Are there any specific types of terrorism in international politics? Can it be really defined in terms of nature of terror recruits ?
Here is interesting paper for you:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-923X.73.s1.3/pdf
There are several types of terrorism but the major problem is one of definition. Let us say that targeting non-combatant civilians by non-state actors for some purpose is terrorism.
In recent human history anarchism, Marxism, nationalism (including ethnic nationalism) and Islamism/ jihadism have inspired non-statist terrorism. Critical studies on terrorism do not blame it on ideology in isolation. They think a number of contributing factors-- political, economic, social, psychological, cultural-- need to be taken into account to explain why some individuals perform acts of terrorism and others from the same background do not. In the case of Muslims, there is generally a narrative of victimization and the 'West' is blamed for all the problems of Muslims. Then there is a group which expresses its anger, based on political and cultural grounds in general, in the idiom of Islam. Radicalization occurs through the internet or through friends and radical preachers. There are also Jihadi websites. The texts which are given are translated literally and not explained in the historical context or given a liberal interpretation. In short, radicalization is a group -- rarely an individual too-- social process which refers to the idiom of Islam and its most literal reading to express alienation from the society and political anger.
"On the basis of treaties, UN resolutions and the legislative and judicial practice of States, there is convicing evidence that a customary rule of international law has evolved on terrorism in time of peace, requiring the following elements: (i) the intent (dolus) of the underlying crime and (ii) the special intent (dolus special is) to spreadfoar or coerce authority; (iii) the commission of a criminal act, and (iv) that the terrorist act be transnational" (STL-11-01/I/AC/R176bis) .
The grounds of any terrorism and its acts are the ignorance of the people manipulated through false or unscientific ideas. More details see at - http://wpf-unesco.org/
Many Thanks for participating and providing answers and comments on Terrorism.
As a researcher of International Relations, and working in the field of terrorism since couple of years, I have always wondered about the recruitment pattern of various terror organizations. With the rise of ISIS, the lone-wolf terror attacks have become a recurring feature. Moreover, in the contemporary situation, profiling of terrorists is becoming a challenge, as they can be from any part of the world, well-qualified, or religious students, both male and female, from diverse economic milieu, with varied socio-political background etc. Therefore, one cannot typify a terrorist.
"Terrorism" and "terrorist", as used in the United States media and government, and in all western media and governments, refer to violent acts perpetrated against us and those who perform them. Violence we perpetrate is never terrorism. We are never terrorists, no matter how brutal our acts or the fear we intend to inspire. "Terrorism" and "terrorist" are pejorative terms used to slander and deny the motivations of our enemies. Once we call someone a terrorist, we don't need to inquire into political motive; indeed, anyone who might so inquire will be slandered and ostracized. The terms are especially useful to those who profit from western rape of middle eastern oil and the sale of weaponry to the dictatorial Saudi family in exchange for it, to enable the Saudis to intimidate their population and keep the oil flowing to the west.
Depending upon the breath of one’s definition, the technique called ‘terrorism’ might include the actions of the Isma’ili sect of assassins in the eleventh century or contemporary actions by ‘state terrorist’ regimes. Indeed, Joseph Conrad’s Under Western Eyes, together with his earlier work The Secret Agent (1907), marks the gradual closing of an era which historians have described as the ‘golden age’ of terrorism, 1870-1914 (see Chaliand and Blin 2007). From the 1860s onwards, for example, deadly Fenian bombing campaigns repeatedly flared across Great Britain, and during the same period the ‘perverse unreason’ (Conrad 1907: 229) of anarchist assassinations took the lives of rulers across the world, from US President William McKinley to King Umberto I of Italy.
Today, most reasonable discussion of definition nod to an argument made by Noam Chomsky some time back.
Terrorism comes in several varieties. There is ‘wholesale terrorism’ targeted against large populations, or ‘retail terrorism’ targeted against individuals. There is state terrorism, individual terrorism, or state-sponsored terrorism, depending on the agency and initiators of the terrorist actions. ... The most serious issue, of course, is wholesale terrorism, generally state conducted or state-supported. (Chomsky 1988: 701).
It's a reasonable point. But for those interested in in-dept research into terrorist motivations, etc. there is no better source that Scott Atran's Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists HarperCollins, 2010. His research s with actual terrorists, not the figures of the imagination, but the actual people involved ...
in 2014 I've conducted in-depth scientific research about ISIS and the motivations behind foreign fighter's joining. By the way, as described and mentioned in most of the scientific media, there is NO global and agreed definition of terrorism. I've read many scientific papers and books about terrorism and terrorists, however, I believe that most of these studies are just "subjective analysis" and more than 90% of these studies has no "field" and scientific statistics to support their claims. As Mark said, Its "imaginative". Even Scott Atran's conducted an interview with less than 20 actual terrorists, while the rest is either administrators or supporters of a terrorist organization, which they haven't conducted any terrorist attack in their life. However, there is only one highly valuable scientific "field study" available in the world, this study has been conducted in 2014 by the well-known Iraqi scientist and think-tank "Prof. Dr. Qassim Hussain Salih", a professor of personality, behavior and psychology and head of Iraqi Psychology Organization(google him). His field study was based on actual interviews with 350 ISIS terrorist prisoners sentenced to death in Iraq. It's very interesting and amazing when one reads the answers of those terrorists, the personality analysis of each one, the conclusions are shocking, crucial, and sure to be controversial. Taking into consideration that each terrorist prisoner has only few days to live, so he has nothing to lose from saying the truth. As I've mentioned before, the definition of a terrorist is "subjective", one side can name any group as terrorists based on specific criteria, the opposite part will name them nationalist based on different criteria, who define what and why about terrorism and terrorist is still vague and not clear.
These articles may be useful:
Bier, V. and Hausken, K. (2011), “Endogenizing the Sticks and Carrots: Modeling Possible Perverse Effects of Counterterrorism Measures,” Annals of Operations Research 186, 1, 39-59.
Hausken, K. (2012), “Terrorism Risks, Civil Liberties, and Privacy Concerns,” International Journal of Critical Infrastructures 8, 4, 293-305.
Hausken, K. and Gupta, D. (2015), “Government Protection against Terrorism and Crime,” Global Crime 16, 2, 59-80.
Hausken, K. and Gupta, D. (2015), “Terrorism and Organized Crime: The Logic of an Unholy Alliance,” International Journal of Contemporary Sociology 52, 2, 141-166.
Hausken, K. (2016), “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Terrorist Attacks,” Defence and Peace Economics Forthcoming.
Hausken, K. and Gupta, D. (2016), “Determining the Ideological Orientation of Terrorist Organizations: The Effects of Government Repression and Organized Crime,” International Journal of Public Policy 12, 1/2, 71-97.
Article Endogenizing the sticks and carrots: Modeling possible perve...
Article Terrorism risks, civil liberties, and privacy concerns
Article A cost–benefit analysis of terrorist attacks
Terrorism is so complexe in nature and can involve multiple actors. It is certainly not limited to those who execute the terror attacks since the most important part of the act is to understand the message behind it and often the brain or the conspirator is far from being the one we think it is in the aftermath of any attacks. In the case of the Middle East region, often terrorism is used by regional countries and even some secret services in the west or in the region to flex some policies emanating from local, regional or even international players/governments.
Terror attacks in the West although conducted lately by radical islamists, can also be part of the psychological war ISIS is trying to put forward to increase the Western public opinion pressure on their own western governments to withdraw from Syria and Iraq especially in a time where ISIS is losing ground in Syria and Iraq.
Turkey terror attacks can be viewed from the same perspective although the terrorists could have been motivated by ISIS opponent as a reaction to Turkey's support to radical Islam and ISIS in many areas of Syria against the Kurds. Some local analyst view also a response of some Western or Eastern powers to send masked messages to Erdogan to limit or stop his current policies towards indirectly and directly helping ISIS or attacking the Kurds currently supported by the USA and other Western countries.
This is why it is so complicated to determine who are the real masterminds behind each terror attack while the obvious terrorists point towards those who committed the act and being members or just supporters of radical islam and ISIS.
if you want to reach to a sensible result of the fact of who creates these organisations. It will be irrational to deny the fact that is the terror actions are supported by states.
Are there any specific types of terrorism in international politics? Can it be really defined in terms of nature of terror recruits ?
There are two questions here. Let me address them in order. First, most writers on the topic agree that terrorism is (i) a deliberate use or threat of violence, (ii) politically-motivated, and (iii) directed against non-military personnel, that is, against civilians or noncombatants. Taking these as the only essential features of terrorism, perhaps the simplest and more accurate reportive definition is this:
Terrorism is deliberate, politically-motivated violence, or the threat of such, directed against civilians.
There are all sorts of distinctions that can be made among types of terrorism. One overlooked distinction is between state-terrorism (that waged by states), and non-state terrorism (that waged by non-state groups). In the contemporary setting, states and their mainstream media tend to use the term "terrorism" to refer only to the latter. This is itself a form of terrorism, as I explain in my articles, "The Terrorism of "Terrorism"" and "The Reign of 'Terror.'."
In my written work on the topic, I have drawn another distinction between strategic terrorism and reactive or retaliatory terrorism. The former uses violence or coercive threat is part of a plan to achieve a political goal, while the latter derives from an emotional response to politically-induced grievances, for example, vengeance for confiscation of land or for assassinations of leaders. Of course, since strategy and emotion can be jointly operative, and actions can have multiple agents, a given act might be both strategic and retaliatory.
No doubt there are other distinctions to be made among types of terrorism.
It is hard to give one definition for terrorism. There are classifications of terrorism:
the first one (purpose):
1. religious,
2. separatists,
3. revolutional.
the second one (source): state and non-state terrorism
the third one (place): local and transnational terrorism.
All of these types have special features and also many of them are connected with each other.
And also there is a specific type of terrorism in Latin America: narko (drug) terrorism.
Terrorism is a complex term - for one what is terrorism may mean fight for justice for the other. Terrorism may imply use of hard power or military power, or it may imply psychological or cultural violence. Violence is an element of terrorism - whether it is to intimidate an individual or a group or a state in a 'just' or 'unjust' cause. As an expert in conflict management and peacebuilding, I believe terrorism - whether sponsored by a radical organization or by a state - is evil.
There is a need to distinguish between the nature of terrorism, the character of terrorism, and the causes to which terrorism has been yoked through the centuries.
The nature of terrorism is to terrorise, to cause extreme fear and chaos in the minds of those targeted, so as to confound them and compel them to concede the demands of the terrorists.
The character of terrorism has changed since terrorism first began to be practised in the modern world in the last quarter of 19th century Europe, Russia in particular. Between the late 1800s and the 1960s, the targets of terrorism were primarily statesmen, civilian and military officials and the security forces. Since then, common civilians and citizens have become the principal targets of terrorism. Whereas Russian revolutionaries of the late 19th century were sad that they had to kill and went out of their way not to hurt innocent people in the process, and whereas the Tupamaros wept when they killed Uruguayan officials in the late 1960s, the terrorist slogan today is that “there are no innocents”.
Finally, terrorism has been yoked to various causes. During the last 100 plus years alone, terrorism has been practised by those espousing Anarchism, Communism, National Liberation from colonial rule, Ethnic Separatism, Islamism, Racism, Millenarianism, etc.
Respected Dr.
Good Day
Vital aspect is the root cause of the terrorism; which is caused due to feelings of Victimization emerging out of mainly in justice. As for as nature is concerned it is relevant to situation. Situation in Kashmir can be called as of ' Religious Terrorism' because of brutalities against Muslims. In case of Afghanistan It can be termed as ' Strategic Terrorism' explicitly , in case of Naga Land etc it can be termed as 'Ingenious Terrorism' and in case of Pakistan it should be called as 'Policy Terrorism'. In Africa it is ' Mineral Hunt Terrorism'. So many to name if appreciated deeply.
Regards
Terrorism is an act terror against the unarmed population or society, aiming at changing the existing system of government' attitute. The terrorists are fighting and unjust war or a vengeance which cannot be justified. Their element of aggression eminate from anger as aggrabated by hatred e.get. non believers of alla, or discrand led former members of the armed forces not satisfied with the treatment they received from their bosses and seek a revenge.
for wider understanding , questions to be asked what motivates individuals commit suicide . so, in my view there is mindset change in individual . there is a [third party] influence in the process of radicalization of the person. true story
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