Leaderless Resistance

Simson Garfinkel has published an interesting paper on "leaderless resistance," a form of terrorism (among other activities) that dispenses not merely with hierarchical organization but with virtually all organization altogether. I can't endorse everything in Garfinkel's analysis—I have hard time imagining, for example, how the government could treat political violence "as a public health problem." But it's a thoughtful treatment of a complicated subject, and it brings a refreshing skepticism to such topics as the Earth Liberation Front.

[Via Smart Mobs.]