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Definitional Model Of State Terrorism

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Throughout the 21st Century, the September 11 terrorist attacks have often been described as “the most devastating terrorist attacks in history”(). However, while the scale of death and destruction that resulted from these attacks was “indeed staggering”(), the millions of people killed by government acts of terror continues to go unnoticed by orthodox terrorism research(). In this case, there is a need to examine the repressive state practices that critical scholars describe as the “single greatest threat to human and societal security”(). While there has been a large number of human rights groups that have contributed to the wide body of literature on political violence(), the overall neglect on the subject is due to “politically biased research”() that rejects the concept of ‘state terrorism’. For instance, …show more content…

In light of Stohl and Lopez’s warning that state terrorism requires “investment in theory building and analysis”(), this paper will examine various state terrorist definitional models in order to apply a criteria to three different case studies. In this regard, the aim of this paper is twofold. After applying a definitional model of state terrorism to three different case studies, which show how some examples of state terrorism are clear examples, how others are not so clear examples and how some cases are not state terrorism, this paper will analyse the limitations of this model in order to reconcile the theory and practice of state terrorism. There are parameters to this paper. While there are numerous historical examples of state terrorism, this paper will only investigate ongoing cases of state terrorism since the end of the Cold War. This paper will begin by outlining various definitional models of state terrorism, before applying this model to three different case

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