ABSTRACT
The end of the 1960s saw the dawn of what Walter Laqueur named the ‘age of terrorism’ (Laqueur, 1987). The upsurge of groups determined to use violence to achieve a great variety of objectives – the reestablishment of a state based on the traditional values, world-wide revolution or national liberation – was spectacular, and most of the states had to face the challenge they posed to the existing structures of power. Even though such groups appeared in all the parts of the world, it was the challengers to developed European states that received the greatest share of attention. The prosperity of the 1950s and 1960s made social scientists believe that democracy and economic welfare would make violence disappear from the old continent. They were thus puzzled by the rise of small but virulent groups that threatened the established political systems. Numerous theories were created at the time to explain this phenomenon and, as Alex Schmid noted, ‘authors have spilled almost as much ink as the actors of terrorism have spilled blood’ (Schmid and Longman, 1988: xiii) in trying to assess different features of the phenomenon.
