terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Law Enforcement (2 ed.)
... The use or threat of violence for political, religious, or ideological...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Geography (5 ed.)
... The use of unauthorized and spectacular violence and intimidation for political purposes. http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~cstpv/ Website of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political...
terrorism Reference library
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military
... the calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear. Terrorism is intended to coerce or intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or...
terrorism Reference library
Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law (3 ed.)
... Terrorism as a phenomenon has a considerable history, but early terrorism was mainly internal and thereby readily subject to national criminal jurisdiction. For the origins and history of terrorism, see Laquer , A History of Terrorism (rev. ed. 2001 ); Laquer , The New Terrorism ( 1999 ); and Reich , Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (rev. ed. 1998 ). A generally accepted definition of terrorism has proved elusive for the international community, becoming one of the major obstacles in the elaboration...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Philosophy (3 ed.)
... The intentional use of violence, particularly in order to sow widespread fear, for political ends. See Sorel...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation (3 ed.)
... Using acts or threats of violence to civilians, for example as a political weapon to draw attention to a group's goals or to gain those goals through fear and...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Sociology (4 ed.)
...many conceptions of terrorism. In recent years these debates have led to the emergence of ‘critical terrorism studies’. Drawing from the broader field of critical security studies and the Frankfurt School, and seeking distinction from more ‘orthodox’ studies (e.g. scholarship characterized as working within ‘top-down’ dissident-focused definitions of terrorism), critical terrorism studies place explicit increased attention on the role of the state as an arbitrator of insecurity and violence. (See the edited collection Critical Terrorism Studies: A New...
terrorism Quick reference
World Encyclopedia
... Use of violence, sometimes indiscriminately, against persons and property for the nominal purpose of making a political statement. Intending to inspire terror, terrorists act principally in the name of empowering political minorities, and to publicize perceived political...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of World History (3 ed.)
... The use of violent and intimidating acts, especially for political ends. Terrorism has been used most commonly by revolutionary groups, whose objective is the overthrow of a particular state authority, and by nationalist groups seeking national self‐determination. Techniques of terrorism involve bombing and shooting attacks against property and individuals, the assassination of significant persons associated with the established government or security forces, hostage‐taking, and hijacking of aircraft, trains, ships, and buses. The major objectives of...
Terrorism Reference library
Augustus Richard Norton, Joseph Kéchichian, and Minerva Nasser-Eddine
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Islam and Women
...in acts of terrorism. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001 , research has focused on “religiously inspired” terrorism (e.g., Zalman, 2008 ). Organizationally, this “new terrorism” is decentralized rather than hierarchical. It was rare to have individuals undertake sole acts of terror (as a lone wolf) in “old terrorism”; in the early twenty-first century, however, such is becoming more common. Definition. Despite the decades of research undertaken in terrorism studies, no consensus has been reached on a definition of terrorism ( Schmid and...
terrorism Reference library
Paul Gilbert
The Oxford Companion to Philosophy (2 ed.)
... . ‘Terrorism’ is a highly emotive, pejorative label, originally applied to the Reign of Terror following the French Revolution, but now most commonly used of political violence as employed by insurgents against a state , unless specifically qualified as ‘state terrorism’. Its definition has proved philosophically elusive, depending, as it does, on whether, and, if so, how, the pejorative force is to be captured definitionally; or, in other words, on whether terrorism is to be viewed as ipso facto unjustifiable, and, if so, why, which evidently...
Terrorism Reference library
Encyclopedia of Human Rights
... Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism, and the 2005 Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. In addition to these international treaties, several regional treaties have been adopted to combat terrorism, including the 1971 Convention to Prevent and Punish Acts of Terrorism adopted by the Organization of American States, the 1977 European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism adopted by the Council of Europe, the 1987 Convention on Suppression of Terrorism adopted by the South Asian Association for Regional...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Law (10 ed.)
... n. The use or threat of violence for political, religious, or ideological ends. The Terrorism Act 2000 abolished all the previous statutory provisions relating to terrorism, apart from a number of specific provisions that continue to exist under the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1996, the Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act 1989, and the Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act 1998. The Terrorism Act 2000 defines terrorism in section 1 as: • the use or threat of action that involves serious violence against a person or serious...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Human Geography
... A premeditated act of violence and intimidation directed against civilians and intended to achieve clear political aims. Beyond this simple definition, there is much dispute over what terrorism actually means. Most official or government definitions restrict terrorism to organized non-state actors such as insurgents and revolutionaries. Critical scholars, however, suggest that states also use terrorist methods and tactics. This is certainly true from an historical perspective. Stalin’s Great Terror in 1930s USSR was designed to achieve mass repression,...
Terrorism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to American Law
...panic and chaos. The increased concern about catastrophic terrorism illustrates what may be the greatest threat terrorism poses: governmental overreaction that destroys fundamental liberties and violates bedrock values such as privacy. The Soviet Union, after all, had little to fear from terrorism because of its totalitarian control over the population. If terrorism is international, the difficulties in preventing and punishing it are compounded, and new legal issues arise. For instance, when terrorism has been supported by a foreign country, the issue is not...
terrorism Quick reference
A Dictionary of Public Health (2 ed.)
...to promote. The definition of terrorism is to some extent subjective: one person's terrorist may be another's freedom fighter. Terrorist attacks often have public health dimensions because they may damage essential infrastructure and services or harm population health. Experience has demonstrated that identifying and eliminating or alleviating the motives for terrorism are more effective countermeasures than aggressive crime control tactics. Terrorists come from many ethnic and religious backgrounds; they tend to be young, well educated, and rarely religious...
terrorism Reference library
The New Oxford Companion to Law
...and law is nowadays upon sub‐state violence, it should be realized that state terrorism has been far more powerful and destructive in history. Indeed, the term, ‘terrorism’ was first coined to describe the excesses of French revolutionaries after 1789 . Vastly more people died as a result of the terror tactics of Hitler and Stalin than in any sub‐state campaign. As far as national laws are concerned, the definition of terrorism is set out in the Terrorism Act 2000 . Terrorism involves any from a list of possible actions: serious violence against a person...
Terrorism Reference library
The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace
...practice, terrorism is always and everywhere in violation of international law. The Rise of Modern Terrorism Terrorism as a systemic malaise of international relations is a much more modern phenomenon, with its roots in a series of political events in the 1960s that focused attention on the idea of structural violence. Some scholars date the origins of modern terrorism even earlier, to the late nineteenth century and the cultivation of new terrorist methods by a fringe of Russian anarchists; but, by comparison, late-twentieth-century terrorism is...
Terrorism Reference library
The Oxford Companion to Politics of the World (2 ed.)
...the hijacking of planes. In the 1970s the term “international terrorism” began to be used to cover acts of violence committed by political groups outside the country in which they were primarily active. The other term that emerged at the same time, “state terrorism,” referred to encouragement, or alleged encouragement, by states of such acts of violence. Taking terrorism in its second, anti-state, sense, there can be said to be three main phases of its history. There is first a prehistory of terrorism, in the sense of acts which would today be called terrorist....
Terrorism Reference library
Fred Halliday
The Oxford Companion to International Relations
...; 9/11 ; and Revolution . ] Bibliography Cronin, Audrey Kurth , and James M. Ludes , eds. Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy . (Washington, D.C., 2004). Gearty, Conor , ed. Terrorism . (Aldershot, U.K., 1996). Guelke, Adrian . The Age of Terrorism and the International Political System . (London, 1995). Laqueur, Walter . Terrorism . 2d ed. (New York, 1988). Rubenstein, Richard . Alchemists of Revolution: Terrorism in the Modern World . (New York, 1987). Fred...
