欢迎来到留学生英语论文网

Literature Review - Causes of Terrorism

发布时间:2017-04-12
该论文是我们的学员投稿,并非我们专家级的写作水平!如果你有论文作业写作指导需求请联系我们的客服人员

LITERATURE REVIEW

CAUSES OF TERRORISM

INTRODUCTION

We can see changes in the research related to terrorism after the terror attacks on the United States on September 11th 2001. By reviewing the literature from the period prior to the attacks on September 11th, there will be lack of research and few scholars on the topic. The research funding in the pre-9/11 period has been weak and not so much present. This changed drastically after the attacks on Pentagon and World Trade Centre in 2001. Scholars in the fields of International Relations studies, Political studies and other fields of studies, have devoted considerable effort to the study of terrorism and the causes of terrorism. In this review we will see that the research of the causes of terrorism extend further than the research done by political scientists and International Relations scholars. Terrorism scholars tend to focus on four main causes; structural causes, psychological causes and rational choice theory. This review will therefore focus on these main causes.

  1. Martha Crenshaw is one of the earlier scholars on the topic of causes of terrorism “Terrorism occurs both in the context of violent resistance to the state as well as in the service of state interests. If we focus on terrorism directed against governments for purposes of political change, we are considering the premeditated use or threat of symbolic, low-level violence by conspiratorial organizations. Terrorist violence communicates a political message; its ends go beyond damaging an enemy’s material resource”(Crenshaw, 1981, 369).
  2. There are hundreds of different definitions on terrorism. Terrorism studies scholars have never agreed or disagreed on one definition, but if we look at the North Atlantic Treaty Organizations (NATO) definition on terrorism from 2008, we will see that the definition covers a broad definition. “The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives” (North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO Standardization Agency (NSA), 2008, 225)

Terrorism occurs in wealthy countries as well as in poor countries, in democracies as well as in authoritarian states. There is no single root cause of terrorism, or even a common set of causes. However, there are a few common predictions and research done in terrorism studies that we will se in this literature review.

STRUCTURAL CAUSES

Structural causes of terrorism are one of the main approaches in scholars researching causes of terrorism. This approach argues that the environment is a factor and cause of terrorism; this could be both on national or international arenas. After reviewing the literature, there are three different types of structural approaches; geographical (location), economical, political (governmental and organizational). Ross (1993) argues that structural theories posit that the causes of terrorism can be found in the environment and the political, cultural, social, and economic structure of societies.

After September 11th it has been commonplace to blame globalisation for the international terrorism that has happened afterwards. Globalisation can be directly related to changes in international terrorism. However, in many cases, processes associated with globalisation impact only indirectly on patterns of terrorism, via changing the political, socio-economic and societal context for terrorist activities.

POLITICAL CAUSES (GOVERNMENT AND ORGANIZATIONS):

Many scholars focus on the political and organizational side of structural causes of terrorism. Scholars debate the different types of political system and to what extent it causes terrorism. The relationship between democracy and terrorism is a key concern. Bjørgo (2005) argues that how states respond to terrorism matters, depening on the regime type.

Some scholars argue that a democratic regime will prevent terrorist attacks, however, others argue that a democratic regime is focusing on preserving civil liberties. Furthermore, a government should encourage the change of radicalised groups that are linked to broader social and political movements or political parties. Democracies have a responsibility to educate their citizens to democratic solidarity and not fear towards the terrorists. Through a democratic regime people are offered to generate change by for example voting or freedom of speech. These democratic values force potential terrorists to try other methods to get people to listen to what they have to say, instead of participating in terrorist organizations or terrorist crimes (Li 2005, Ross 1993)

Democratic organizations tend to lead to a more peaceful society. They are able to demonstrate their views in a peaceful way. On the other hand, scholars argue that non-democratic organizations might generate terrorist attacks. This is because autocratic countries and organizations do not let people state their point of view, and therefore not able to challenge the regime, without having to tend to violence. In autocratic countries political control comes from lack of political transparency and may force people to participate in terrorist acts. However, due to the lack of political transparency and the strong control in autocratic countries, these potential terrorist acts are often prevented to happened in their own country (Li 2005, Gupta 2012, Wilkinson 1974, Kruger and Laitin 2008)

ECONOMICAL CAUSES:

An economic view on terrorism instead assumes that terrorists are rational actors, and as rational actors, they participate in terrorist acts in order to gain what they need or want – to maximize their utility. We can therefore link economic causes and rational choice theory (Meierrieks and Krieger, 2009). Economic causes of terrorism are well researched. In what extent does money affect a terrorist attack, both for the terrorist organization and for the terrorist.

Rapid economic modernisation has a strong impact on levels of ideological terrorism in Western Europe. In the last twenty years we have seen that international terrorism in Western countries, has been and still is occurring. Scholars argue that this is because the economic wealth is higher in Western countries compared to other parts of the world (Krueger and Malečková, 2003).

Socio-economic explanations of terrorism suggest that various forms of deprivation drive people to terrorism, or that they are more vulnerable to recruitment by terrorist organizations. Poverty and lack of political freedom are a few examples. However, Krueger and Malečková (2003), suggest that higher education may improve a candidate’s chance of being selected to become a suicide bomber, because he is more likely to be able to fulfil his commitment to the terrorist organization without getting caught by security or police. This is more likely to happen if someone with less education and might act from desperation (Krueger and Malečková, 2003, Meierrieks and Krieger, 2009).

RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

Rational choice theory is known for claiming that people are rational humans, and that they weigh their cost and benefits, ups and downs, and then makes a rational choice. Many scholars believe that this also applies to terrorists. Sandler and Enders (2004) argue that as rational humans terrorists act violently in the belief to maximize their utility.

Furthermore, scholars argue that terrorists might be provoked by structural cause; they still make a rational choice when they participate in terrorist acts. A terrorist act is not something someone do spontaneously, it is often planed for a very long period of time. Therefore, scholars believe that terrorist attacks and terrorist acts are calculated acts and are therefore most likely rational (Crenshaw 1981, Pape 2003) According to Pape (2003) the terrorist attacks will end when the terrorists achieve their goals, this because it is the rational choice for the terrorists. However, terrorism does not always lead to the political purpose and fear that the terrorists intend to gain from the terrorist attacks. Rational choice means that the terrorists always have to look at the pros and cons when trying to rationalise the terrorist act (Victoroff 2005, Abrahms 2008).

Finally, rational choice theories attempt to explain participation in terrorist acts and organizations and the choice of terrorist actions as a result of the cost and benefit calculations of the participants (Ross, 1993). According to Abrahams (2008), individuals resort to terrorism if the political utilities are great enough. Abrahams argues also that the terrorist overweigh what they will, and what are the alternative? Crenshaw, and other scholars arguing for rational choice theory, claim that terrorism is most definitely not the product of individual decisions or personal developments, but rather the result of a group process and its collective, rational decisions.

PSYCHOLOGICAL CAUSES

There are several psychological approaches that have been created, and researched, in order to explain why someone engages in terrorist activities. When we look at the literature that views psychological explanations for the causes of terrorism, we will find two main groups of scholars; the scholars that research the psycho-sociological and scholars that research the psycho-pathological traditions (Kegley, 1990). In this review, psychological causes will cover both of these traditions (Lia, 2004). According to Crenshaw (1981) psychological causes of terrorism try to explain why individuals join terrorist organization, and how each individual interact and effect the direction of terrorist organization (Ross, 1993). Within the psychological theories of terrorist behaviour scholars primarily highlight individual actors (Victoroff, 2005). Psychological causes for terrorism within a group is something scholars can elaborate on more in the future.

Mark Sageman (2004) argues that there is a common feature that explains why individuals become involved in terrorist attacks or organizations, and these features can be divided into three approaches. First, he says that the terrorists share a common social background. Second, the terrorists have a common psychological character. And finally, is that some people become terrorists because of their particular situation at the time of recruitment (Sageman, 2004)

Kruglanski and Fishman (2006) argue that there are two alternative psychological approaches to terrorism. First they argue that there is a terrorist identity, which is looked at as a syndrome. This view implies that terrorists are different from other people in their personality. Second Kruglanski and Fishman talks about a “tool” view of one of the psychological causes of terrorism. According to this view everyone could potentially become a terrorist; a non-state player, a state, even a individual.

On the other side, scholars argue that there is no specific “terrorist identity”, syndrome or tool that define a terrorist. Rather, they argue that it is the environment that inspires peoples’ possible commitment to terrorist organizations. It can be for example a spare of the moment thing, lack of freedom or a higher engagement for a specific purpose. However, there is not only an individual side of the psychological theory. Smaller groups with extremist views can easily become a target for recruitment for terrorist organizations. And, commonly known religious groups are often a significant part of terrorist organizations (Victoroff 2005, Crenshaw 1981, Crenshaw 2000)

FUTURE RESEARCH

Terrorism studies were once a relatively minor specialist subfield of security studies and international relations. Today, it exhibits all the characteristics of a major…

As several scholars (Young and Findley, 2011) have pointed out, one of the challenges with the research today is that there is a lack of research regarding the differences between transnational terrorism and domestic terrorism when they research causal mechanisms. However, due to this, I did not differentiate between domestic and transnational terrorism either. This is something for future researchers to cover.

Research on terrorism and terrorist attack is a challenging field of study. Many scholars have been claiming that the evidence in the research is weak and has lack of confidence. This because it is often hard to gather reliable sources that will be respected. Terrorism studies is a field where there is easy to poke holes in the research because of the weak evidence. This is especially shown in the literature that focuses on the causes of terrorism. On the other hand, will we find more hard evidence on the study if we look at the consequences of terrorism.

Over time, the research has changed. Not only have it changed regarding

上一篇:Indonesia's Democratic Transformation 下一篇:A probable lesson conveyed by the LTTE?