Why terrorism can, but should not be defined

doi:10.1080/17539153.2014.988452

Home
/
Papers
/
Why terrorism can, but should not be defined

Journal Article•DOI•

Why terrorism can, but should not be defined

Gilbert Ramsay¹•Institutions (1)

University of St Andrews¹

12 Feb 2015-Critical Studies on Terrorism (Routledge)-Vol. 8, Iss: 2, pp 211-228

TL;DR: This article argued that the definitional debate has served to obscure the substantial scholarly consensus that actually exists on what terrorism is, and that this consensus is, however, largely unnecessary and irrelevant to the effective use of the term in the heterogeneous contexts within which it is employed.

read less

Abstract: This article seeks to turn the debate about the definition of terrorism on its head by arguing: (1) that the definitional debate has served to obscure the substantial scholarly consensus that actually exists on what terrorism is; (2) that this consensus is, however, largely unnecessary and irrelevant to the effective use of the term in the heterogeneous contexts within which it is employed; and (3) that by focusing on the quest for a definition of terrorism, terrorism scholars have largely missed the really interesting question about the word, namely, why it is that, given the heterogeneous purposes and contexts for which the word is used, we nonetheless continue to use a single word for all. In other words, how is it that we continue to know terrorism when we see it?

...read moreread less

Citations

PDF

Open Access

More filters

Journal Article•DOI•

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

[...]

Bart Schuurman¹•Institutions (1)

Leiden University¹

03 Jul 2020-Terrorism and Political Violence

TL;DR: The authors investigated 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 and found that the use of primary data has increased considerably and is continuing to do so.

...read moreread less

Abstract: 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.

...read moreread less

129 citations

Cites background from "Why terrorism can, but should not b..."

...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....
[...]

Dissertation•

A strategic analysis of al Shabaab

[...]

John Edward Maszka

28 Mar 2017

TL;DR: In this article, the authors make an original contribution to the body of literature by applying strategic theory to the Somali militant group al Shabaab and conclude that the group has passed through three phases and is currently in phase four.

...read moreread less

Abstract: This thesis makes an original contribution to the body of literature by applying strategic theory to the Somali militant group al Shabaab. By tracing the line of thinking of the organisation, I endeavour to more fully comprehend the group’s strategic objective(s). The U.S. State Department designated al Shabaab a terrorist organization in February 2008 (Shinn 2011), but has the group been engaged in terrorism or should it more accurately be labeled an insurgent group? The answer to this question is not as straight forward as it may seem because the group has gone through a number of transitions in which its ideology and tactical operations have changed considerably. In fact, I argue that even its strategic goals appear to have changed. Therefore, we need more than a superficial understanding of the organization and what it hopes to achieve through violence. The first order of business is to clearly define what we mean by “terrorism” and what we understand an “insurgent” to be. While the definition of terrorism is a hotly debated subject, this thesis employs the definition articulated by Neumann and Smith. According to Neumann and Smith (2005, p. 574), terrorism is “the deliberate creation of fear, usually by the use or threat of the use of symbolic acts of physical violence, to influence the behavior of a given target group.” Furthermore, while conventional warfare seeks to conquer the enemy, terrorism merely seeks to manipulate political change through terror (Ruby 2002; Neumann and Smith 2005). In the most generic sense, we can differentiate between conventional warfare (which seeks to conquer the enemy) and terrorism (which aims to manipulate political change through terror). However, because the decision to employ terrorist violence is strategic, we can also distinguish between groups that employ terrorist violence as simply part of an overall strategy and those that rely solely on terrorist violence to achieve their goals. By employing this three-part typology, we are left with three basic categories of militant violence: (1) military violence intended to overthrow a regime, (2) terrorist violence employed along with a number of other tactics intended to coerce political concessions from a regime, and (3) terrorist violence employed as the sole means for obtaining political concessions. Neumann and Smith refer to this third category of violence as strategic terrorism, and they define it as the attempt to obtain political objectives through the use of primarily terrorist activity rather than through some other means. The main focus of this thesis is to determine al Shabaab’s strategic goal(s), and therefore, whether it is an insurgent group or a terrorist organization. After tracing al Shabaab’s ideological underpinnings back through its predecessors, I examine the various phases the organization has passed through and attempt to determine what its strategic objective is and whether it has changed from one phase to another. I conclude that al Shabaab has passed through three phases and is currently in phase four. While the organization began as an insurgent group, it has since altered its strategic goal from overthrowing the Somali government to the use of violence to coerce political concessions from foreign governments. It has also adopted strategic terrorism. A component of this analysis is the theory of perception of the other. Perception plays a huge role in both the decision to engage in terrorist violence and in the way target governments respond. Strategy is the use of one’s resources towards the attainment of one’s goals. Therefore, how an actor perceives its own resources vis-a-vis the resources of another plays as large a role as the strategic goal itself. Furthermore, because al Shabaab has adopted the takfiri doctrine―which dramatically affects its tactical operations―perception of the other is indispensable for understanding how to interpret the group’s actions as a means for obtaining its respective goals. Perception of the other is also critical for comprehending both who al Shabaab directs its acts of symbolic violence towards and why this audience has changed over time.

...read moreread less

40 citations

Cites background from "Why terrorism can, but should not b..."

...While the definition of terrorism is a hotly debated subject (including those who suggest that we either cannot arrive at an agreed upon definition or that we should not even try, e.g. Ramsay 2015), this thesis employs the definition articulated by Neumann and Smith (2005)....
[...]
...…Gunning 2007a; McDonald 2007; Booth 2008; Burke 2008; Hülsse and Spencer 2008; Jarvis 2009; Joseph 2009; Sluka 2009; Altheide 2010; Bryan 2012; Ramsay 2015; Solomon 2015) as well as reactions to it (e.g. Horgan & Boyle 2008; Weinberg and Eubank 2008; Egerton 2009; Jones and Smith 2009; Stokes…...
[...]
...Interestingly, Ramsay (2015) argues that the scholarly debate over a lack of consensus on the definition of terrorism is largely exaggerated....
[...]
...Finally, Ramsay (2015) suggests that terrorism should not be defined because such a definition could not be correctly applied to the many diverse instances of political violence which bear little, if any, resemblance to one another....
[...]
...On the other hand, no actor views the violence that it commits as terrorism, but most actors are quick to label the violence committed by their enemies as terrorism (Jackson 2011; Bryan 2012; Ramsay 2015)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

The “Double-Battle”: women combatants and their embodied experiences in war zones

[...]

Ayelet Harel-Shalev¹, Shir Daphna-Tekoah²•Institutions (2)

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev¹, Ashkelon Academic College²

19 May 2016-Critical Studies on Terrorism

TL;DR: This article explored women combatants' experiences of war through interviews with women soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who served as combatants or in combat-support roles in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Our study contributes to the ongoing debate about women in combat by exploring women combatants’ experiences of war through interviews with women soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces who served as combatants or in combat-support roles in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We proffer that the bodily experiences of women combatants disturb conventional international relations and hegemonic masculine war metanarratives that either abstract or glorify combat. These otherwise silenced narratives reveal juxtapositions of feelings of competence and vulnerability and shed light on the women’s struggle for gender integration in the military. We conclude the article with a reflection on the challenges facing researchers investigating war and terrorism.

...read moreread less

24 citations

Cites background from "Why terrorism can, but should not b..."

...For attempts to define terrorism or terrorists, see Ramsay (2015)....
[...]

Journal Article•DOI•

Unpacking cyberterrorism discourse: Specificity, status, and scale in news media constructions of threat

[...]

Lee Jarvis¹, Stuart Macdonald², Andrew Whiting³•Institutions (3)

University of East Anglia¹, Swansea University², Birmingham City University³

01 Jan 2017

TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored original empirical findings from a research project investigating representations of cyberterrorism in the international news media and argued that constructions of specificity, status, and scale play an important, yet hitherto under-explored, role within articulations of concern about the threat posed by cyberterrorism.

...read moreread less

Abstract: This article explores original empirical findings from a research project investigating representations of cyberterrorism in the international news media. Drawing on a sample of 535 items published by 31 outlets between 2008 and 2013, it focuses on four questions. First, how individuated a presence is cyberterrorism given within news media coverage? Second, how significant a threat is cyberterrorism deemed to pose? Third, how is the identity of ‘cyberterrorists’ portrayed? And, fourth, who or what is identified as the referent – that which is threatened – within this coverage? The article argues that constructions of specificity, status, and scale play an important, yet hitherto under-explored, role within articulations of concern about the threat posed by cyberterrorism. Moreover, unpacking news coverage of cyberterrorism in this way leads to a more variegated picture than that of the vague and hyperbolic media discourse often identified by critics. The article concludes by pointing to several promising future research agendas to build on this work.

...read moreread less

23 citations

Book•DOI•

Counterterrorism evaluation: Taking stock and looking ahead

[...]

Jacopo Bellasio, Joanna Hofman, Antonia Ward, Fook Nederveen, Anna Knack, Arya Sofia Meranto, Stijn Hoorens - Show less +3 more

24 Oct 2018

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated how evaluations of CT and PCVE policies in the Netherlands and abroad have been designed and conducted over the last five years, and what practical lessons can be drawn regarding such evaluations and what actions and measures could be taken in the short and medium terms to mitigate any existing shortcomings.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Recent years have seen an uptick in terrorist and violent extremist incidents occurring across Europe. European countries, including the Netherlands, face a wide threat spectrum and the volume of terrorism and violent extremism-related phenomena and crimes has also increased. In response, European countries have made significant investments in strategies, policies and programmes designed to prevent and counter terrorism, violent extremism and associated phenomena. Holistic policy responses, such as a national counterterrorism strategy, have been designed and implemented with a view to both respond to terrorist threats and attacks, and increase societal and individual resilience to the lure of extremist ideologies.Not least because of the dynamism and complexity of the phenomena involved, little is known as regards the effectiveness, relevance and impact of counterterrorism (CT) and preventing and countering violent extremism (PCVE) policies and programmes. Recent research suggests also that despite the volume of CT and PCVE initiatives established in recent years, the evidence base underpinning these remains limited and evaluation practice and investments are underdeveloped compared to the overall fields of CT and PCVE.In 2010, a study commissioned by the WODC aimed to assess evaluation practice and culture in the fields of CT and PCVE.3 The study found that evaluation of CT and PCVE strategies, policies and programmes was still in its infancy (see link at: More information).The current study investigates how evaluations of CT and PCVE policies in the Netherlands and abroad have been designed and conducted over the last five years. Furthermore, the study investigates what practical lessons can be drawn regarding such evaluations and what actions and measures could be taken in the short and medium terms to mitigate any existing shortcomings.

...read moreread less

20 citations

Additional excerpts

...45 Schmid (2004a); Ramsay (2015). 46 Schmid (2004b). 47 Vermeulen (2014); Wensink et al. (2017). 48 Schmid (1988). 49 NCTV (2016a)....
[...]
...45 Schmid (2004a); Ramsay (2015). 46 Schmid (2004b). 47 Vermeulen (2014); Wensink et al. (2017). 48 Schmid (1988)....
[...]
...45 Schmid (2004a); Ramsay (2015). 46 Schmid (2004b). 47 Vermeulen (2014); Wensink et al. (2017). 48 Schmid (1988). 49 NCTV (2016a). 50 Arce M. & Sandler (2005); Hofman (2002); Wensink et al....
[...]
...45 Schmid (2004a); Ramsay (2015). 46 Schmid (2004b)....
[...]
...45 Schmid (2004a); Ramsay (2015). 46 Schmid (2004b). 47 Vermeulen (2014); Wensink et al....
[...]

1
2
3
4
…
5
6

Collapse

References

PDF

Open Access

More filters

Journal Article•DOI•

From Mobilization to Revolution.

[...]

J. Craig Jenkins, Charles Tilly

01 Jan 1980-Contemporary Sociology

TL;DR: The recent fallecimiento del sociólogo e historiador Charles Tilly (Lombard, Illinois, 1929-Bronx, Nueva York, 2008) puede servir de pretexto for rememorar una trayectoria investigadora sin duda excepcional, plasmada a lo largo de medio siglo en más de 600 artículos and 51 libros and monografías, that le convirtieron en el más influyente especialista

...read moreread less

Abstract: El reciente fallecimiento del sociólogo e historiador Charles Tilly (Lombard, Illinois, 1929-Bronx, Nueva York, 2008) puede servir de pretexto para rememorar una trayectoria investigadora sin duda excepcional, plasmada a lo largo de medio siglo en más de 600 artículos y 51 libros y monografías, que le convirtieron en el más influyente especialista en el análisis de la confrontación política en su relación con los grandes procesos de cambio social. Su audiencia mixta de historiadores interesados en sus métodos de análisis innovadores y de sociólogos que buscan modelos alternativos de acción colectiva y estrategias de investigación histórica que den respuesta a las cuestiones teóricas se explica en buena parte porque empleó un lenguaje ambivalente, pero razonablemente comprensible, y una metodología que siempre aspiró a situarse en el cruce entre la historia y la sociología. Su trayectoria intelectual puede ser contada como un dilatado tránsito desde el reduccionismo estructuralista de sus orígenes hacia lo que él mismo llamó “realismo relacional”: una nueva perspectiva de observación donde las transacciones, los vínculos sociales y las conversaciones se convertían en el tejido constitutivo de la vida social.

...read moreread less

4,833 citations

"Why terrorism can, but should not b..." refers background in this paper

...First, if terrorism as a concept does indeed centre on a certain “repertoire” (Tilly 1978) of violent, politically contentious practices such as car bombings, hijackings, hostage takings, and so on, why is it that our attempts to define it so often seem to end up broadening the issue to encompass…...
[...]
...First, if terrorism as a concept does indeed centre on a certain “repertoire” (Tilly 1978) of violent, politically contentious practices such as car bombings, hijackings, hostage takings, and so on, why is it that our attempts to define it so often seem to end up broadening the issue to encompass (or inexplicably exclude) much broader swathes of violent behaviour? Second, why do these sorts of phenomena apparently strike us as belonging so clearly to a common category if we cannot come up with a clear, limited understanding of where the conceptual centre of that category lies? Third, given that these practices, though often intended to be frightening to a wider audience, are not uniquely or even necessarily so, why does the notion of “terror” seem to remain so prominent, at least in popular notions of what these events are fundamentally about, not to mention in the very word that is given to them? In writing this article’s coda, I do not propose, of course, to offer a definitive answer to any of these questions....
[...]

Book•

From mobilization to revolution

[...]

Charles Tilly

01 Jan 1978

TL;DR: In the offensive case, a group pools resources in response to opportunities to realize its interests as discussed by the authors, which is the most top-down form of mobilization, whereas in the preventive case, the group pool resources in anticipation of future opportunities and threats.

...read moreread less

Abstract: The word "mobilization" conveniently identifies the process by which a group goes from being a passive collection of individuals to an active participant in public life. Demobilization is the reverse process. Offensive mobilization is, however, often top-down. In the offensive case, a group pools resources in response to opportunities to realize its interests. Preparatory mobilization is no doubt the most top-down of all. In this variety, the group pools resources in anticipation of future opportunities and threats. Governmental repression is uniquely important because governments specialize in the control of mobilization and collective action: police for crowd control, troops to back them, spies and informers for infiltration, licensing to keep potential actors visible and tame. Contention for power links the mobilization model to the polity model. The word "socialism" itself originally represented the vision of a social order in which producers would control their own fates.

...read moreread less

4,170 citations

Monograph•DOI•

The Logic of Violence in Civil War: List of Tables and Figures

[...]

Stathis N. Kalyvas¹•Institutions (1)

University of Connecticut¹

01 May 2006

1,625 citations

Book•

The war puzzle

[...]

John A. Vasquez¹•Institutions (1)

Vanderbilt University¹

01 Jan 1993

TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the domestic prerequisites of wars of rivalry, and explain world war: its scope, severity, and duration, and conclude that the realist road to war leads to war.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Part I. Preliminaries: Introduction 1. Conceptualizing war 2. Types of war 3. Power politics and war Part II. The Onset and Expansion of Wars of Rivalry: 4. Territorial continuity as a source of conflict leading to war 5. The realist road to war 6. The domestic prerequisites of wars of rivalry 7. Explaining world war: its scope, severity, and duration 8. Peace 9. Conclusion.

...read moreread less

756 citations

"Why terrorism can, but should not b..." refers background in this paper

...What is precisely meant by these criteria has been the subject of robust and on-going debate (see Vasquez 1993)....
[...]

Book•

Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, and Literature

[...]

Alex P. Schmid, Albert J. Jongman

01 Jan 1984

TL;DR: The literature of political terrorism as mentioned in this paper has a rich body of work on political terrorism, including the World Directory of Terrorist and Other Organization Associated with Guerilla Warfare, Political Violence, and Protest.

...read moreread less

Abstract: Terrorism and Related Concepts. Definition. Typologies (in collaboration with M. Stohl and P.A. Flemming). Theories. Data and Data Bases on State and Non-State Terrorism (in collaboration with R. Thysse). The Literature of Terrorism. A Bibliography of Political Terrorism (in collaboration with J. Brand and A. van der Poel). World Directory of Terrorist and Other Organization Associated with Guerilla Warfare, Political Violence, and Protest (by A.J. Jongman, in collaboration with A.P. Schmid).

...read moreread less

735 citations

"Why terrorism can, but should not b..." refers background in this paper

...(della Porta in Schmid and Jongman 1988, 37) But do “terrorist organisations” necessarily practice “terrorism”?...
[...]
...(Schmid and Jongman 1988, 28) Schmid constructed this definition based on responses to a detailed questionnaire sent to 109 leading terrorism scholars and experts, which he coded to produce a list of 22 “definitional elements”, including those shown in Table 1....
[...]
...Source: Schmid and Jongman (1988). Critical Studies on Terrorism 213...
[...]