Why terrorism can, but should not be defined

Ramsay, Gilbert

doi:10.1080/17539153.2014.988452

Cited by 27 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 22 publications

(20 reference statements)

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“…20 Although researchers are apt to point to the lack of definitional consensus on "terrorism" when discussing the field's progress, 21 this may be less of an issue than is often thought. 22 Research on terrorism has flourished, at the very least in terms of quantity, despite a lack of far-reaching consensus on how to define the subject under investigation.- 23 Indeed, there are few fields where core concepts are not subject to ongoing debate. 24 Arguably the more pressing issue has been the field's tendency to rely too heavily on secondary sources of limited detail and uncertain accuracy, principally newspaper articles, and associated research methodologies.…”

Section: Enduring Issues In the Study Of Terrorismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Terrorism, 2007–2016: A Review of Data, Methods, and Authorship

Schuurman

2018

Terrorism and Political Violence

145

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Research on terrorism has long been criticized for its inability to overcome enduring methodological issues. These include an overreliance on secondary sources and the associated literature review methodology, a scarcity of statistical analyses, a tendency for authors to work alone rather than collaborate with colleagues, and the large number of one-time contributors to the field. However, the reviews that have brought these issues to light describe the field as it developed until 2007. This article investigates to what extent these issues have endured in the 2007-2016 period by constructing a database on all of the articles published in nine leading journals on terrorism (N = 3442). The results show that the use of primary data has increased considerably and is continuing to do so. Scholars have also begun to adapt a wider variety of data-gathering techniques, greatly diminishing the overreliance on literature reviews that was noted from the 1980s through to the early 2000s. These positive changes should not obscure enduring issues. Despite improvements, most scholars continue to work alone and most authors are one-time contributors. Overall, however, the field of terrorism studies appears to have made considerable steps towards addressing long-standing issues.

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Section: Enduring Issues In the Study Of Terrorismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Research on Terrorism, 2007–2016: A Review of Data, Methods, and Authorship

Schuurman

2018

Terrorism and Political Violence

145

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“…From war to genocide, and from peace to revolution, scholars have engaged in sometimes fierce disagreement over what these terms mean. Despite Ramsay's (2015) argument that there is rather more consensus over the core features of terrorism than might appear to be the case, it remains common for books on terrorism to begin by reviewing the challenges associated with agreeing a definition. A number of problems are often cited as the cause of these difficulties.…”

Section: In Response -Defining Terrorism: Communities and Context By mentioning

confidence: 99%

Terrorism: Its Past, Present & Future Study - A Special Issue to Commemorate CSTPV at 25

Brunton

Wilson

2020

CVIR

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Contemporary Voices, Handa CSTPV 25 th Anniversary Special Issue 3 Discussion 1-Revisiting the wicked problem of defining terrorism by Alex P. Schmid Contemporary Voices, Handa CSTPV 25 th Anniversary Special Issue 6 5. Terrorism is an act of political violence which means that in the end it is intended to force senior decision makers to change their policy radically…; 6. The violence of terrorism is primarily directed at civilians; 7. The direct victims of terrorism are selected at random from a general target group; 8. The actual victims of terrorism, its direct targets, are not identical to its target group, which is the indirect but principal objective of the violence; 9. Between the violence of terrorism and its political consequences, or, between the direct victims of terrorism and its target group, there is an intermediate variable: fear; 10. The scene of terrorism is a monumental drama that arouses primordial, primitive instincts; 11. Behind the active aspect of terrorism there is an underground group that is either more or less autonomous or a secretive executive arm of a large and well-known organisation; 12. The terrorist group is a non-state organ or, at most, only partially associated with an established governmental institution and under its control (Aran, 2019. For an alternative list of twelve elements defining terrorism, see: Schmid, 2011, pp. 86-7). While this is a very useful list, there is one crucial element missing. Propaganda by the deed The crucial element that has stayed central with the tactic of terrorism is the role of witnesses and the media. While in the late eighteenth century serial public executions of 'enemies of the revolution' by the guillotine were used to create and spread terror, in the nineteenth century a sensationalist rotary press amplified the impact of terrorist bombings. Anarchist and social-revolutionary theorists and practitioners discovered that one could use demonstrative acts of public violence as a way to enter the news system. They called it 'propaganda by the deed'. To quote one of them, the German-American Johannes Most (1885): 'Everyone knows […] that the more highly placed the one shot or blown up, and the more perfectly executed the attempt, the greater the propagandistic effect. […] What is important is not solely these actions themselves but also the propagandistic effect that they are able to achieve. Hence, we preach not only action in and for itself, but also action as propaganda' (quoted in Laqueur, 1978, pp. 100, 105). By killing heads of state and government, ranging from the Russian Czar Alexander II (1881) to the Italian King Umberto (1900), terrorists made headlines without paying a penny in advertising costs. The principle of accessing the world's news system by deliberately creating bad news has remained the same. As one German terrorist explained in 1970: 'We give the media what they need: newsworthy events. They cover us, explain our causes and this, unwittingly, legitim...

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“…This law was created after pressure from international security agencies because the Olympics were being held in Rio de Janeiro in the same year, and only after strong protests due to concerns that such definition would be too broad and would eventually lead to social movements and NGOs being considered terrorist groups when making political demands in public marches or protests. Ramsay (2015) goes to another direction, exposing two main schools of thought regarding the concept of terrorism. While one school consists of the idea that creating a concept would be unhelpful and should be abandoned because terrorism is a social construct, the other is based on the idea that defining terrorism has more to do with inconsistencies and double-standards than really defining the term.…”

Section: The Useless Search For a Definition Of Terrorismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why there is no real difference between a Terrorist Organization and an Organized Crime faction, just a matter of interaction towards the State

Costa¹

2018

CVIR

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In general the literature regarding terrorism and organized crime normally identifies the differences between these groups when political and/or ideological issue is involved. Its basic assumption normally assume whereas terrorist and organized criminals share similar attributes in their organizational structure and cross their financial interests by buying and selling services and goods from each other, their differences would reside in the means and ends. However, it is more correct to say the decision of whether an organization is a terrorist group is only based on whether the political demands of the group colliding or converging with the state's interests.

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Why terrorism can, but should not be defined

Cited by 27 publications

References 22 publications

Research on Terrorism, 2007–2016: A Review of Data, Methods, and Authorship

Research on Terrorism, 2007–2016: A Review of Data, Methods, and Authorship

Terrorism: Its Past, Present & Future Study - A Special Issue to Commemorate CSTPV at 25

Why there is no real difference between a Terrorist Organization and an Organized Crime faction, just a matter of interaction towards the State

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