The study of terrorism is a growing field, primarily due to the world’s interest in the subject matter. Although death by terrorist attack is rare in the United States, as common as death by asteroid or comet (Jackson 2011: 132-133), many citizens view it as a primary concern that threatens the nation. Because of the world’s fear of terrorism, it has gained a huge budget of its own and has become a primary topic/focus. Terrorism: A Critical Introduction, written by Richard Jackson, Lee Jarvis, Jereon Gunning, and Marie Breen-Smyth, examines the orthodox study of terrorism. While analyzing the orthodox scholarship they find and discuss a few key issues. Their critique includes methods/research, emphasis on non-state actors, Western …show more content…
Scholars who study subjects such as anthropology, sociology, and history say primary research is both “possible and necessary for gaining an in-depth, richly textured and nuanced understanding of the subject” (Jackson 2011: 32) and “terrorism cannot be fully understood outside of the historical, political, social and cultural context in which it occurs” (Jackson 2011: 33). Terrorism cannot thrive as a field of study without primary sources “straight from the horse’s mouth’. Another critique brought about by Jackson is that orthodox terrorism research contains both political and ideological bias’. Research seems to only focus on the conflict with Western states and left-winged terrorist groups, and after 9/11 the main focus became Islamic terrorism. The field neglects to study groups such as right-winged terrorist and state terrorism. Jackson talks about how “the claim to academic objectivity and the failure to acknowledge the politics involved in determining which groups are considered ‘terrorist’ functions as a deeper kind of ideological bias because it obscures the political values which determine who to study and how to study them” (Jackson 2011: 17), this sort of bias is a big deal because it shapes what we get to learn about terrorism. Not including all forms of terrorism creates misleading perspectives, which is how stereotypes that say certain people/religious groups are more incline to be
Caleb Carr is stressing that terrorism is never the answer throughout this chapter and I presume, the rest of the book. This is clearly shown in him saying "for just as meeting the tactics of terror in kind will only perpetuate the cycle of terrorist violence.." As for whether or not the affect of Roman warfare can be applied to today's governments in training people that are not of their own, it can be. Carr begins to explain this when he says "There is an irony concerning most of those rebel leaders that also holds enormous implications for our present experience..." (p. 37).
This article by Isabelle Duyvesteyn starts off by summarising the objectives that challenge the perspective of terrorism since the last decade of the twentieth century is fundamentally new. In this article certain questions have been debated regarding new aspects of terrorism and they are: “transnational nature of the perpetrators and their organizations, their religious inspiration, fanaticism, use of weapons of mass destruction and their indiscriminate targeting.” ("How New Is the New Terrorism?", 2017)In order to understand the depth of aspects of new terrorism the article talks about “national and territorial focus of the new terrorists, their political motivations, use of conventional weaponry and the symbolic targeting that is aimed in order to achieve a surprising effect.” ("How New Is the New Terrorism?", 2017)
“Terrorism's particularly heinous but highly attractive means to achieve political objectives or even radically restructure political foundations is manifest within societies in all reaches of the world. While the practical application of terrorist methodologies comes across as a relatively straightforward craft, the conceptual and ideological understanding, and subsequent evaluation of its socio-political influence, implementation, and psychological impacts present difficult questions, and in some cases conceivably insurmountable obstacles” (Romaniuk 2014, para
Additionally, John Mueller lambasts what he labels as the socially constructed ‘terrorist industry,’ which he attacks for artificially inflating concerns over terrorist attacks. Instead, Mueller confirms that the damage caused by terrorism is not materially significant but stems primarily from the fear that it creates. Violent retaliation is viewed as a form of ‘self-flagellation’ that provides the terrorists with exactly what they want. As mentioned, realist definitions of power, self-interest and rationality lack explanatory prowess when non-state actors are able to subvert states thanks largely in part to the use of suicide-terrorism. The proliferation of terrorist groups and their use of suicide-tactics in many ways defies realist expectations and conclusions.
Annotated bibliography Bellamy, Alex J., Security and the war on terror, 1975-, 2007 This author is a university lecturer in the University of Queensland. He is a professor of peace and conflict studies and seems like he has a very broad amount of knowledge in the area of different wars including war on terror. His book security and the war on terror are pushed towards readers who care about the security of their country and the war on terror. ‘This edited book recognises a fundamental issue: while major crises initially tend to reinforce old thinking and behavioural patterns, they also allow societies to challenge and overcome entrenched habits, thereby creating the foundations for a new and perhaps more peaceful future’ .
They elucidate that terrorism is a “premeditated, politically motivated, violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups of clandestine agents, usually intended to influence an audience,” (National Institute of Justice).
In the past 15 years, the threat of terrorism has grown immensely, the frequency of attacks is the highest it has ever been. With these terrorist attacks becoming so frequent, there is great risk to the citizens of western countries. In the article “The Road to Orlando: Jihadist-Inspired Violence in the West, 2012-2016,” Sam Mullins states that while the number of attacks has increased, the number of deaths has decreased because most attacks are carried out by individuals, not terrorist groups. Sam Mullins is a professor with a Ph.D. in Counterterrorism, and has also been a very strong contributor to some of the most influential terrorism research journals. The main focus of the article was on the perpetrators of these attacks and how most
The overwhelming majority of the world’s nations, including United States are signatories to at least one international agreement that condemns terrorism. The question comes to mind as why terrorism is growing and not coming to an end, and what are the intentions of the terrorist groups. There are many factors in the development of domestic terrorisms, however, there are several causes on the growing terrorism and there is a need to find the principal factors responsible for causing this growing threat. In addition, it is important to save the world and to save our next generation from being victims in the hands of terrorism. Many are the risk factors involved in the development of domestic terrorism. Additionally, it is important to remember that terrorism is a tactic practiced by people from a wide array of ethnic and religious backgrounds who follow various ideologies extending from anarchism to
For these reasons, historians of terrorism normally work with a wide definition, and social scientists do so much of the time. But philosophers may well prefer a narrow definition. They focus on the moral standing of terrorism and need a definition that is particularly helpful in moral discourse. Morally speaking, surely there is a difference—for some, a world of difference—between planting a bomb in a government building and killing a number of highly placed officials of (what one considers) an unjust and oppressive government, and planting a bomb in a tea shop and killing a random collection of common citizens, including children. While both acts raise serious moral issues, these issues are not identical, and running them together under the same heading of “terrorism” will likely hamper, rather than help,
I disagree with Abrahms’ article ‘Why Terrorism doesn’t work’, there are a number of fundamental flaws within his work that I feel undermines its credibility. I feel that if he offered the readers the chance to reach their own conclusions it would have been a persuasive piece. However, by using limited data samples as evidence for his arguments, I find it difficult to understand why this article is held in such high esteem.
Modern terrorism, as deduced from this literature, is acts to violence strategically used by secular groups spanning international borders with the aim of achieving a desired outcome. Further, it can be seen as organized activity whose genesis can be traced back to the 1880’s. From then to now there are identifiable traits and patterns observed from different (terrorist) groups which have allowed for the conceptualization of the term modern terrorism. This concept therefore, can be best explained in the context of being a wave or having a life cycle. That means it is a cycle of activity demarked by phases from inception and expands along the way then eventually it declines. The world, thus far, has experienced four waves of modern
Specific Purpose Statement: I plan to inform my audience about the history of terrorism and major hypotheses proposed by sociologists.
Essentially, there is another viewpoint that contends that terrorism can be viewed as a socio-political feature that that is difficult to describe with objectivity and universality. What is more, when observing religious fundamentalism, from the political perspective, there is a possibility that the communities which are affected by poverty, fragility, and underdevelopment are the breeding grounds for the dissatisfaction that often lead to violence and extremism.
The history of terrorism can be traced back as far as the French revolution. Some of these acts of terrorism only seem as distant reminders of our past, but at the same time, are not a far cry from today’s brutal acts; and although these acts seem distant, it doesn’t also mean they are no longer in the thoughts of individuals in today’s time.
When the terrorist threat and fear politics are analyzed, there are many approaches that different school of thoughts has taken. Some of them are unbalanced and primarily critical towards what is normative in their respective societies, rather than offering a comprehensive reading of the myriad interconnected issues that relates to the nature of terrorism and political securitization. This essay, through discussing the conceptual framework of Said (1978), Kumar (2012) and Masco (2014) in investigating how fear is constructed, harnessed and used to serve the American imperial interests, will argue that the role of religion is immensely significant in the construction of terrorism/death industry, and why it is vital to include it in analyzing the war on terror.