Diplomazia creativa al servizio di strategie di nicchia di una piccola potenza

In the year marking the centenary since the foundation of the Azerbaijani Diplomatic Service, Baku’s foreign policy is increasingly characterised by a broader understanding of diplomacy, shaped by the gradual yet steady expansion of both areas and the tools for intervention. Guided by the attempt to develop a ‘niche strategy’ aiming at safeguarding and promoting Azerbaijani national interest, the Humanitarian Diplomacy emerges as a privileged field for Baku to adopt a pro-active and creative foreign policy. Building upon the debate around the interests behind the aid-providing activities of traditional and emerging donors, the article aims at introducing the motivations and the aims behind Azerbaijani aid policy. In particular, it aims at demonstrating that Baku’s Humanitarian Diplomacy aims chiefly at achieving immaterial benefits, having to do with international prestige and with the construction and international projection of a Good International Citizenship

Conceptualizing Terrorist Violence and Suicide Bombing

This article presents an analysis of different approaches to terrorist violence, with a particular focus on suicide terrorism, using the above mentioned levels of analysis as a conceptual framework to organize this study. In doing so, the article focuses primarily on four selected studies: Khashan\u27s theory of collective Palestinian frustration operating at individual and structural levels; Pape\u27s strategic theory of suicide terrorism, Devji\u27s notion of global jihad, and Hammes\u27 conceptualization of suicide terrorism as one of the strategies of Fourth Generation Warfare, all studied at a strategic level. Drawing on these analyses, as well as on Tilly, this article attempts to address the question of whether suicide terrorism represents a coherent phenomenon, and whether there is, or may be, a generalized pattern which could account for all possible causes of martyrdom operations