More than twenty years after the success of the Islamic revolution in Iran, the wave of Islamic radicalism that has engulfed the Middle East since the late 1970s is taking a different course. The mainstream Islamist movements have shifted from the struggle for a supranational Muslim community into a kind of Islamo-nationalism: they want to […]
Terrorist attacks on and since September 11th have stimulated public soul-searching, military and diplomatic responses, and efforts to reform public policy. Both the attacks and responses to them have raised a host of questions about social organization, basic social institutions, how people mobilize amid crises, and how differences of culture and politics shape conflict and cooperation.
This website features an extraordinary and still-expanding collection of essays by leading social scientists from around the country and the world. These are efforts by social scientists to bring theoretical and empirical knowledge to bear on the events of Sept. 11, their precursors, and what comes after.
We have asked the authors of these essays to write against two-week deadlines. Much to their credit they have obliged, even when it is difficult to come by sure knowledge in a time of quickly changing circumstances.
These essays are intended as resources for teachers—especially college and university instructors—who want to address the unfolding events in their courses from the perspectives of the social sciences. We hope they may also serve journalists and others who seek a guide to academic knowledge related to these events. Not least they are for all of us who seek deeper understanding in troubling times.
Ten years after these essays were published, contributors to After September 11 were asked to reflect on what they wrote and to explore what had changed and what remained the same since those harrowing times, resulting in the essay collection 10 Years after September 11.
After September 11
Protecting Afghan Civilians from the Hell of War
by Nicholas Wheeler
We did not start this war. So understand, responsibility for every single casualty in this war, whether they’re innocent Afghans or innocent Americans, rests at the feet of the al Qaeda and the Taliban (Donald H. Rumsfeld, 4 December 2001). Michael Walzer dubbed blaming your enemy for the cruelty of war as the ‘War is […]
After September 11
A Human Rights Approach to Sept. 11
by Kathryn Sikkink
As we try to come to grips with the tragedy of September 11, as individuals and as social scientists, a human rights approach can provide some guidance. A human rights approach always begins with—and has as its essence—a concern with individual victims of rights abuses. We turn first to the victims of the September 11 […]
After September 11
A Roadmap for Afghanistan
by Radha Kumar
As the war in Afghanistan nears its end, and formerly warring Afghan factions work on a future order for the country, the signals are both good and bad. On the positive side, Afghan leaders meeting in Bonn have inched towards a broad-based government that will place humanitarian aid, stabilization and reconstruction at the top of […]
After September 11
Anti-Americanisms, Thick Description, and Collective Action
by Jeffrey Wasserstrom
Recent events have shown all too clearly that one form of anti-Americanism, the virulent and apocalyptic version that inspired the terrorists responsible for September 11, can lead to horrors of enormous magnitude. It would be foolish to assume, though, that every time an individual shouts an anti-American slogan or takes part in an anti-American protest […]
After September 11
Trading Sites—Destroyed, Revealed, Restored
by Daniel Beunza
Abstract How did companies at the Trade Center respond to the destruction brought about by the attack on September 11th? In this paper we look through the concrete and glass facade of the twin towers into the socio-technical networks of people, machines, and ideas that constituted the trading rooms. We follow the traders of an […]
After September 11
After the WTC Disaster: The Sacred, the Profane, and Social Solidarity
by Janet Abu-Lughod
…. What concerns me most about the World Trade Center disaster is the way the social, not the urban, fabric was temporarily reconstructed in the immediate aftermath. Urbanists have a knee-jerk response to “community.” It is a “good” that should be encouraged and nurtured. And in the short run, it was absolutely essential. Some of […]
After September 11
Beyond Conflicting Powers’ Politics
by Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira
It was not only the Cold War that ended with the events of September 11th, but also the centuries’ old Conflicting Powers’ Politics. While the conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union ended in 1989 with the collapse of one of the contenders, international policymakers and analysts continued to behave as if the […]
After September 11
Guarding the Gates in a World on the Move
by Aristide Zolberg
Always on the lookout for opportunities to press their case, anti-immigration advocates lost no time after the attacks of September 11. As one of them pointed out in testimony before the Senate, It seems clear that the 19 terrorists of September 11 were all foreign citizens and entered the United States legally, as tourists, business […]
After September 11
One Size Doesn’t Fit All: Addressing Diversity in the Needs and Development Capacities of Afghan Women, Short and Long-Term
by Margaret Mills
As Barnett Rubin has persuasively argued elsewhere on this website, human security is the key issue linking Afghanistan’s ongoing institutional melt-down, amidst the entanglements of exploitative geopolitics, with Americans’ and Europeans’ own intensified focus on safety and economic security in the aftermath of Sept. 11. Also on this site, Saba Gul Khattak has represented how […]