ABSTRACT
International terrorism has long been an integral part of international politics, even if its perpetrators are illegal actors and their acts are roundly condemned by most states in the world.2 Terrorist incidents are frequently international in the sense that they relate to events or conflicts taking place in another country or region. Furthermore, the very character of the international system itself and the foreign policies of states influence the occurrence of terrorism, for example, by generating more conducive or more prohibitive circumstances for terrorist organisations. Following the framework outlined in the introduction, the present chapter examines seven different trends or processes of change in the international state system. Drawing upon relevant causal relationships outlined in the introduction, I discuss their implications for future patterns of terrorism. This is the primary objective of the present chapter.
