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Summary and important terms Terrorism and Counterterrorism
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This is a sumary for the seccond year course Terrorism and Counterterrorism
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Terrorism and counterterrorism summaryWeek 1
What is terrorism:
- There is no commonly accepted defintion
- Highly politicized debate
- Terrorism can affect entire populations
- Nuanced and critical approach is key to informed citizenship
The definitional debate
- Negative connotations ‘terrorism’
- Subjective term: freedom fighters vs terrorists
- Too infrequent to generalize?
- Terrorism is a defintional weapon; labeling an organization as terrorists, it prescribes and
rules out policy responses.
What is a definition’s purpose:
- Descriptive: it gives a good idea of the phenomenon
- Clear demarcations: to draw a boundary between what is terrorism and what not
- Objective and neutral: it strives to be objective and neutral
Clarity through comparison:
1. Terrorism versus insurgency:
The goal of insurgents is complete control over territory and people, they often try to achieve this
through guerilla warfare of use terrorist tactics. So, it differs from terrorism in goals, organization
requirements (they need to be able to govern), and relation to population. Terrorists are self-
sufficient but insurgents need to build up a relationship with the population.
2. Terrorism versus organized crime
Organized crimes’s motive is to make money, not about to win people over on a political cause.
3. Terrorism versus terror
Terrorism is what non state actors do, terrorism is similar behavior but then by states.
4. Terrorism versus war
The term “terrorism” refers to all attacks perpetrated against civilians and/or governmental agencies
committed at the hands of non-governmental organizations, whereas war is fought in an organized
manner between states or non-states actors.
Terrorist groups do not follow laws and regulations nor abide by restrictions and limitations while the
rules of war are clearly defined under international humanitarian law.
5. Terrorism versus murder:
Terrorists do not know their victims, key difference with murder
Schmid’s 2011 definition of terrorism: terrorism refers on the one hand to a doctrine about the
presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and,
on the other hand to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent actions
without legal or moral restraints, targeting civilians and non-combatants, performed for its
propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties.
Terrorism as violent communication: it forces people’s attention to a cause
Attack in Theo van Gogh (known person, so more attention). These targeted people are a tool
to deliver the message. It is not only about installing fear, but also about gaining supporters.
Inherent to terrorism is the intent to use violence in order to communicate a political/ideological
message.
,Different types of terrorism:
- Left-wing terrorism: Marxist/Leninist, revolutionary, struggle for a class-less society. Defined
terrorism 1960s-1980s
- Right-wing terrorism: mistrust of government, conspiracy theories, racist, neo-fascist, highly
conservative, religious. -> Anders Breivik
- Nationalist/separatist: self-determinations, anticolonial, strong driver insurgency.
- State terror: large-scale violence to intimidate or control populations. Numerous examples,
e.g. Europe, Latin-America.
- Religious: revolutionary, millenarian, reform or destruction, worldly goals
- Criminal: FARC, Taliban, Narco-terrorism in the Netherlands
- Single-issue: not focused on a particular ideology, but a particular grievance
- Lone actor: individuals who plan, prepare, and execute attacks in isolation
- Cyber: the increasing importance of the internet
In terrorism research and discourse, there has been an overfocus on jihadism. Recently we’ve
broadened our scope to more forms of terrorism. Development in terrorism does not happen in the
same way everywhere. While right-wing terrorism has been rising in the US, it has been declining in
Europe.
Conclusion:
- See terrorism as a quintessential ‘contested concept’.
- Familiarity with the definitional debate as key learning outcome.
- Schmid s definition - illustrates terrorism as ‘demonstrative violence’. Terrorism is not
exclusively a non-state activity and knows many forms.
- Counterterrorism is a continuum of interventions.
Lecture 2: Political violence and state-terrorism
1. the repertoire of contention
to understand repertoires of contention, we need to go back to the late 50’s where research on social
movements began to emerge. = any organization that is trying to change things.
What do social movements believe?
- Reformative: those who wish to achieve political and social changes by improving the status
quo, but without necessarily overthrowing the existing order. (martin Luther king)
- Or seek revolution: an act of resistance that results in the overthrowing of the status quo.
(H.Rapp Brown, and Stokely Carmichael)
Ideological labels can overlook the fact that many social movements will adopt both reformative and
revolutionary tactics or strategies.
What do social movements do?
- Claim makers: in this case, the organized, un-institutionalized collectivity who mobilizes for
change.
- Object of the claim: those with decision-making powers over the claim. They do not always
have to be the government, they could be for example the religious leaders.
- Once the claim makers and object of the claim are established, what follows can be a diverse
repertoire of collective actions.
,The repertoire of contention:
- According to political theorist Charles Tilley (‘Revolutionary Process Theory’), collective action
can be traced back to a general repertoire that is available to the population as a whole.
- The repertoire of contention is not only what people do when they make a claim, it is what
they know how to do, and what society has come to expect from them to choose from within
a culturally sanctioned and empirically limited set of options (Tilly, 1977, p. 51). According to
Sidney Tarrow, there are a number of ‘Techniques of Contention’ that social movements will
turn to again and again.
Techniques of contention during the French revolution:
- Petitions
- Peaceful Marches
- Barricades
- Public Executions
Techniques used by Hamas:
- Peaceful Marches
- International Lobbying
- Quassam Rocket Attacks
- Suicide Bombing
- Contained: builds on routines that people understand and that elites will accept/facilitate
- Disruptive: Break with routine, startle bystanders, and leave elites disoriented. Unstable and
easily turns into violence or becomes ‘contained.’ People will get annoyed because of these
acts.
- Violent: Most dramatic and easiest to initiate. Under normal circumstances, limited to small
groups with few resources who are willing risk repression.
Political violence: is “the exercise of physical force with the intention to harm the welfare and physical
integrity of the victim motivated by political goals.” (Neumayer 2004, 260)
Political violence can be exercised by state and non-state actors.
It can also include broader manifestations that terrorism.
Perpetrator of Political Violence (Claim-Maker)
State Non-state
State - Interstate war - Terrorism
- The 2nd world war - Coup
Target of - Civil War
violence - Revolution
(object of - Rebellion
claim) - Revolt
- The Arab spring
Non-state
- Genocide - Non-state conflict
- Political Repression - Control of
- State-terrorism Mogadishu 1991
- Sinking of the
rainbow warrior
, What is state terrorism?
Over 109 definitions, but some conceptual overlap.
1. There is an act of violence, or the threat of violence (Ganor, 2002).
2. The act, either real or threatened, is concerned with remedying miscarriages of justice or attaining
societal transformation, and are therefore, political.
3. Centner (2003) argues that it is the strategic focus, or target, of the group (non-combatants) which
earns it the definition of terrorism. However, the target of a terrorist attack is not exclusively those
who are harmed.
4. Terrorism reflects an intention to exploit audience reactions to a level of extreme anxiety towards,
seemingly, arbitrary violence. Ultimately, it is a form of manipulation (Schmid, 201).
5. Terrorism, by most definitions, is a form of political violence practiced by non-state actors.
Why by non-state actors?
- States, by definition, cannot engage in terrorism vecause they have the legitimite right to use
violence.
- ‘The state is the central political institution that exerts a monopoly on the legitimite use of
physical force within a given territory’. (Max Weber)
- Issues:
1. This is inconsistent: the suggestion that states have a legitimate right to use violence and
non-state actors do not wholly accurate
- State-sponsored genocide, for instance, is not seen as legitimate
- Similarly, western states and international organizations have a long history of recognizing
violent non-state-groups in particular contexts (resistance to the nazi occupation).
2. This is relative:
- Terrorism is a strategy of violence to achieve political aims. To suggest that when a state
engages in the very same strategies as non-state actors it ceases to be terrorism, we abandon
out scholarly research principles.
What is state terrorism?
What distinguishes state-terrorism from other forms of state repression is its instrumentality.
It involves the illegal targeting of individuals that the state has normally an obligation to protect in
order to instill fear in a target audience beyond the direct victims.
Examples:
1. Mickler (2009) argues that the Sudanese state has been guilty of committing state terrorism
against its own citizens in Darfur since 2003.
- Following attacks by armed opposition groups, Sudanese government forces responded by
targeting not only the fighters, but also the civilian populations of certain ethnic groups that
the government accuses of supporting the insurgents.
- The Sudanese State has deliberately targeted citizens using sexual violence, destroying their
crops, livestock, homes, villages, and wells as part of its strategy to dissuade support or
potential recruitment for the rebels.
2. Nasr (2009) refers to the Israeli state’s “other terrorism challenge”.
- In response to non-state suicide terrorism, Palestinian non-combatants have been coerced,
intimidated, and denied a whole range of basic human rights: Home demolitions; Random
detentions; Mobility restrictions; Physical and psychological intimidation at checkpoints. This
deliberate targeting of civilians, in their view, amounts to state-terrorism.
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