• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
 
Whatever is the fate of nations, countless places-as-territories will exist and continue to be constructedbecause we cannot undertake projects without them.For now, the nation state is the most powerful one.But to ignore the fact that its powers to contain arepermeable and changing is to fall into what Agnew(1994) calls the ‘territorial trap.’ We run the risk of falling into a different territorial trap when we ignorethe power of territories and places-as-territories tomold events, for we might then observe that all kindsof actions seem to have bounded and spatially ac-cordant geographies while being ignorant of the factthattheyareshapedbyacommonterritorialstructure.
Bibliography
AgnewJ1994Theterritorialtrap:Thegeographicalassumptionsof international relations theory.
Re
iew of International Political Economy
1
: 53–80Ardrey R 1966
The Territorial Imperati 
e
, 1st edn. Anthenium,New YorkBrenner N 1998 Global cities, Global states: Global cityformation and state territorial restructuring in contemporaryEurope.
Re
iew of International Political Economy
5
: 1–7Cresswell T 1996
In Place
\
Out of Place: Geography, Ideology,and Transgression
. University of Minnesota Press, Min-neapolis, MNGraham S 1998 The end of geography or the explosion of place?Conceptualizing space, place and information technology.
Progress in Human Geography
22
: 165–85Harvey D 1982
The Limits to Capital 
. University of ChicagoPress, Chicago, pp. 431–8Montagu M F A (ed.) 1968
Man and Aggression
. Oxford Uni-versity Press, OxfordMorley D, Robins K 1995
Spaces of Identity: Global MediaElectronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries
. Routledge,LondonNewman D, Paasi A 1998 Fences and neighbours in thepostmodern world: Boundary narratives in political geogra-phy.
Progress in Human Geography
22
(2): 186–207Sack R D 1986
Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History
.Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UKSack R D 1997
Homo Geographicus: A Framework for Action,Awareness,andMoralConcern
.TheJohnsHopkinsUniversityPress, Baltimore, MDSojaE W1971
ThePoliticalOrganizationofSpace
.Associationof American Geographers, Commission on College Geography,Washington, DC
R. D. Sack
Terrorism
The term ‘terrorism’ refers to the systematic use orthreat of violence to communicate a political messagerather than defeat an opponent’s military forces. Thusthe targets of terrorism are symbolic. Victims of terrorism represent a wider audience. To achievemaximum shock effect, terrorist violence is usuallydramatic and provocative. Typically small numbers of extremists who otherwise lack the capacity to chal-lenge those in power resort to terrorism. However, theterm is also used to describe clandestine violence insupport of the state or by the state. A definingcharacteristic of terrorism is that its users expectrewards that are out of proportion to both theresources they possess and the risks they assume.Terrorism is, furthermore, a strategy that is notrestricted to any particular ideology.
1. Historical De
elopment of Terrorism
As a strategy of resistance to the modern state,terrorism emerged some half century after the FrenchRevolution, when the term originated as a descriptionof the state regime of terror. In the late nineteenthcentury, ‘terrorism’ became a strategy of opposition.Russian revolutionaries and anarchists in France,Spain, Italy, and Germany established terrorism as acentral mechanism in attempts to overthrow estab-lished regimes, most of which were autocratic. In 1881the assassination of the Czar of Russia horrifiedEuropean governments while it inspired revolu-tionaries and nationalists from Ireland to India.Terrorism in Russia focused on selective assassin-ations of key political leaders. Anarchists introducedthe concept of ‘propaganda of the deed,’ the idea of anoutrageous action, such as a bomb thrown indis-criminately into a public gathering, that wouldfrighten the ruling classes and arouse the masses. Irishrepublicans added to the repertoire by organizingattacks in London, outside the immediate theater of conflict. This formative era of terrorism ended withWorld War I, sparked by the assassination of theAustrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist.In the interwar period right wing extremist move-ments adopted terrorist tactics in their struggles forpower. The period is best known, however, for thepractice of totalitarian terror from above in Germanyand the Soviet Union. After World War II, terrorismfigured prominently in some national liberationstruggles of the 1950s and early 1960s, such as inCyprus and in Algeria. As the colonial era ended,social scientists expected terrorism to disappear withit. Yet at precisely this moment terrorism was trans-formedintoamajorinternationalphenomenon.Inthelate 1960s, Latin American revolutionaries and Pales-tinian nationalists independently conceived of a newtactic of terrorism: the seizure of hostages in order tocompel governments to concede to their demands.Violence escalated when foreign states who supportedthese local regimes, such as the USA, also becametargets. Hijackings of aircraft in the Middle East anddiplomatic kidnappings in Latin America, for ex-ample, became routine. The 1972 seizure of Israeliathletes at the Munich Olympic games demonstrated15604
Territoriality: Geographical 
 
the immense publicity value of hostage-taking as wellas the spillover of Palestinian terrorism to WesternEurope.By the mid-1970s, left wing and separatist terrorismcame to pose serious internal security problems forliberal democracies, especially in Western Europe. InGermany and Italy, for example, terrorism emerged inthe wake of student protest movements. In the Basqueregions of Spain and in Northern Ireland, ethnona-tionalist organizations mounted prolonged separatistcampaigns, which lasted to the end of the century.Outside of Europe, India and Sri Lanka also facedchronic terrorism from secessionist ethnic minoritiesin the 1980s (continuing through the 1990s in SriLanka). Furthermore, in Latin America, after rev-olutionary terrorism had ended in Argentina, Brazil,and Uruguay, the Shining Path movement rose tochallenge the regime in Peru in the 1980s.The Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Israeliinvasion of Lebanon in 1982 stimulated the growth of yet another type of terrorist actor, as radical anti-WesternIslamicgroupsformedinLebanon,Palestine,Egypt, and, by the end of the decade, Algeria. Theseizure of US hostages in Lebanon, as well as theadventofmassivevehiclebombs,suchastheattackonthe American Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983,continued to focus attention on terrorism in theMiddle East. Palestinian groups also remained active,for example, in the hijacking of the Achille Laurocruise ship in 1985.State-sponsored terrorism became another newissue of the 1980s, initially because of the Iran hostagecrisis. In 1986, the USA, convinced that Libya wasresponsibleforterrorismagainstAmericans,retaliatedwith military force. This in turn provoked Libya totake revenge in the mid-air bombing of Pan Am 103 in1988.Terrorism continued to shock governments andtheir publics in the 1990s. High-casualty terrorism inthe United States was an unprecedented development.Its origins were both domestic, as individuals asso-ciated with the US far right bombed the OklahomaCity federal building, and international, with Islamicmilitants organizing the bombing of the World TradeCenter in New York. A second emphasis in the 1990swas the fear of terrorism involving weapons of massdestruction, a fear inspired not only by the 1995 saringas attack on the Tokyo subways by a religious cultbutalsobytheprospectoftheproliferationofnuclear,chemical, and biological weapons. In the Middle East,radical Islamic groups used terrorism to oppose thepeaceprocessinitiatedbetweenIsraelandthePalestineLiberation Organization (PLO), while the Gulf Warand the subsequent US military presence in SaudiArabia inspired Islamic militants to attack Americaninterests. In 1998 simultaneous bombings of the USembassies in Kenya and Tanzania provoked the USAto retaliate militarily against targets in the Sudan andAfghanistan.
2. Explanations of Terrorism
Interest in the study of terrorism has paralleled thehistorical evolution of the phenomenon. Until the1970s, little was written on the subject. Typicallyterrorism was treated briefly as the first stage of internal war, to be abandoned as insurgents moved toguerrilla warfare and then on to conventional war. Bythe 1990s, the literature contained thousands of specific citations to terrorism, including contributionsby historians, political scientists, economists, legalscholars, criminologists, sociologists, psychologists,philosophers,andanthropologists.Nevertheless,thereis no comprehensive unifying theory of terrorism. Noris terrorism a central element in major theories of warand conflict. The importance of the concept is de-termined by the political significance of terroristactions, rather than by intellectual context.Terrorism is a contested concept that resists precisedefinition. Since the term is both elastic and emotion-ally powerful, it lends itself to subjective interpre-tations driven by political rather than analyticalpurposes. It is also difficult to distinguish terrorismfrom other forms of violence, such as, for example,guerrilla warfare or criminal activity. Must the victimsofterrorism benoncombatants,forexample?Ifso, areattacks on military targets acts of terrorism? If terrorism is defined in terms of the intentions behindthe action, is it possible to know those intentions?What is the relationship between religion and ter-rorism? Furthermore, terrorism occurs so frequentlyandinsomanydifferenthistoricalandculturalsettingsthatitisdifficulttomakecomparisonsordrawgeneralconclusions. Analysts of the subject even dispute basicquestions of fact, such as whether or not terrorism isbecoming more lethal or whether it is more likely indemocracies.
2.1 Why Does Terrorism Happen? 
Terrorism occurs in situations of conflict. Dividedsocieties, repressive governments, economic inequal-ities, or ideological rivalry among states, for example,create the grievances that generate terrorism. In othercases, conditions are permissive. Democracies, forexample, may be susceptible to terrorism because theytolerate dissent and allow an open news media. Yetfew of the individuals who are dissatisfied or evenactively engaged in social protest movements move onto participate in terrorism. Thus understanding thecauses of terrorism requires knowledge of psycho-logical motivations, at the individual or small grouplevel. Research points to the dynamics of grouprelationships rather than specific personality types ormental pathologies. Once established, undergroundgroups may struggle primarily to maintain groupsolidarity and cohesion. They bind together indivi-duals with different backgrounds, skills, and levels of political commitment.15605
Terrorism
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...