What is Terrorism?

Taylor White

2/6/18

POL 357

Professor Shirk

As acts of terrorism flood modern news cycles, states, and their citizens continue to search for a way to define the actions they hear and read about. As a result, scholars have come up with an array of definitions with some labeling terrorism as tactical, while others understand terrorism to be direct opposition to a constitutional order. These interpretations are flawed, in each the term envelops wayward political ideologies and immoral individuals, quickly leading experts to label terrorism as evil. Although many scholars and government officials define terrorism objectively, terrorism must be defined more subjectively; during the 1970s the definition of terrorism was socially constructed to help experts in the field of political science to study this phenomenon.

Many experts, such as Rap0port, do not see terrorism as stemming from a specific ideology such as nationalism or religion, and instead, define it as tactical violence. This tactical violence is solely political and is committed by non-state actors against non-military targets. Those who view terrorism this way are in line with the US State Department’s definition of terrorism since the acts perpetrated by non-state actors is premeditated with a specific end goal in mind. This definition of terrorism is believed to have come in waves, with the first wave beginning at the end of the 19th century marked by anarchists and continuing today with a fourth religious wave. Since this definition deems terrorism as stemming from political grievances as a result of history, “…even a brief acquaintance with the history of terrorism should make us more sensitive to the difficulties ahead.”[1] Upon studying history and the past waves of terrorism, experts warn that terrorism is too engrained in society for it to be exterminated so easily. Many experts believe that a new political grievance will eventually give rise to a new wave of terrorism. Groups in the religious wave, such as al-Qaeda, continue their acts of violence against noncombatants to show their disdain for the New World and, “…the September 11 attacks could be understood as a desperate attempt to rejuvenate a failing cause by triggering indiscriminate American reactions.”[2]

As experts continue to craft their definitions of terrorism, many seek to make their definition scientific to avoid any charges of political bias. Many are afraid that if their definitions appear biased that their research will be discredited, yet as scholars, “strip the term of its abusive connotations, and thus make it 'objective' or 'scientific,'”[3] their efforts to do so is futile as their definitions are then infused with political and moral condemnations. As they attempt to avoid bias, they continue to distance themselves from the phenomena that they are studying. Through transferring terrorism into a political and moral term, experts are more willing to call terrorism without investigating the person and the motives surrounding terrorism. While it is wise for experts to avoid allowing their research to appear bias, they are doing a disservice to both themselves and the public as they continue to form a definition to benefit political science.

Another flawed definition of terrorism by another apparent expert, Tilly, views terror as a tactic, terrorists as those who use that tactic, and terrorism as the use of that tactic. In this definition terror, terrorists, and terrorism are not always synonymous because it is believed that, “Terrorism is not a single causally coherent phenomenon.”[4] Also, both state and non-state actors are groups who may employ fear as a tactic. While the groups may differ in how they employ their fear tactics, they each, “relat(e) the strategy systematically to other forms of political struggle proceeding in the same settings and populations.”[5] While terrorism is not tied to a specific ideology, each act of terrorism is a means to a political end game. This definition is believed to benefit the public as it differentiates between terror, terrorists, and terrorism as well as noting that a wide range of groups commit terrorism.

Before the modern definitions of terrorism were socially constructed, many were unwilling to acknowledge terrorism mostly because states were the ones who were committing acts of terrorism. The previous definition, in its attempt to not define terrorism too narrowly, notes that both state and non-state actors commit acts of terrorism. Although it is mentioned that state officials partake in terrorism, this point is futile since states will never be indicted for acts of terrorism. This is a result of today’s experts failure to acknowledge that in the past, “The state itself was seen to engage in ‘enforce-ment terror,’ which was differentiated from insurgent violence.”[6] While it is accurate to say that terrorism is not affiliated with a precise ideology, the working definition of terrorism has coined terrorism as a moral and political term, working to, “…recast such incidents as the acts of pathological, irrational actors, precluding its application to the actions of states or legitimate institutions.”[7] The rebranding of those who commit acts of terrorism negates this definition as it serves to purify the state’s actions at the expense of accurately informing the public.

Although differing from the other definitions, other scholars including Bobbit view terrorism as violence directed against the constitutional order, and the type of violence used varies as the constitutional order varies. Since terrorism reflects the working order of the state and actions must change to reflect the time, terrorism is not a tactic. This definition of terrorism dates back to the 16th century when terrorism was committed by out of work mercenaries in response to the princely state. In the 21st century, anti-globalizers use terrorism to oppose the market state, and the leading group during this era is al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda opposes the western market states, specifically the US because it believes that these states are too involved in Middle Eastern affairs. As anti-globalizers continue to respond to market states in adverse ways, their actions continue to heighten, as they intend to kill more people with each attack. As the coverage of the attacks of anti-globalizers increases, “We must assume that the visually shocking images cre-ated by the use of a weapon of mass destruction have an irresistible appeal to the twenty-first-century terrorist. The global reach of such images has made all the world a stage.”[8]

It is incorrect to believe that terrorism is not a tactic just because actions must change to reflect the state’s orders and the issues at the time. If terrorism was not a tactic, then individuals and groups would find a different means as to relay their message to a state. During the 1970s as scholars began to study terrorism, “bombings, hijackings, kidnap-pings, and hostage-takings were melded together, conceptualized not simply as tactics but as identifying activities, and joined to a new and highly threatening sort of actor: the “terrorist.”[9] To look back and history and attempt to identify particular waves of alleged terrorism is erroneous. When looking back at history, one cannot say with certainty what the perpetrator of an action was seeking to achieve with their action. Today, to reimagine these events to fit a particular definition, “…is not simply the relabeling of a prior phenomenon but a concrete historical development that makes a problem "subject to thought," and requiring action.”[10] With experts labeling historical events as terrorism, they are crafting an artificial definition of terrorism, one that cannot be expected to function in genuinely understanding terrorism.

Many definitions of terrorism have been crafted by experts to help them study a particular phenomenon, thus making the definition unnatural and instead forged to aid political science. As individuals began to study terrorism it is evident that these so-called experts on terrorism may have crafted the definitions to benefit themselves as, “Government sponsorship of social science research significantly increased during the late twenti-eth century, but underwent a shift in location from the university to the private sector, particularly in relation to foreign policy and national defense.”[11] Post 9/11 era with many Americans yearning to identify those responsible for the fear, especially after President Bush’s call for America to fight a ‘war on terror,’ terrorism and those who commit these attacks are automatically labeled as evil. Terrorism was not created in 2001, and to define terrorism in response to a specific event is erroneous because, “terrorism is a problem with a history…the questions we ask…as well as the questions that we don't ask- those silences that may even go unobserved.”[12] In Disciplining Terrorism Stampnitzky questions how since the 1970s past insurgencies have evolved into terrorism, citing a 1961 hijacking in which a man demanded that the plane be flown to Cuba. During the 1960s, events that today would be labeled as terrorism were disregarded because many acts of terror were state-sponsored. In 1961, the man was labeled as merely a bad apple among the US’ citizens, since investigators took the time to understand him and his actions. Yet today experts automatically label terrorism as evil, without attempting to understand the person who committed the act and to investigate their motives. This shift from investigators attempting to understand the person to automatically labeling them as evil is a result of the definition of terrorism being a social construction by so-called experts. As the definition of terrorism continues to be politicized and moralized by those who analyze it, “… produce a discourse that they are unable to control, and such attempts at scientific discourse are continually hybridized by the moral dis-course of the public sphere, in which terrorism is conceived as a problem of evil and pathology.”[13]

The working definition of terrorism has been socially constructed by so-called experts since the 1970s. As a result, the definition is unnatural as it was created solely to benefit political science. While other definitions may be partially correct, they are either too focused on the possible political goal of terrorism are not bold enough to describe terrorism as a tactic. The proper definition works to separate those that it deems moral, the states, from those it considers unmoral or evil, terrorism. As a result, experts will be unable to end terrorism so long as they continue to distance from those people and events that they study.

[1] "The Four Waves of Rebel Terror and September 11 - Anthropoetics VIII, no. 1 Spring/ Summer 2002." Anthropoetics. April 10, 2017. Accessed February 06, 2018. http://anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/terror/.

[2] Ibid,.

[3] Stampnitzky, Lisa. Disciplining terror: how experts invented "terrorism". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[4] Tilly, Charles. "Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists." Sociological Theory 22, no. 1 (2004): 5-13. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9558.2004.00200.x.

[5] Ibid,.

[6] Stampnitzky, Lisa. Disciplining terror: how experts invented "terrorism". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[7] Ibid,.

[8] Bobbitt, Philip. Terror and consent: the wars of the twenty-first century. New York: Anchor Books

[9] Stampnitzky, Lisa. Disciplining terror: how experts invented "terrorism". Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[10] Ibid,.

[11] Ibid,.

[12] Ibid,.

[13] Ibid,.