Territoriality: Geographical
Whatever is the fate of nations, countless places-as-
territories will exist and continue to be constructed
because we cannot undertake projects without them.
For now, the nation state is the most powerful one.
But to ignore the fact that its powers to contain are
permeable and changing is to fall into what Agnew
(1994) calls the ‘territorial trap.’ We run the risk of
falling into a different territorial trap when we ignore
the power of territories and places-as-territories to
mold events, for we might then observe that all kinds
of actions seem to have bounded and spatially ac-
cordant geographies while being ignorant of the fact
that they are shaped by a common territorial structure.
Bibliography
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of international relations theory. Re
iew of International
Political Economy 1: 53–80
Ardrey R 1966 The Territorial Imperati
e, 1st edn. Anthenium,
New York
Brenner N 1998 Global cities, Global states: Global city
formation and state territorial restructuring in contemporary
Europe. Re
iew of International Political Economy 5: 1–7
Cresswell T 1996 In Place\Out of Place: Geography, Ideology,
and Transgression. University of Minnesota Press, Min-
neapolis, MN
Graham S 1998 The end of geography or the explosion of place?
Conceptualizing space, place and information technology.
Progress in Human Geography 22: 165–85
Harvey D 1982 The Limits to Capital. University of Chicago
Press, Chicago, pp. 431–8
Montagu M F A (ed.) 1968 Man and Aggression. Oxford Uni-
versity Press, Oxford
Morley D, Robins K 1995 Spaces of Identity: Global Media
Electronic Landscapes and Cultural Boundaries. Routledge,
London
Newman D, Paasi A 1998 Fences and neighbours in the
postmodern world: Boundary narratives in political geogra-
phy. Progress in Human Geography 22(2): 186–207
Sack R D 1986 Human Territoriality: Its Theory and History.
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Sack R D 1997 Homo Geographicus: A Framework for Action,
Awareness, and Moral Concern. The Johns Hopkins University
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Soja E W 1971 The Political Organization of Space. Association of
American Geographers, Commission on College Geography,
Washington, DC
R. D. Sack
Terrorism
The term ‘terrorism’ refers to the systematic use or
threat of violence to communicate a political message
rather than defeat an opponent’s military forces. Thus
the targets of terrorism are symbolic. Victims of
terrorism represent a wider audience. To achieve
15604
maximum shock effect, terrorist violence is usually
dramatic and provocative. Typically small numbers of
extremists who otherwise lack the capacity to chal-
lenge those in power resort to terrorism. However, the
term is also used to describe clandestine violence in
support of the state or by the state. A defining
characteristic of terrorism is that its users expect
rewards that are out of proportion to both the
resources they possess and the risks they assume.
Terrorism is, furthermore, a strategy that is not
restricted to any particular ideology.
1. Historical De
elopment of Terrorism
As a strategy of resistance to the modern state,
terrorism emerged some half century after the French
Revolution, when the term originated as a description
of the state regime of terror. In the late nineteenth
century, ‘terrorism’ became a strategy of opposition.
Russian revolutionaries and anarchists in France,
Spain, Italy, and Germany established terrorism as a
central mechanism in attempts to overthrow estab-
lished regimes, most of which were autocratic. In 1881
the assassination of the Czar of Russia horrified
European governments while it inspired revolu-
tionaries and nationalists from Ireland to India.
Terrorism in Russia focused on selective assassin-
ations of key political leaders. Anarchists introduced
the concept of ‘propaganda of the deed,’ the idea of an
outrageous action, such as a bomb thrown indis-
criminately into a public gathering, that would
frighten the ruling classes and arouse the masses. Irish
republicans added to the repertoire by organizing
attacks in London, outside the immediate theater of
conflict. This formative era of terrorism ended with
World War I, sparked by the assassination of the
Austrian archduke by a Serbian nationalist.
In the interwar period right wing extremist move-
ments adopted terrorist tactics in their struggles for
power. The period is best known, however, for the
practice of totalitarian terror from above in Germany
and the Soviet Union. After World War II, terrorism
figured prominently in some national liberation
struggles of the 1950s and early 1960s, such as in
Cyprus and in Algeria. As the colonial era ended,
social scientists expected terrorism to disappear with
it. Yet at precisely this moment terrorism was trans-
formed into a major international phenomenon. In the
late 1960s, Latin American revolutionaries and Pales-
tinian nationalists independently conceived of a new
tactic of terrorism: the seizure of hostages in order to
compel governments to concede to their demands.
Violence escalated when foreign states who supported
these local regimes, such as the USA, also became
targets. Hijackings of aircraft in the Middle East and
diplomatic kidnappings in Latin America, for ex-
ample, became routine. The 1972 seizure of Israeli
athletes at the Munich Olympic games demonstrated

the immense publicity value of hostage-taking as well
as the spillover of Palestinian terrorism to Western
Europe.
By the mid-1970s, left wing and separatist terrorism
came to pose serious internal security problems for
liberal democracies, especially in Western Europe. In
Germany and Italy, for example, terrorism emerged in
the wake of student protest movements. In the Basque
regions of Spain and in Northern Ireland, ethnona-
tionalist organizations mounted prolonged separatist
campaigns, which lasted to the end of the century.
Outside of Europe, India and Sri Lanka also faced
chronic terrorism from secessionist ethnic minorities
in the 1980s (continuing through the 1990s in Sri
Lanka). Furthermore, in Latin America, after rev-
olutionary terrorism had ended in Argentina, Brazil,
and Uruguay, the Shining Path movement rose to
challenge the regime in Peru in the 1980s.
The Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Israeli
invasion of Lebanon in 1982 stimulated the growth of
yet another type of terrorist actor, as radical anti-
Western Islamic groups formed in Lebanon, Palestine,
Egypt, and, by the end of the decade, Algeria. The
seizure of US hostages in Lebanon, as well as the
advent of massive vehicle bombs, such as the attack on
the American Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983,
continued to focus attention on terrorism in the
Middle East. Palestinian groups also remained active,
for example, in the hijacking of the Achille Lauro
cruise ship in 1985.
State-sponsored terrorism became another new
issue of the 1980s, initially because of the Iran hostage
crisis. In 1986, the USA, convinced that Libya was
responsible for terrorism against Americans, retaliated
with military force. This in turn provoked Libya to
take revenge in the mid-air bombing of Pan Am 103 in
1988.
Terrorism continued to shock governments and
their publics in the 1990s. High-casualty terrorism in
the United States was an unprecedented development.
Its origins were both domestic, as individuals asso-
ciated with the US far right bombed the Oklahoma
City federal building, and international, with Islamic
militants organizing the bombing of the World Trade
Center in New York. A second emphasis in the 1990s
was the fear of terrorism involving weapons of mass
destruction, a fear inspired not only by the 1995 sarin
gas attack on the Tokyo subways by a religious cult
but also by the prospect of the proliferation of nuclear,
chemical, and biological weapons. In the Middle East,
radical Islamic groups used terrorism to oppose the
peace process initiated between Israel and the Palestine
Liberation Organization (PLO), while the Gulf War
and the subsequent US military presence in Saudi
Arabia inspired Islamic militants to attack American
interests. In 1998 simultaneous bombings of the US
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania provoked the USA
to retaliate militarily against targets in the Sudan and
Afghanistan.
Terrorism
2. Explanations of Terrorism
Interest in the study of terrorism has paralleled the
historical evolution of the phenomenon. Until the
1970s, little was written on the subject. Typically
terrorism was treated briefly as the first stage of
internal war, to be abandoned as insurgents moved to
guerrilla warfare and then on to conventional war. By
the 1990s, the literature contained thousands of
specific citations to terrorism, including contributions
by historians, political scientists, economists, legal
scholars, criminologists, sociologists, psychologists,
philosophers, and anthropologists. Nevertheless, there
is no comprehensive unifying theory of terrorism. Nor
is terrorism a central element in major theories of war
and conflict. The importance of the concept is de-
termined by the political significance of terrorist
actions, rather than by intellectual context.
Terrorism is a contested concept that resists precise
definition. Since the term is both elastic and emotion-
ally powerful, it lends itself to subjective interpre-
tations driven by political rather than analytical
purposes. It is also difficult to distinguish terrorism
from other forms of violence, such as, for example,
guerrilla warfare or criminal activity. Must the victims
of terrorism be noncombatants, for example? If so, are
attacks on military targets acts of terrorism? If
terrorism is defined in terms of the intentions behind
the action, is it possible to know those intentions?
What is the relationship between religion and ter-
rorism? Furthermore, terrorism occurs so frequently
and in so many different historical and cultural settings
that it is difficult to make comparisons or draw general
conclusions. Analysts of the subject even dispute basic
questions of fact, such as whether or not terrorism is
becoming more lethal or whether it is more likely in
democracies.
2.1 Why Does Terrorism Happen?
Terrorism occurs in situations of conflict. Divided
societies, repressive governments, economic inequal-
ities, or ideological rivalry among states, for example,
create the grievances that generate terrorism. In other
cases, conditions are permissive. Democracies, for
example, may be susceptible to terrorism because they
tolerate dissent and allow an open news media. Yet
few of the individuals who are dissatisfied or even
actively engaged in social protest movements move on
to participate in terrorism. Thus understanding the
causes of terrorism requires knowledge of psycho-
logical motivations, at the individual or small group
level. Research points to the dynamics of group
relationships rather than specific personality types or
mental pathologies. Once established, underground
groups may struggle primarily to maintain group
solidarity and cohesion. They bind together indivi-
duals with different backgrounds, skills, and levels of
political commitment.
15605
Terrorism
At the same time, terrorism is purposive behavior, a
conscious strategy to gain attention, attract recruits,
mobilize popular support, and provoke government
repression. The policy of no concessions adopted by
the US government in the early 1970s rests on the
premise that terrorism is a rationally chosen strategy:
if governments deny reward and guarantee punish-
ment, terrorism will decline. When governments blame
the news media for publicizing terrorism, they are
assuming that terrorism would not exist without the
reward of media attention.
The use of terrorism by states against their external
enemies may also be related to inequalities of power
that force the weaker party to be deceptive rather than
open. Internal regimes of terror are due to the desire
not only to crush but to forestall resistance. It is worth
noting that insurgent movements may also govern by
terror in territories they hold.
Terrorism also depends on opportunity, especially
the availability of targets and of resources. In a
modern world of industrialized states, with sophis-
ticated transportation and communication networks
and dense patterns of social, political, and economic
interaction, both targets and weapons are in plentiful
supply. Government efforts to defend specific points
of vulnerability, such as civil aviation or embassies in
high-threat countries, may produce a displacement
effect, as terrorists substitute easy targets for hard
ones. The development of the modern news media,
especially television, permits terrorists to reach a
worldwide audience almost instantaneously.
2.2 Forms of Terrorism
Bombings constitute the most common form of
terrorism. Since the late nineteenth century and the
invention of dynamite, terrorists have targeted public
buildings and crowded public spaces. Although most
bombings do not cause casualties, terrorists are capa-
ble of organizing spectacular high-casualty violence,
facilitated by technological improvements in both
explosives and timing devices. However, the capacity
for high-casualty bombings does not depend on
sophisticated technology; extremely powerful devices
can be constructed with common fertilizer, for exam-
ple. The same principle applies to potential terrorism
using weapons of mass destruction: simple techniques
could still be quite deadly.
Armed attacks on unsuspecting civilian targets,
such as airline passengers or tourists visiting historic
sites, are also part of the terrorist repertoire. Over time
assassinations of individual government officials be-
came less frequent, perhaps because of the availability
of alternatives or the inaccessibility of public figures,
who are now heavily guarded. Nevertheless, the
second half of the twentieth century includes the
assassinations of important leaders; Anwar Sadat,
Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, and Yitzhak Rabin
number among them. (Not all assassinations can be
15606
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
defined as terrorism; the attack must be linked to an
organized conspiracy or oppositional movement.)
The seizure of hostages is an explicit way of
bargaining directly with governments. The tactic
includes hijackings of airliners and even cruise ships,
individual or group kidnappings, and armed takeovers
of buildings such as embassies. Hostage seizures as a
form of international terrorism had become less
common by the end of the twentieth century, but
kidnappings have continued, especially in domestic
conflicts such as the ongoing insurgency in Colombia.
2.3 The Effects of Terrorism
Does terrorism succeed? It attracts the attention of the
news media and the public, and the issue ranks high on
the agendas of many governments and international
organizations. However, does recognition of the threat
or even of the grievances behind terrorism produce
favorable political outcomes? Despite widespread
publicity, the political effectiveness of terrorism is
generally short-term and limited in scope. Terrorism
may intimidate jurors or dissuade tourists, but it
cannot compel popular majorities to give in to
minority demands. Both the Irish Republican Army
and the PLO eventually renounced terrorism. Ter-
rorism polarizes opinion by mobilizing support and
hardening opposition. In this way, it can inflame
existing conflicts and disrupt peace processes, but it
rarely changes fundamental attitudes.
See also: Violence, History of; Violence in Anthro-
pology; Violence: Public; War, Sociology of
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Hoffman B 1998 Inside Terrorism. Columbia University Press,
New York
Laqueur W 1987 The Age of Terrorism. 1st Am. edn. Little
Brown, Boston
Merkl P H (ed.) 1986 Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and
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Nacos B L 1994 Terrorism and the Media: From the Iran Hostage
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Chicago Press, Chicago
M. Crenshaw
Copyright # 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 0-08-043076-7