2. Terrorism in the 21st Century

Question 1

What is terrorism?

Answer 1

the term terrorism refers to the intentional use of violence to generate fear (i.e., terror) in masses of people, in the pursuit of a religious or political goal (

Question 2

Combs (2017) notes that one of the challenges in defining terrorism is that

Answer 2

it is a continually evolving phenomenon

Question 3

while a universally-accepted conceptual definition of terrorism does not yet exist, four common features of it have been identified

Answer 3

Involve acts of violence;

Intended to create/instill fear in people;

Driven by political/social motives; and,

Targeted towards those not involved combat (this includes civilians and unarmed/off-duty military personnel).

Question 4

Combs defined terrorism as

Answer 4

“a synthesis of war and theater, a dramatization of the most proscribed kind of violence—that which is deliberately perpetrated on civilian noncombatant victims—played before an audience in the hope of creating a mood of fear, for political purposes (pg.7).”

Question 5

Combs highlights that all attempts to define terrorism, regardless of whether it is in a legal, academic or political setting, are defining

Answer 5

behaviour, not people: that is, the definitions focus on terrorist acts, not on groups or individuals

Question 5

Combs highlights that all attempts to define terrorism, regardless of whether it is in a legal, academic or political setting, are defining

Answer 5

behaviour, not people

Question 6

Combs highlights that all attempts to define terrorism, regardless of whether it is in a legal, academic or political setting, are defining

Answer 6

behaviour, not people

Question 7

One of the challenges in defining terrorism is that there are several different categories or types of terrorist acts. The following have been identified

Answer 7

Mass terror

Random terror

Focused random terror

Dynastic terror

Lone wolf terror

Question 8

Mass terror

Answer 8

acts of terrorism committed by political leaders targeted at the general population (e.g., Stalin)

Question 9

Random terror

Answer 9

committed by individuals or groups, targeted at civilians (e.g., 9/11; 2015 Paris shootings)

Question 10

Focused random terror:

Answer 10

committed by individuals and groups, but targets at members of the opposition. Focused random terror uses many of the same methods as random terror (e.g., bombs), but does so in areas with large numbers of the opposition (e.g., Israeli-Palestine conflicts).

Question 11

Dynastic terror

Answer 11

assassinations carried out by individuals/groups targeting a ruling elite or state leader (e.g., the assassination of Benazir Bhutto).

Question 12

Lone wolf terror

Answer 12

individuals acting alone, targeting governments or civilians (e.g., 2017 Las Vegas shootings; 2014 Lindt Café siege)

Question 13

one of the issues within the terrorism literature is the lack of agreement regarding

Answer 13

the definition of terrorism

Question 14

Schuurman identifies ______ as the most critical problem in research on terrorism

Answer 14

Schuurman identifies overreliance on secondary sources that provide information indirectly (i.e., newspaper articles) as the most critical problem in research on terrorism

Question 15

Terror Management Theory (TMT; Greenberg, Pyszczynski, & Solomon, 1986) draws on both

Answer 15

evolutionary and social psychological perspectives to account for existential anxiety

Question 16

Specifically, TMT proposes that humans experience conflict between

Answer 16

their desire to live and mortality salience

Question 17

American participants were more likely to agree with the use of extreme violence to capture leaders of terror organisations or with the use of nuclear weapons when mortality salience was induced using

Answer 17

images of 9/11, even when they were told these tactics would result in the death of innocent people.

Question 18

a sample of Iranian participants reported stronger support for suicide bombings targeting Americans when in a

Answer 18

mortality salience condition (i.e., reminded of death) than in a control condition (Pyszczynski et al., 2006; Routledge & Arndt, 2008).