms of security policies. It’s common knowledge that most of the activities related to radicalization and terrorism heavily rely on the involvement of multiple actors. Therefore, an increased understanding of the underlying social structures is considered to offer important leads for the development of effective countermeasures (in particular when related to demographic, cultural, psychological and other social factors). Yet, the number of empirical network studies in this domain (at least those openly available) that incorporate arithmetic tools known as Social Network Analysis (SNA) remain extremely scarce. In this paper the author presents an exploratory Social Network Analysis of the Hofstad network based on publicly available data. Members of the Hofstad network, a radical Islamist network in the Netherlands, were active recruiters for the violent jihad, spreaded radical propaganda, some attended training camps in Pakistan, and the network was suspected of planning several terrorist attacks on strategic objects and prominent people in the Netherlands. One of the members, Mohammed B., was sentenced to life in prison for murdering the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004. Although the Hofstad network was considered by trial as a terrorist organization in the first instance in 2006, the judgment was reversed on appeal in 2008 when most members were acquitted. As is characteristic of home-grown networks, our analysis indicated that the Hofstad network (N=67) was relatively sparse and decentralized and evolved around a more cohesive core of key players (N=13). The key players were identified based on their central network position and a hierarchical clique analysis. Mohammed B., who had been considered a marginal player by the secret service, turns out to be the most central actor of the network. Although the analysis clearly suggests that quantifying network structures provides actionable intelligence, more research is needed to validate the results.

Ter verbetering van de kwaliteit van de milieuhandhaving zijn in 2005 in de Wet milieubeheer toezichtsinstrumenten ingevoerd en is een amvb met kwaliteitseisen voor handhaving vastgesteld (het BKHM). Planmatigheid, transparantie en voortvarendheid van de milieuhandhaving zijn toegenomen. Toch zijn problemen van versnippering en gebrekkige kwaliteit niet opgelost. Het is nodig geavanceerde risicoanalyses te ontwikkelen, de monitoring te verbeteren en audits in te voeren. De toezichtinstrumenten zijn nuttige stokken achter de deur. Het kabinet wil ze echter afschaffen en de klassieke toezichtsinstrumenten - schorsing, vernietiging en de taakverwaarlozingsregeling – revitaliseren. De ingrepen zijn eerst verantwoord als het informatiemanagement wordt verbeterd, (nog) meer geïnvesteerd wordt in horizontale controle en een kwaliteitsslag wordt gemaakt. Het belang van kwaliteitseisen voor handhaving op grond van de Wabo is relatief. De schaal van de organisaties is vaak niet toereikend. De vraag is of een verplichte regionale omgevingdienst de aangewezen oplossing is.