Book contents
1 - Defining terrorism – a typology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2010
Summary
As the leaders of Western democracies and their security forces increasingly struggle with terrorism, their lawyers and philosophers continue to struggle with its definition. Several recent studies point to the inconsistencies and inadequacies of existing legal definitions, as well as to the contradictions among them. C. A. J. Coady suggests that there are more than a hundred modern definitions of “terrorism.” George Fletcher mentions only dozens, concluding that no one of them is definitive. Consequently, there is no globally agreed, unambiguous definition or description of terrorism – popular, academic, or legislative. Igor Primoratz complains that “Current ordinary usage of the word displays wide variety and considerable confusion; as a result, discussing terrorism and the array of moral, political and legal questions it raises is difficult and often frustrating.” Wilkins does not altogether exaggerate when he writes that the number of definitions of terrorism equals the number of works dedicated to the subject. By 1984, Alex Schmid had collected 109 different definitions of terrorism. Later, he states that he “cannot offer a true or correct definition of terrorism” and that “[t]errorism is an abstract phenomenon of which there can be no essence which can be discovered or described,” commenting that “authors have spilt almost as much ink as the actors of terrorism have spilled blood.” Indeed, to date, academic standpoints remain diverse.
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- Information
- The Trouble with TerrorLiberty, Security and the Response to Terrorism, pp. 7 - 29Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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