Abstract
Countries, governments, and cultures must move through each of the stages of human development (Commons et al. (1998). Developmental Review, 8(3), 237–278) sequentially. Each stage must be achieved, and failure to recognize this may be a major contributing factor to the rise of terrorism and crime in a society. For example, in a war-like situation, an occupying country’s attempts to have the conquered country jump developmental stages will fail more often than not, possibly resulting in negative sentiment and terrorist behavior among those in the occupied country. Although the US is great at winning small wars such as those against Afghanistan, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, and Panama, it fails at making and maintaining peace and, in turn, creating democracies. This article will address the reasons why this may be, and what can be done to improve upon our current “hit or miss” policies. We will address some of the developmental stages of the tasks of governing, and some of the means by which government activities may move up in stage. Finally, we suggest reasons why the US has had its various successes in preventing or reducing terrorism when it helped itself and other countries move up in stage and failures when it did not, and why governments in general should move up to more complex stages to reduce the number of terrorists generated.
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Commons, M.L., Goodheart, E.A. Consider Stages of Development in Preventing Terrorism: Does Government Building Fail and Terrorism Result when Developmental Stages of Governance are Skipped?. J Adult Dev 14, 91–111 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-007-9016-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-007-9016-5