Political Terrorism Essay

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Sample Political Terrorism Essay

Words 2,352

According to the UN Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of frequent violent action, engaged by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The instant human victims of violence are normally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and provide as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to maneuver the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought. (UN Office of Drugs and Crime, Academic Consensus Definition )

 

There is yet another group of scholars who define terrorism in historical perception, for example Michael Walzer believes that “random terror for political achievement emerged as strategy of revolutionary struggle after the World War II.” (Walzer 201)

Likewise some scholars classify terrorism in the light of violence and force by state agencies. Walter Lacquer, for example, defines acts of violence and oppression as carried out by the government against its own people as terrorism. (Lacquer 74) In the same level, Neil Livingston declares that the state is the chief executor of terrorism today. (Livingston 11)Corroborating the same idea, scholars like Jay Mallin define terrorism as an alternate for open warfare. He states: “when diplomats fail soldiers take over, when soldiers fail terrorists take over.”( Mallin 54) His opinion of terrorism as an alternate for war or as a consequence of failed diplomacy is pertinent.