ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the major explanations of ‘terrorism’ which emphasizes the extreme fear caused by apparently indiscriminate violent actions of individuals claiming to be operating on behalf of some particular cause in a complex, fragmented, modern international context. Sometimes terrorist activities are funded by states (state-sponsored terrorism) and the West has been keen to accuse countries such as Libya, Iran, (previously) Iraq and Syria of doing so, yet Western states have also supported terrorism when it has been in their political interests to do so. Most of the major theories which have sought to explain terrorism have been derived from theories of collective violence developed by political scientists and in a criminological sense can be conceptualized in the context of the rational actor model. About a quarter of all terrorist groups – with about a half of the most dangerous ones – are primarily motivated by religious concerns believing that God demands action. Whether terrorist activities can be considered ‘just’ wars has been widely debated, but it does seem that they can be considered perfectly normal activities which make perfect sense to the participants, thus the adage that ‘one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter’.
