Terrorism

A Historical Review of the Terminology

The first usage of “terrorism” was in reference to the actions of a nation, not a subnational group. After the French Revolution in the late 18th century, the victors conducted a brutal campaign against nobles perceived to be enemies of the newly formed state. The series of mass executions by the postrevolutionary government was referred to as the terror. This early conceptualization differs from the more modern use of terrorism, in which the perpetrators are not usually governments and are instead nonstate actors (Laqueur, 2001). The usage of terrorism to refer to the violent actions of nonstate actors arose in response to the bombings and assassinations conducted by radical members of political movements such as anarchism and revolutionary socialism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. During the 20th century, the use of the term expanded immensely, often to include any type of political violence that the observer found to be disagreeable. This is where the murkiness of terrorism's meaning arises. Politicians and the media are quick to label any enemy violence as [Page 116]terrorism. When any act of violence one disagrees with constitutes terrorism, the concept loses its meaning as it has become highly contextual and subjective. This is why we see certain acts of violence covered as terrorism by certain media outlets and as legitimate resistance by others. The atmosphere of confusion is not helped by the fact that, between governments and researchers, there are more than 100 different working definitions of terrorism. In addition to these observations, Jenkins (1974) pointed out the relativistic nature of the term when he wrote that terrorism seems to mean simply whatever the “bad” guys are doing. Merari (1993) echoed this when he noted that the term had become more of a derogatory epithet than an adjective describing a unique phenomenon.

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