Sociological Approach To Terrorism Essay

Prior to the September 9/11 attacks the social phenomenon of terrorism was a subject sociologists did not seem to delve into (Turk, 2008). It wasn’t until the events of 9/11 did the world see a sudden

There is a lot of difficulty in finding a definition of Terrorism that is universally accepted (Mitchell, 2012), as definitions of terrorism vary from country to country (Cinoglu & Ozeren, n.d). However according to Mitchell (2012) political goals, violence, unlawfulness, and a “psychological impact and fear” (para. 2). Most, if not all the time, the goal of terrorism is to send a message that is either ideological or religious (Hudson, 1999). This is achieved by terrorising the public, often through high-profile impacts on targets that are symbolic or represent the targeted nation and/or other enemies (Hudson, 1999). Worldwide, terrorist attacks rose by 43% from 2012 to 2013, killing 17 891 people globally and wounding 32 577 people (Ballantine, Korgen and Roberts, 2015). In order to prevent such fatalities, we need to understand Terrorism. This can be done by studying terrorism under the scope of a sociological theoretical perspective such as the Rational Choice Theory perspective, the Structural-Functional Theory perspective and the Symbolic Interactionalist Theory
A major element of one’s judgement and understanding of reality is group membership (Cinoglu & Ozeren, n.d). Cinolglu and Ozeren state that “Crime and therefore Terrorism are treated as learned behaviours” (n.d, p. 56). They also claim that it is through these interactions with other terrorists that individuals learn how to become a terrorist and through involvement of group activities, an individual assimilates the realities that their terrorist group