The Debate About Terrorism

Although the debate about terrorism has especially sparked in the past decades, terrorism is not a new phenomenon and it has been used since the beginning of recorded history. Nevertheless, it is rather difficult to define terrorism. Depending on from which side one assesses terrorism it can be defined as either a tactic or a strategy, a crime or a holy duty, a heinousness or a justified reaction to oppression. Terrorism uses coercive power with many of the advantages of military force, but with only a fraction of the cost and due to their small size covert operations, it is difficult for governments to actually deter or defend against terrorist organizations. Terrorism has thus become one of the most threatening phenomena for citizens worldwide and a concern for many governments and international organizations.

Several important debates about the effectiveness of terrorism have therefore appeared and there are a number of essays and studies that attempt to determine whether terrorism has been a successful strategy of coercion or not. Among political scientists, there are currently two opposing opinions regarding this topic. Some scholars argue that terrorism is increasing worldwide, because it works and that it is particularly effective against democracies since the electorate is usually very sensitive to civilian casualties from terrorist attacks which can cause their leaders to make concessions to terrorist groups. Authoritarian governments on the other hand only respond to the preferences of the ruling elite, and are thus less likely to give in to terrorist demands in response to civilian casualties. Other scholars argue that when looking at the number of terrorist attacks and their underlying goals, there is actually little ...

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... both the public support and the military capacity in order to defeat governments. In the long-term, today’s terrorist organizations will therefore fail to achieve their objectives. This is especially the case when these organizations target civilians and civilian places. Cases like the 1999 apartment building bombings in Russia (or other cases like the attacks of September 11 or terrorist attacks during the first and second Intifada), show that countries derive the policy objectives of the terrorist groups responsible for such acts from the consequences of these attacks and not from their stated goals. Target countries will consider the death of their citizens as proof that the terrorists want to hurt the society and the public even though there might have been further underlying reasons and are thus disinclined to enter into cooperation or make any concessions.