Defining Terrorism

Lauren Journet

Professor Shirk

Global Politics of Terrorism

5 February 2018

Terrorism: a Matter of State and Non-State Actors

The year 2017 saw cases of vehicular attacks on protestors and gunmen holding up prayer services and killing those in worship. And these are only in America, not including the many Syrian air strikes and drone bombings chronicled each night on the news. This phenomena has gone from select and sporadic situations to a fact of life, with apps now programmed to give updates as soon as information comes out and Facebook creating the new check in feature for loved one to rely on. This word is often talked about, spilling from news reporter’s, politician’s, and civilian’s mouths as soon as rumors of an attack are released. While most people today can agree that terrorism is an act of violence, there is so much more to the definition that gets overlooked, sparking conversation amongst many political theorists. Terrorism is any act of violence made by either non-state or state groups that has political motivations and uses non-combatant and non-military personnel as potential targets.

Modern American society is plagued with stereotypes, especially those surrounding terrorism. Particularly on the topic of the terrorist, many Americans are taught to believe that those who do not have the same skin color or birth country are a suspect. This xenophobic tendency peaked following the attacks on September 11 and has not declined since, a fact that Lisa Stampnitzky familiarized herself with. Stampnitzky analysis in Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented Terrorism illustrates a contemporary perspective, arguing that the socially constructed definition of the word is ever-changing. Stampnitzky insists that there is no scientific definition of “terrorism” because it is a moral and political term. In opposition to the notion that terrorism is a natural occurrence, the modern (as of the years 1960 to 1970) definition was created by experts to help them study a certain phenomena. She asserts, “Since 9/11 Americans have been told that terrorists are pathological evildoers, beyond comprehension… Yet, before the 1970s, the acts we now understand as ‘terrorism’ were generally considered the work of rational, even sometimes honorable, actors” (Stampnitzky 3).

All insurgencies occuring before the 1970s were primarily viewed as rational. The change in social culture created an ideology that portrayed the insurgencies in an evil, villainous light. No longer were the days of trying to understand those who committed the actions. Now they are all automatically viewed as nefarious. This is, in part, because understanding terrorism could expose people to sympathy with terrorists, an idea that brings discomfort to many nationalist’s hearts. But terrorism does not always involve non-white people and it is certainly not always done by non-state actors.

The gruesome history of Nazi Germany is the most basic example to align with the fact that terrorism has been implemented by state actors. Adolf Hitler’s orders as dictator had political motives. It was widely known that he wanted to eliminate all Jewish persons in order to have a more pure society and his method of ethnic cleansing to the Jewish population is not latent. However, when listing examples of terrorist attacks, the Holocaust is not normally named. But the attacks on September 11th, the Boston Bombing, and the Las Vegas shooting are likely to make the list. This is not to say that the three previously mentioned attacks do not fall under the definition of terrorism, but rather to illustrate that these are not the only notable attacks. It is imperative to include state groups in the definition of terrorism, and the Holocaust is just one example. The attacks against the Jewish people were violent, political, and against non-combatant personnel. These three components are the main focus of the definition of terrorism, as most people imagine this trifecta while searching for a denotation.

This definition draws primarily from David Rapoport’s description, as chronicled in his work Four Waves of Terror and September 11. The piece emphasizes Rapoport’s view that terrorism is a form of political violence against non-military targets by non-state actors (Rapoport). In this instance, there is no connection to specific ideologies such as religion, nationalism, or race. To provide further evidence for his perspective, Rapoport separates this into four separate sections, or “waves” as he calls them. The first is the Anarchist Wave, which included various assassinations, usually against the government. The second wave was the Anti-Colonial Wave, which included guerilla warfare tactics. The third was the New Left Wave, including acts of radicalism and nationalism. The fourth and final stage was the Religious Wave, with suicide bombings on the rise. The reason Rapoport goes into so much detail with each wave, giving dates and trends for each of the four, is to prove cohesion between the four eras. Each wave, though set in different decades with different tactics, all presented political and violent acts committed by non-state actors.

While Rapoport inserts politics and violence in his definition of terrorism, the definition is lacking the involvement of both state and non-state actors. One terrorism theorist that does include both state and non-state actors is Charles Tilly. According to this theorist and his work in “Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists,” it is more about the concept of tactics, strategies, and groups having unified goals, and less about the group committing it (Tilly 5). This more inclusive definition means that “A great variety of individuals and groups engage in terror… most often alternating terror with other political strategies or with political inaction” (Tilly 6). Based on this definition of terrorism, Hitler would be considered a terrorist. Though it allows state actors to be deemed as terrorist, Charles Tilly’s definition places “terrorism” in the confines of tactic and strategy. While that is true in some cases, David Rapoport was right to include political violence in his definition.

The merging of these two definitions creates a pristine denotation of the word terrorism: any act of violence by non-state or state groups with a political motivation and non-combatant targets. To this, Philip Bobbitt takes issue. Bobbitt counters Rapoport’s four waves with six states in his piece Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century. The Princely States was formed out of mercenaries. The Kingley States involved buccaneers and privateers. Territorial States included barbary corsairs. The State-Nation was made up of anarchists, not to be confused with the Nation States and its nationalists. Bobbitt’s list ends with the Market States and al Qaeda. He summarizes that the states “carried out such attacks in violation of the orders of the states with which they were allied, often using their assaults to gain leverage against the state that employed them” (Bobbit 30). The pattern in all six states is that in each century there is an opposition to the current order. Therefore according to Bobbitt, terrorism is any violence in opposition to a current constitutional or international global order.

But terrorism is so much more than this. Revisiting the example of the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler was solely in opposition to the Jewish inhabitants of Germany. There was no constitutional order or international global order to defy. His actions were based exclusively on achieving his goal, violence, and hate. While Bobbitt’s definition is fitting for the time periods it describes, it leaves out important pieces to the word’s meaning, an action so much more than the opposition. Terrorism is merciless, terrorism is goal-oriented, and terrorism is political. While it can also be an opposition to a current order, if the definition stops there it may leave out cases such as the Holocaust, cases that deserve to be acknowledged as terrorism. For someone that admits, “There is some disagreement, to is in fact to say that the number of attacks is declining; there is no dispute that the number of casualties and deaths is increasing” (Bobbitt 49), it is unclear why his definition is so narrow that it does not consider cases that do not defy constitutional orders.

Terrorism happens everywhere. Overseas there are stories about bombings, taking out entire villages. On American soil there are stories of gunmen targeting crowds of harmless bystanders. These violent approaches are all intentionally done, instilling fear and wreaking havoc on  whole communities. In defining this word, some components should not be ignored. Terrorism is an act of violence with political motivations against non-combatant personnel. These acts are committed by both state and non-state actors, the difference between the two trivial. Terrorism is here, it is there, and it is happening now. A word like this cannot be left undefined.

Works Cited

Bobbitt, Philip. Terror and Consent: The Wars for the Twenty-First Century. New York, Random

House Incorporated, 2008.

Rapoport, David C. "The Four Waves of Rebel Terror and September 11." Anthropoetics: the

Journal of Generative Anthropology, vol. VIII, no. 1, 2002,

anthropoetics.ucla.edu/ap0801/terror/. Accessed 30 Jan. 2018.

Stampnitzky, Lisa. Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented Terrorism. Cambridge, Cambridge

University Press, 2014.

Tilly, Charles. “Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists.” Sociological Theory, vol. 22, no. 1, 2004, pp.

5–13.