Lori J. Underwood – författare

Cosmopolitanism and the Arab Spring: Foundations for the Decline of Terrorism analyzes the role of social media in the Arab Spring within a specific philosophical framework. Kantian cosmopolitanism, enhanced by social media and Internet communications technologies, offers a solid explanation of the political evolution of the Arab Spring. These technologies have given rise to a new cosmopolitanism that rejects alternating dichotomies in favor of an evolving consciousness of our status as citizens of a global commonwealth with a tiered set of duties to everyone within our sphere of influence. Cosmopolitanism as extended through social media has the potential to break down barriers to aid those who suffer under unjust governmental systems and to yield real and sustainable progress toward the amelioration of both tyranny and terrorism. Cosmopolitanism and the Arab Spring is recommended for political philosophy courses as well as interdisciplinary capstone courses exploring problems in the modern world.

There is a great deal of popular belief in the connection between religious extremism and terrorism. There are also numerous statistical analyses that reject that connection. Upon a deeper analysis, however, both of these approaches are oversimplifications. To adequately answer the question of whether there is a significant causal relationship between organizational religions and terrorism, it is necessary to take a closer and more critical look at the ideologies and practices of both religious practitioners and terrorists. It is important to focus on the causality of the relationship, because, if there is no causal relationship between religion and terrorism, then removing adherence to religion will do nothing to ameliorate the problem of terrorism. The Root of All Evil? Religious Perspectives on Terrorism conducts this kind of analysis.