Lauren Journet
Professor Shirk
Global Politics of Terrorism
3 May 2018
Terrorism: A Validation of Previous Thoughts
Even before doing all of the work, research, and discussion that this class requires, I had a working definition of terrorism. Prior to this class, I viewed terrorism as any act that inflicted harm, fear, or chaos on a population- large or small. I never took into account the difference between whether this source of fear was a state or non-state actor. Looking at the United States of America State Department definition, I found some clarity and further validation. The U.S. State Department defines terrorism as the “premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents.” We then covered David Rapoport’s definition of terrorism based on his piece Four Waves of Terror and September 11. Rapoport described terrorism as any political violence against non-military targets by non-state actors. While it was similar to the U.S. State Department’s definition, Rapoport’s definition was careful to include the idea of “non-state” actor. Because I did not find the distinction between state and non-state actors as a factor in determining whether an action was terrorism or not terrorism, I included both actors in my definition. In my first paper Terrorism: a Matter of State and Non-State Actors, I settled on the definition that terrorism is “an 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.”
Terrorism is merciless. It is goal-oriented, usually involving some working of politics no matter how latent this is. I really wanted to get these points across in my definition. The difference between state and non-state actors was not as important as the act itself. After reading through countless articles, books, and scholarly essays, I stand by my original definition. The U.S. State Department’s definition, influenced by some of David Rapoport’s logic, still provides a fitting definition of terrorism. I still fully stand by the idea that terrorism is an act of violence with political motivations made by both state and non-state actors. If anything, the cases presented in class have all served as evidence for my definition.
All of the cases that we worked with in class involved political violence, goals, and motives. All of the cases that we worked with in class involved fear and chaos. Some cases involved state actors, others involved non-state actors. In each of the cases we reviewed in class, the context on both sides was extremely complicated. Regardless, each case had specific factors that contributed to the definition of terrorism. For example, which lasted from September of 1793 to July of 1794, led to 16,594 death sentences in the country of France. This was a time when the political infrastructure of France was falling apart due to disruptions in the workings of the traditional absolute monarchy. The noble paid little to no taxes and spent excessive amounts of money, which contributed to the outstanding economic difficulties in France such as their debt crisis. Mike Rapport in The French Revolution and Early European Revolutionary Terrorism, discussed how the citizens of France took part in the watching and gathering around the death sentences (Rapport 68). Citizens who may have supported the nobility was executed. This is a clear example of a state actor promoting violence and political motivations.
Another classroom topic of discussion, taking place nearly 200 years after the Reign of Terror, was the Islamic State of Syria (ISIS). Branching off from the 2006 group the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), ISIS was formally established in 2013 and immediately began capturing territory in Iraq and committing attacks on other groups. Since then, the group has committed and claimed responsibility for countless attacks worldwide- ranging from suicide bombings to vehicular strikes, targeting mainly the non-military personnel. Their goal could not be more political, as the group is trying to develop a global caliphate- a one-government world. ISIS has a theme of taking to social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to gain followers for their extremist ideologies. As it is right now, ISIS does not belong to any one nation-state, making the group a clear example of a non-state actor promoting violence and political motivations.
These events happened with 200-year gap in the middle of them. In these two centuries, the world saw many other instances of terror very similar to the two discussed above. All of the cases that we talked about in class further emphasized my initial definition of terrorism, that it is any and every act of violence made by either non-state or state groups. These actions almost always have political motivations and target non-combatant and non-military personnel. For this reason, my definition of terror has not changed. It has only been further validated.
Works Cited
Chapter 1: Legislative Requirements and Key Terms. U.S. Department of State,
www.state.gov/documents/organization/65464.pdf.
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.
Rapport, Mike. “The French Revolution and Early European Revolutionary Terrorism.” The
Routledge History of Terrorism, Routledge Publishing, 2015.
“Timeline: the Rise, Spread and Fall of the Islamic State.” Wilson Center, 30 Jan. 2018,
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