Bezbednosni Dijalozi (Jun 2015)
The Plurality of Meanings ‘Terrorism’- the Theoretical and Practical Importance of Understanding the phenomena
Abstract
Systematic scientific research of terrorism has begun in the 1970s when terrorism was recognized as a differentiated security threat in social reality and public discourse. However, scholars and experts still have not agreed on terrorism definition. Terrorism is an ‘ambiguous concept’ at three levels: political, ontological, and conceptual. Scientific and expert knowledge is frequently the starting point for making policies and strategies. If there is such a disagreement about definitions, which leads to a lexicographical cacophony and a fixation on the particular aspect of terrorism, which depends on the interests of actors involved, thus the efficiency of defined national and supranational policies and strategies for counterterrorism is questionable. The definition as a fundamental starting point affects the study of terrorism. Moreover, institutional definitions of terrorism are an integral part of security strategies. Thus, the efficiency of defined national and supranational policies and strategies for counterterrorism is questionable if there is such a disagreement about definitions that leads to a lexicographical cacophony and fixation on any particular view of terrorism, which depends on the interests of actors, involved. In addition, such state of art in the field of terrorism studies does not contribute to the development of discipline and the accumulation of knowledge or has had a paralyzing effect on substantive research. Therefore, even for scientific and moreover, for practical (counterterrorism policy and strategy) reasons, all interested groups should strive to clear terms and solid definition of terrorism and should eliminate the concept of ‘subjugated knowledge’ which is evident in determining the origin of knowledge in the study of terrorism. The authors analyze available terrorism definitions (N = 334), systematized in the database of definitions that was constructed from the scientific and academic sources, the expert sources, the available official sources of various institutions and organizations, news, etc. The basic analysis was conducted on 334 definitions with key descriptive variables while the further analysis included 306 definitions, i.e. those created after 1973. The content analysis establishes the key elements of the definition, and frequency analysis shows which of the elements are most commonly used for defining terrorism. The analysis confirmed the earlier findings of the surveys about terrorism definitions, where the highest percentages have the following elements: violence/force, political element, fear/terror, threat, psychological effects, victim-target differentiation, etc. In addition, some new elements have been detected like: state as an actor, social aspect/motive, international aspect, ideology, religion, etc.
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