Intro to Terrorism
Week 1: August 27 2012: What is Terrorism?
Lectures will be complementary to the readings, not reproductions.
JB’s own background: * Historian, not very interested in abstract models, concepts or theories * Started out studying Medieval Islamic history, later shifted to modern European history and extremist groupings (also right wing, neo-fascist etc.) * Before 9/11, warned about the threat presented against the US by jihadist groups but not taken seriously – of course, this changed after 9/11.
The role of ideology: * Of decisive importance for terrorist groupings * It’s NOT poverty or other materially related reasons which explain terrorist motivations
The literature on terrorism: * A major problem: this became a high profile topic attracting a lot of intention – made it harder to distinguish between the real experts who had been working on this for decades and “scam” experts who appeared out of nowhere. * This underlines the need to be skeptical and critical – that goes for us as students, for people reading or listening to the news (a matter of education) * An illustration: In 2009, a professor wrote an article on textbooks misinforming college students; “sloppy definitions”, superficiality etc.
Defining the concept of terrorism: * Difficult task, no unanimity of opinions * But, terrorism has a pejorative negative connotation, which makes it even more important to define it if we should be able to use it in a meaningful way. * Terrorists will not admit that they are in fact terrorists. * A neutral non-biased definition is needed.
Some problematic definitions: * The overtly broad ones: doesn’t isolate the distinctive element of terrorism * The ones which focus on the actions themselves: murder, hijacking * The one which restrict themselves to non-state actors: States prefer these definitions though * The ones focused on a specific beliefs: Terrorism is a method/operational
Lectures will be complementary to the readings, not reproductions.
JB’s own background: * Historian, not very interested in abstract models, concepts or theories * Started out studying Medieval Islamic history, later shifted to modern European history and extremist groupings (also right wing, neo-fascist etc.) * Before 9/11, warned about the threat presented against the US by jihadist groups but not taken seriously – of course, this changed after 9/11.
The role of ideology: * Of decisive importance for terrorist groupings * It’s NOT poverty or other materially related reasons which explain terrorist motivations
The literature on terrorism: * A major problem: this became a high profile topic attracting a lot of intention – made it harder to distinguish between the real experts who had been working on this for decades and “scam” experts who appeared out of nowhere. * This underlines the need to be skeptical and critical – that goes for us as students, for people reading or listening to the news (a matter of education) * An illustration: In 2009, a professor wrote an article on textbooks misinforming college students; “sloppy definitions”, superficiality etc.
Defining the concept of terrorism: * Difficult task, no unanimity of opinions * But, terrorism has a pejorative negative connotation, which makes it even more important to define it if we should be able to use it in a meaningful way. * Terrorists will not admit that they are in fact terrorists. * A neutral non-biased definition is needed.
Some problematic definitions: * The overtly broad ones: doesn’t isolate the distinctive element of terrorism * The ones which focus on the actions themselves: murder, hijacking * The one which restrict themselves to non-state actors: States prefer these definitions though * The ones focused on a specific beliefs: Terrorism is a method/operational