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Understanding Terrorism
Abstract
People all over the globe have become very familiar with the term terrorism due to its common and worldwide occurrence. Terrorism has been committed by states, governments, organizations, groups, and individuals throughout its long history. Despite the large number of definitions by governments, global institutions, academics, politicians, security experts, and journalists, there has been no single universally agreed-upon definition of terrorism so far for a variety of reasons. This chapter critically analyzes discussions and definitions of terrorism in an attempt to contribute to a fair and balanced understanding of terrorism. It discusses how subjectivity has been an obstacle in understanding terrorism due to the pejorative nature of the term. Debates around the highly contentious concept of terrorism in terms of its distinctive nature, motivations, goals, and means in comparison to other forms of violence are discussed, and several definitions of terrorism are analyzed. It is evident that obtaining public attention is the ultimate aim of terrorism in relation to communicating specific messages and both the use of and by the media. While definitions of terrorism struggle to demonstrate exhaustive lists of descriptions, traits, components, conditions, and elements of terrorism, disagreements on these definitional items and features create ambiguities in understanding terrorism. The chapter, then, concludes with discussions on eliminating controversial and subjective definitional items and features to introduce a definition that can help provide an objective understanding of terrorism.
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