ABSTRACT
Ever since the murderous attack on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 (henceforth simply ‘9/11’), the mass media in western Europe and North America have featured endless reports and articles about examples and threats of world terrorism. The subsequent attacks on a nightclub in Bali, commuter trains in Madrid, a school in Russia, and the London transport system have kept the pot boiling, and the reports and debates have involved the use of concepts that, while far from new in themselves, are relatively new in western political commentary. The first of these is the concept of terrorism itself.
