Terrorism

10 Key excerpts on "Terrorism"

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  The Geographical Dimensions of Terrorism

  • Susan L. Cutter, Douglas B. Richardson, Thomas J. Wilbanks(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  One can and should draw distinctions between all of these movements and what happened on September 11, 2001, but to date there has been little effort to stake out where and how those distinctions might be drawn. Focusing attention on the spatial dimensions of Terrorism can help in this regard, for meaningful distinctions among and between violent insurgencies cannot be made without consideration of the contexts out of which violent antisystemic movements emerge, and the circumstances under which particular violent actions are perpetrated. Taking the spaces of Terrorism seriously is thus important not only for understanding the development of particular problems; it can help clarify the normative foundations on which future policies can and should be based.

  3.2 GEOGRAPHIES OF INCLUSION/EXCLUSION

  COLIN FLINT

  THIS ESSAY EXPLORES one component of the root causes of Terrorism, the processes that create a binary of inclusion/exclusion and the spatial manifestation of that binary—the geography of inclusion and exclusion. Inclusion and exclusion refer to control over access to political institutions (such as state citizenship), acceptance in particular identities (the American nation, for example), plus the ability to participate in the economic livelihood of the place. The geography of inclusion/exclusion refers to the way borders and the territories they define facilitate both participation and membership in identifiable groups, as well as noninvolvement and exclusion. For example, political borders and sovereign territory define insiders and outsiders (into such categories as citizens and aliens) by controlling mobility. Economic development may facilitate wealth generation by some groups (citizens), while impoverishing others by altering access to land or capital, for example.

  The attacks of 9/11 were the most deadly in a series of terrorist acts that changed the relevant scale of inclusion/exclusion from the nation-state to the global geopolitical system. In other words, national separatism no longer appeared to be the main motivator of Terrorism. Rather, it was reaction to the norms and geographies of the global geopolitical system that was the root causes of this Terrorism.

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  Dynamics of Identification and Conflict

  Anthropological Encounters

  • Markus Virgil Hoehne, Echi Christina Gabbert, John R. Eidson(Authors)
  • 2025(Publication Date)
  • Berghahn Books

    (Publisher)

  The term Terrorism implies unpredictable, politically motivated violence perpetrated by a small group or individual actors. Terrorism can thus be viewed as the counterpart to state terror, which is the systematic oppression of alterna- tive political views and the use of unpredictable and systematic violence against the population. the topography of Terrorism • 143 Again and again, the fear of Terrorism leads to faulty assessments of scale and danger and thus continuously eliminates spaces for non-violent political confrontation. Conflict research has shown that acts of Terrorism may result in heightened control over the society by the government and thus never bring about the freedoms that the acts were committed to achieve. The employed scale then also suggests a group size that is often hard to grasp. An act of vio- lence committed by a Muslim activist is astonishingly hoisted to the global level immediately, as if all other considerations of scale were completely irrelevant. In turn, this immediate elevation endows such an act of Terrorism (especially since 9/11/2001) with great allure, as the individual actors gain a disproportion- ate amount of notoriety, which would not be possible if they faced an ordinary trial or if they engaged in peaceful political confrontations. The marking of a person or of a conflict as ‘terrorist’ immediately elevates the event or person to the global level and thereby frequently triggers a military response. Against this backdrop, other conflicts, e.g. those taking place without the use of physical violence in the streets or in a courtroom, no longer are viewed worth much consideration; they are downscaled. Nevertheless, the term Terrorism cannot simply be discarded as a ‘diffuse cat- egory’; rather, it represents one of the most important global political concepts today. It connects different levels that can be considered scales.

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  Examining Political Violence

  Studies of Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Internal War

  • David Lowe, Austin Turk, Dilip K. Das, David Lowe, Austin Turk, Dilip K. Das(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The definition proposed here states that Terrorism is the intentional use of, or threat to use, violence against civilians or against civilian targets to attain political aims. This definition is based on three important elements: 1. The essence of the activity—the use of, or threat to use, violence. According to this definition, an activity that does not involve vio-lence or a threat of violence will not be defined as Terrorism (includ-ing nonviolent protest, e.g., strikes, peaceful demonstrations, tax revolts, etc.). 2. The aim of the activity is always political—namely, the goal is to attain political objectives: changing the regime, changing the peo-ple in power, changing social or economic policies, and so on. In the absence of a political aim, the activity in question will not be defined as Terrorism. A violent activity against civilians that has no political aim is, at most, an act of criminal delinquency, a felony, or simply an act of insanity unrelated to Terrorism. Some scholars tend to add ideological or religious aims to the list of political aims. The advantage of this definition, however, is that it is as short and exhaustive as possible. The concept of “political aim” is sufficiently broad to include these goals as well. The motivation—whether ideo-logical, religious, or something else—behind the political objective is irrelevant for the purpose of defining Terrorism. In this context, this statement by Duvall and Stohl deserves mention: “Motives are entirely irrelevant to the concept of political Terrorism. Most analysts fail to recognize this and, hence, tend to discuss certain motives as logical or necessary aspects of Terrorism. But they are not. At best, they are empirical regularities associated with Terrorism. More often they simply confuse analysis” (Schmidt, 1984, p. 100). 13 Defining Terrorism 3. The targets of Terrorism are civilians.

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  Constructions of Terrorism

  An Interdisciplinary Approach to Research and Policy

  • Michael Stohl, Dr. Richard Burchill, Scott Howard Englund, Michael Stohl, Dr. Richard Burchill, Scott Howard Englund(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • University of California Press

    (Publisher)

  38 Terrorism is the illegal use of highly visible and well-publicized violence against civilian targets to achieve some political purpose. The key defining feature of Terrorism is its inherently political nature. No matter who uses it, Terrorism is a tactic used to influence politics. Popular discourse makes three mistakes when conceptualizing terror-ism. The first is the idea that Terrorism creates fear because of the violent impact it has on the public. The second is that Terrorism is used almost exclusively to characterize actions of individuals and nonstate actors—not states. Finally, and probably most controversially, labeling certain organiza-tions “terrorist groups” gives the inaccurate perception that these groups exist and are motivated primarily by the use of violence. All of these popular misconceptions of Terrorism flow from the same flaw, the belief that Terrorism is a definable, distinct social phenomenon. It is not. Rather, Terrorism is a tactic used by a broad range of actors—includ-ing individuals, groups, insurgencies, proto-states (such as ISIS/Daesh), and states—to bring about a political result. Conceptualizing Terrorism by focusing on the type of violence that is used—that is, often spectacular or extreme forms of violence against civilians—causes us to ask all the wrong questions: Why do people use this form of violence? What psychological factors led to this result? How can we dissuade them from becoming vio-lent? All of these questions distract society from the far more uncomfort-able and intractable problem of understanding and addressing the political grievances that are causing the violence. Using a conception of Terrorism that explains and emphasizes the role of politics would help to undo a great deal of the public misunderstanding about this form of political violence and bring more clarity to discussions about how to combat it. 3. Terrorism as Tactic David H. Schanzer

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  Terrorism

  The Philosophical Issues

  • I. Primoratz(Author)
  • 2004(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  The success of any An earlier, much shorter version of this chapter was published as: C.A.J. Coady, ‘Terrorism,’ in Lawrence C. Becker and Charlotte B. Becker (eds.), Encyclopedia of Ethics, second edition (New York and London: Routledge, 2001), vol. 3, pp. 1696–9. © Routledge/Taylor & Francis Books, Inc. 2001. Reproduced by permission. 4 C.A.J. (Tony) Coady such analysis must be judged both by its degree of fit with such contours and its contribution to specific and more general moral debates about violence. This latter aspect is always particularly significant in the discussion of political concepts since efforts at conceptual clarification alone in this arena can seem arid without reference to their moral and political impact. Definitions abroad in the theoretical literature, of which there have been estimated to be more than 100, 1 fall into several groups emphasizing different aspects of the phenomena commonly referred to as terrorist. Nearly all of them take it that Terrorism is, or involves, violence of a political nature as opposed to mere, as it were, mundane criminal violence, though most legal regimes would also count terrorist acts as illegal. Beyond this, they differ in the stress they put upon such things as the following. (a) The effect of extreme fear, either as intended or as achieved: Definitions that focus on this element are influenced by the reference to terror in the word itself and by certain aspects of the history of its use. They sometimes go beyond the fear effect to incorporate further strategic goals that the fear is intended to produce, such as chan- ging government policy in the community to which the victims belong. (b) An attack upon the state from within: Here all violent internal attacks upon the state from political motives are regarded as terrorist and the state’s own employment of violence cannot be terrorist.

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  Terrorism's Unanswered Questions

  • Adam B. Lowther, Beverly Lindsay, Adam B. Lowther, Beverly Lindsay(Authors)
  • 2008(Publication Date)
  • Praeger

    (Publisher)

  And last is the political or ideological reason for which this violence is being committed. To better explicate this definition, the aspects of the definition are treated separately. The reasons for including each of the definitional characteristics are also explained. Finally, additional characteristics of Terrorism are explained and explored. DEFINITION AND ILLUSTRATION OF Terrorism Use of Violence First and foremost, the author considers Terrorism to be a subclassification of political violence, which in turn is a subclassification of violence. This relationship is illustrated by Figure 2.1. Political violence can be defined as the use or threat of violence for political purposes. Terrorism also requires the threat or use of violence for political purposes. As such, Terrorism and political violence have two common defining characteristics. Terrorism and political violence are different, however, in the choice of targets and the creation and exploitation of fear. While all Terrorism is political violence, not all political violence is Terrorism. The use or threat of violence is integral to the definition of Terrorism. The threat of violence is all that is necessary for an act to be Terrorism. For example, a threatened bombing, which is done to create fear in noncombatants for political reasons, need 16 Terrorism’S UNANSWERED QUESTIONS Figure 2.1 Concentric Violence never explode for the act to be considered Terrorism. In a similar vein, the initial vio- lent act need not be successful for the strategic goal to be accomplished and Terrorism to have occurred. In other words, if the September 11 planes had all crashed into Pennsylvania fields, the acts would have been successful due to the threat that hijack- ings posed on the security of the United States as well as the safety of the transporta- tion system.

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  Political Terrorism

  A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature

  • A.J. Jongman(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  A universal definition of Terrorism has been offered by R. P. Hoffman, who 4 POLITICAL Terrorism dedicated an entire doctoral dissertation to this problem. He interviewed experts on Terrorism and compiled a dozen discrete factors describing the central characteristics of the subject. Our procedure has been comparable to his, although we used questionnaires rather than interviews and our sample was somewhat broader than his. Some of the definitional elements we identified are the same; we both refer to fear, purpose, and violence. My definition places more stress on victims and target audiences, but then his definition is not as long as mine. Hoffman's conceptual effort led him to the following proposed definition: Terrorism is a purposeful human political activity which is directed toward the creation of a general climate of fear, and is designed to influence, in ways desired by the protagonist, other human beings and, through them, some course of events. 6 This is certainly a more elegant definition than mine, though one might criticize it for a certain vagueness or question whether the climate of fear had to be general. However, rather than criticize this particular definition, I would like to acquaint the reader with the criticism which my definition evoked. There were several kinds of criticism and also some proposed solutions. Unfortunately, the solutions offered were often contradictory. One of the few aspects many agreed upon was that my definition was too long. A simple definition is unquestionably preferable to a wordy one, yet the price of parsimony should not be a lack of precision. In the following pages I shall discuss the main reactions of respondents to the definition I proposed in 1984.

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  Policing Terrorism

  Research Studies into Police Counterterrorism Investigations

  • David Lowe(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Seriously intimidating a population. 2. Unduly compelling a government or international organization to perform or abstain from performing any act. 3. Seriously destabilizing or destroying the fundamental political, con-stitutional, economic, or social structures of a country or an interna-tional organization. One can see the similarity between the framework decision’s Terrorism definition to section 1 of the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000 regarding what the aim must be and to whom the action must be directed. Where the framework decision is different, it is in specifying the criminal acts that, along with the presence of the other provisions, amounts to an act of Terrorism. Canadian Definition of Terrorism Section 83.01(b) of the Canadian Criminal Code defines Terrorism as an act or omission, in or outside Canada, that is committed A. In whole or in part for a political, religious, or ideological purpose, objective or cause. B. In whole or in part with the intention of intimidating the public, or a segment of the public, with regard to its security, including its eco-nomic security, or compelling a person, a government, or a domestic or an international organization to do or to refrain from doing any act, whether the public or the person, government or organization is inside or outside Canada. That intentionally: A. Causes death or serious bodily harm to a person by the use of violence. B. Endangers a person’s life. C. Causes a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or any segment of the public. 11 Legal Definition of Terrorism D. Causes substantial property damage, whether to public or private property, if causing such damage is likely to result in the conduct or harm referred to in any of clauses (A) to (C).

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  Rethinking Terrorism

  Terrorism, Violence and the State

  • Colin Wight(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Political Violence: Situating Terrorism 113 become so concerned with their activity that they put pressure on governments to intervene. When the criminal use of terror does generate widespread public concern, a government crackdown on the criminal activity through the organizations of state is often bad for business. Indeed, criminals will generally keep their use of terror at relatively low levels to avoid unwanted public attention. The boundaries between criminal activity and politics can become blurred. For example, drug cartels in parts of Latin America have become powerful enough to represent a direct chal-lenge to state security institutions, and, even if only temporarily, have managed to control entire provinces. In some respects, this moves their activity from the criminal arena to the political, and they have not hesitated to murder judges and other government officials and at times to engage military forces. However, this kind of activity is orientated at gaining political control only to ensure that profit levels are maintained and that government interference in their business is minimized. None of this negates the general point that criminal groups do not routinely engage in indiscrimi-nate acts of terror against the general population. Indeed, crimi-nal use of terror largely relies on the fact that people must know what actions will make them a target of such terror. For criminals, profits are the primary motive, and anyone who interferes in the profit-making potential of a criminal organization risks serious harm. At times this can include state actors, but the aim here is to attempt to stop these state actors from interfering with the crimi-nal activity and not necessarily to bring about political change. No matter how irrational we might find terrorist behaviour, like most forms of political violence, it normally has a political ration-ale, not one orientated around profits.

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  The Literature of Terrorism

  A Selectively Annotated Bibliography

  • Edward F. Mickolus(Author)
  • 1980(Publication Date)
  • Greenwood

    (Publisher)

  370. Russell, Charles, and Miller, Bowman, Transnational Terrorism: Terrorist Tactics and Techniques. Gaithersburg, Md: International Association of Chiefs of Police, Clandestine Tactics and Technology, Group and Area Studies, 1977. 371. Ryter, Stephen L. “Terror: A Psychological Weapon.” The Review (MayJune 1966): 21, 145–150. Defining Terrorism as “a tactical psychological weapon, which seeks to dominate a community through fear,” Ryter concentrates on domestic Terrorism that does not involve foreigners and gives several examples of particularly horrifying incidents in Vietnam and Africa. He argues that the terrorist is attempting to be selective in his targeting and aims at creating fear in a general population. Those charged with protection of citizens cannot engage in counterterror, because such use destroys the system one wishes to preserve. 372. Salmon, Jean A. “Conclusions.” In Réflexions sur la définition et la répression du Terrorisme, pp. 271–275. Brussels: Editions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 1974. 373. Schaefer, Stephen. The Political Criminal: The Problem of Morality and Crime. New York: Free Press, 1974. 374. Schmitt, Karl. “Targets of Terrorists.” Paper presented at the Conference on Terrorism, U.S. Department of State, October 1972, in Washington, D.C. Reprinted as FAR 16464S. Page 54 Suggests that there are patterns to target selection. Those in power select targets of a pragmatic nature, whereas revolutionary terrorists aim at targets with a symbolic value, with some pragmatic aspects only secondary. Those engaged in colonial wars frequently attack their own people to coerce across class lines. The resort to Terrorism is a sign of weakness in both groups. 375. Schreiber, Jan. The Ultimate Weapon: Terrorists and World Order. New York: Morrow, 1978. 218 pp. 376. Selzer, Michael. Terrorist Chic: An Exploration of Violence in the Seventies. New York: Hawthorne, 1979. 206 pp. Reviewed by Norman Frankel, Counterforce, September 14, 1979.

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