Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Two major sorts of terroristic behaviour should be distinguished. First, terrorism may be a method of action that an actor uses to achieve precise goals. In this case, violence is pragmatic, more or less under the control of the actor who may, if circumstances change, turn away from this method and resort to other strategies, not necessarily violent. Terrorism as a method of action is a specifically political phenomenon situated within a boundary that may circumscribe one country or delimit an international, geopolitical space. It may be the work of groups or movements but also of governments.Second, terrorism may be a logic of action — no longer a political actor's ultimate or conjunctural means of action but a political and ideological combination of thought and action, a phenomenon wherein the ‘clerisy’ has a concrete role of organizing terrorist actions. In this case, violence reverses ends and means, and the actor seems to be caught up in a chain reaction that is endless unless stopped by repression, imprisonment or death. This actor is born within a politically bounded space, but he leaves it following a process of ‘inversion’ (Wieviorka, 1994) involving both his ideology and his relationship to the experiences of those of whom he claims to be a part. Terrorist ideologies do not directly prolong an earlier ideology; they change it, turn it around and alter it considerably, ... log in or subscribe to read full text