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The Challenges of Conceptualizing
Terrorism
LEONARD WEINBERG
a
, AMI PEDAHZUR
b
& SIVAN HIRSCH-HOEFLER
c
a
Department of Political Science , University of Nevada Reno ,
Nevada, USA
b
Department of Political Science , University of Haifa , Haifa, Israel
c
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences , Antwerp, Belgium
Published online: 10 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: LEONARD WEINBERG , AMI PEDAHZUR & SIVAN HIRSCH-HOEFLER (2004) The
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, 16:4, 777-794, DOI:
10.1080/095465590899768
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/095465590899768
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The Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism
LEONARD WEINBERG
Department of Political Science, University of Nevada
Reno, Nevada, USA
AMI PEDAHZUR
Department of Political Science
University of Haifa
Haifa, Israel
SIVAN HIRSCH-HOEFLER
Faculty of Political and Social Sciences
University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium
This analysis begins by exploring various reasons that the concept of terrorism has
evaded a widely agreed upon definition for so long despite the efforts of so many wri-
ters. Emphasis is placed on the difficulties associated with all essentially contested
concepts. In addition, the investigation calls attention to such problems as concep-
tual stretching and traveling. In an effort to solve the difficulties, the inquiry
attempts to determine a consensus definition of terrorism by turning to an empirical
analysis of how the term has been employed by academics over the years. Specifi-
cally, the well-known definition developed by Alex Schmid, based upon responses
to a questionnaire he circulated in 1985, is compared with the way the concept
has been employed by contributors to the major journals in the field: Terrorism,
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and Terrorism and Political Violence. The 22
definitional elements of which Schmids definition is composed are compared to
the frequency with which they appear in the professional journals. If these elements
appear frequently in both the Schmid definition and those employed by the journal
contributors, they are then used to form a consensus definition of the concept.
The most striking feature of this academic consensus over the meaning of terrorism
is the virtual absence of references to the psychological element, heretofore widely
thought to be at the heart of the concept.
Few terms or concepts in contemporary political discourse have proved as hard to
define as terrorism. When the subject itself appeared, or reappeared, in the late
1960s and early 1970s, various professional commentators noted the difficulties
involved in articulating a definition which could gain wide agreement among those
concerned with the subject. One writer, Walter Laqueur, simply threw up his hands,
arguing that terrorism had appeared in so many different forms and under so many
different circumstances that a comprehensive definition was impossible. An observer
Address correspondence to Ami Pedahzur, University of Haifa, School of Political
Science, Division of Government and Political Theory, Mount Carmel Haifa 31905, Israel.
E-mail: pedahzur@poli.haifa.ac.il
Terrorism and Political Violence, Vol.16, No.4 (Winter 2004), pp.777794
Copyright

Taylor and Francis, Inc., 2004

DOI: 10.1080/095465590899768
777
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would simply know it when s=he saw it.
1
Almost 30 years later, and after the
publication of thousands of books and articles on the subject, another leading figure
in the field noted that . . . the problem of defining terrorism has hindered analysis
since the inception of studies in the early 1970s and has shown few signs of abating
as we enter the twenty-first century.
2
Why has the term been so hard to define? Why
has the concept evaded definitional efforts of so many for so long?
Some answers seem obvious. For one thing, terrorism has been widely used for
purposes of political effect. Somewhat paradoxically, Menachem Begin, as the leader
of the Irgun (Lehis Zionist rival) in postwar Palestine, was the first to see the propa-
ganda advantage in referring to his followers as freedom fighters rather than
terrorists. Afterwards, terrorist groups adopted this appealing description and called
themselves freedom fighters, understanding the propaganda advantage.
3
The term
terrorism became confused during what David C. Rapoport has labeled terrorism
of the second-wave,
4
since organizations understood that they needed a new lan-
guage to describe themselves.
The term had accumulated so many negative connotations that those who ident-
ified themselves as such incurred enormous political liabilities.
5
The application of
the term to the activities of a group, organization or state institution conveys oppro-
brium. Naturally, those to whom it is applied regard it as an accusation and often
seek to turn the tables on their accusers by labeling them as the real terrorists.
The resulting war of words simply adds to the ambiguity and compounds the con-
fusion. Often the polemic involves confusion, unintended or deliberate, between ends
and means. A particular group or organization cannot be waging a terrorist cam-
paign because it hopes to achieve some (self-defined) noble purpose.
6
More important, though, for purposes of serious analysis, the term terrorism has
been subject to virtually all the sins to which complex concepts are heir. Here are just
a few. First, following the work of W. B. Gallie and William Connolly, terrorism has
become an essentially contested concept, one whose meaning lends itself to endless
dispute but no resolution.
To quote Connolly:
When the disagreement does not simply reflect different readings of evi-
dence within a fully shared system of concepts, we can say that a concep-
tual dispute has arisen. When the concept involved is appraisive . . . when
the practice described is internally complex in that its characterization
involves reference to several dimensions, and when the agreed and con-
tested rules of application are relatively open, enabling parties to inter-
pret even those shared rules differently as new and unforeseen
situations arise, then the concept in question is an essentially contested
concept. Such concepts essentially involve endless disputes about their
proper uses on the part of their users.
7
The assumption on the part of the disputants over meaning is that if they only
argue their cases long and hard enough, a real or essential definition will emerge. But
30 years of contesting the meaning of terrorism has produced no such result. For
Connolly and Gallie, this outcome may simply be the consequence of the nature
of such concepts.
Second, terrorism as a concept also seems to suffer from border and member-
ship problems. Where does terrorism stop and other forms of political violence
778 A. Pedahzur et al.
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begin, guerrilla warfare or urban guerrilla warfare, for example? The same acts, such
as air piracy or assassinations, may be considered terrorist acts on some occasions
but not on others, usually based upon the assumed motivations of the perpetrators
or the social standing of their victims.
8
Further, terrorism suffers from stretching and traveling problems, some literal,
others of an analytic character. In regard to the former, some writers seem to identify
terrorism based on the physical or social distance between the act in question and the
observer. If, for instance, an act of political violence occurs at a significant distance
(geographically or psychologically) from the observer, the tendency is to give it a more
neutral or benign name. The same act carried out closer to home becomes terrorism.
Considering the stretching and traveling capacity of the term for analytic pur-
poses, writers now deal with terms such as narco-terrorism and cyber-terrorism:
the latter rarely involves any reference to violence or the threat of violence. The
problem is, as Collier and Mahon put it:
When scholars take a category developed from one set of cases and extend it
to additional cases, the new cases may be sufficiently different that the cate-
gory is no longer appropriate in its original form. If this problem arises, they
may adapt the category by climbing the ladder of generality, thereby obeying
the law of inverse variation. As they increase the extension, they reduce the
intension to the degree necessary to fit the new contexts.
9
The choices are often between stretching the concept to the point of vagueness or
inventing a new term to cover a wider range of activities, for example, low intensity
conflict.
Confronted by doubt and uncertainty of this magnitude, we have concluded that
the best way to make the definitional problem manageable is to follow Alex Schmids
advice and divide the discussion of non-state terrorism into separate arenas of dis-
course. Schmid identifies four such arenas.
10
First, there is the academic arena
where scholars struggle to stipulate a definition useful for conducting research on
the topic. Second, there are the states statements about terrorism including those
expressed in the form of laws, judicial rulings and regulations. Next, for Schmid,
is the public debate on the subject. By this he means the various ways the mass media
choose to label and interpret the concept. Fourth, we may be exposed to (t)he dis-
cussion of those who oppose many of our societies values and support or perform
acts of violence and terrorism against what they consider repressive states.
10
Unfortunately, Schmids categories are not mutually exclusive. There appears to be
significant overlap between the first and fourth arenas, in particular. Such leading advo-
cates and practitioners of what many would call terrorism, as Abimael Guzman (the
founder of Perus Shining Path) and Antonio Negri (the leader of the Italian Armed
Autonomy) began their careers as academics. On the other side of the ledger, there are
a number of individuals who retired from careers in terrorism to become part of the aca-
demic world. (Law, sociology and political science seem to be favorite destinations.)
There are still others, including the Italian Front Line and the Red Brigade lead-
ership, who have participated in both arenas simultaneously. In fact, this may have
contributed to the downfall of the groups involved. Observers have noted that the
rhetoric, the public communiques of these groups became progressively more
obscure and unintelligible, the longer they continued to function. The groups lost
whatever ability they had possessed to win the support of workers and peasants
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism 779
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because they could not make themselves understood. The incomprehensible rhetoric
is frequently attributed to the fact that the groups members lost touch with external
reality, the longer they were required to operate on a clandestine basis.
11
However, it
is possible that the communiques and other messages intended for public consump-
tion were simply written by professors who confused the first and fourth arenas as a
result of long-term exposure to both.
Despite this methodological problem we think it would still be helpful if we
attempted to limit our discussion of terrorism to the academic arena. A good place
to start is with the definition Alex Schmid proposed in the volume he edited with
Albert Jongman, Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts,
Data bases, Theories and Literature:
Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action,
employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group, or state actors, for
idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, wherebyin contrast to
assassinationthe direct targets of violence are not the main targets.
The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly
(targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets)
from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threatand
violencebased communication processes between terrorist (organiza-
tion), (imperiled) victims, and main target (audiences(s)), turning it into
a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending
on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought.
12
Schmids definition was refined from reactions he received from scholars who
responded to a questionnaire he had mailed them. The respondents had originally
produced 109 separate definitions. The latter consisted of twenty two definitional
elements which Schmid then ranked in order of the frequency with which they
appeared in the questionnaires. The comprehensive definition he proposed (see
above) reflected sixteen of these twenty two definitional elements.
12
Our own approach to investigating the academic domain of terrorism discourse is
somewhat different than Schmids. Like him, we have relied on what the experts tell us
terrorism means but we do not rely on questionnaire responses in identifying the con-
cepts definitional elements. Instead, we have based our inquiry on what contributors
to leading professional journals in the field of terrorism tell us the word means to them.
To be more specific, we sought definitions from three journals whose contents
we scrutinized. We examined all the articles in Terrorism (New York: Crane Russak
& Company), from 1977 through 1991 and then (Minneapolis, MN: John Scherer),
19821983, 19861989; Terrorism and Political Violence (London: Frank Cass) from
1990 through 2001; and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism (London: Taylor and
Francis) from 1992 through 2001.
13
Our review of these journals yielded a total of seventythree definitions (drawn
from fiftyfive articles) (See Appendix A). How do these compare to the 109 defini-
tions with their twentytwo constituent elements Schmids questionnaire produced?
Frequencies of Definitional Elements of Terrorism
A brief examination of Table 1 reveals wide differences in the relative strength of the
22 definitional elements Schmid reports when compared to the journal contributors
780 A. Pedahzur et al.
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suggested definitions. In two instances, elements 9 (extra-normality, in breach of
accepted rules, without humanitarian constraints) and 12 (arbitrariness, imper-
sonal, random character, indiscriminate), which emerged as important constituents
of Schmids definition, received no mention at all in the relevant journal articles.
Another element, 10 (coercion, extortion, induction of compliance), which
Table 1. Frequencies of definitional Elements of Terrorism
Element
Schmid & Jongman Survey
(1988)
frequency (%)
Our survey
(2002)
frequency (%)
1. Violence, Force 83.5 71
2. Political 65 60
3. Fear, Terror emphasized 51 22
4. Threat 47 41
5. Psychological effects and
(anticipated) reactions
41.5 5.5
6. Victim-Target differentiation 37.5 25
7. Purposive, Planned, Systematic,
Organized action
32 11
8. Method of combat, strategy, tactic 30.5 31.5
9. Extranormality, in breach of
accepted rules, without
humanitarian constrains
30 0
10. Coercion, extortion, induction of
compliance
28 5.5
11. Publicity aspect 21.5 18
12. Arbitrariness, impersonal, random
character, indiscrimination
21 0
13. Civilians, noncombatants, neutrals,
outsiders as victims
17.5 22
14. Intimidation 17 11
15. Innocence of victims emphasized 15.5 10
16. Group, movement, organization as
perpetrator
14 29
17. Symbolic aspect, demonstration to
others
13.5 5.5
18. Incalculability, unpredictability,
unexpectedness of
occurrence of violence
9 1
19. Clandestine, covert nature 9 7
20. Repetitiveness, serial or campaign
character of violence
7 0
21. Criminal 6 5.5
22. Demands made on third parties 4 1
Note: The Schmid & Jongman survey consists of 22 elements drawn from 109 definitions.
Our survey consists of 73 definitions drawn from 55 articles collected from three journals.
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism 781
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appeared in 28 percent of the definitions in Schmids survey, was mentioned in less
than 6 percent of the journal definitions.
If we match this difference to discrepancies in references to two other elements,
we may discern something of a pattern. The journal-based definitions were also
much less likely to mention the arousal of fear and terror (element 3) and psycho-
logical effects and anticipated reactions (element 5) as important components. In
general, then, the journal contributors placed much less emphasis on the psychologi-
cal aspects of terrorism, a theme which, of course, has loomed large in general dis-
cussions of the topic over the years. One obvious explanation for the paucity of
references to these psychological elements among the journal articles might be the
paucity of psychologists. But this does not seem to be the case. About the same
proportion of contributors to the journals as respondents to the Schmid survey
identified themselves as psychologists.
14
Are there aspects of the meaning of terrorism on which Schmids respondents
and the journal writers actually agree? Yes; in fact high percentages of the experts
in both categories (20 percent or more) identify terrorism as a method of combat
or a tactic (element 8), involving a threat (element 4) of force and violence (element
1) used for a political (element 2) purpose. The pursuit of publicity (element 11) is
mentioned somewhat less frequently but members of both groups seem to agree that
it is part of the definition of terrorism. So it is possible to discern a consensus among
academics who study the subject, to this extent. Terrorism is a politically motivated
tactic involving the threat or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity
plays a significant role. This consensus definition stresses terrorism as an activity, a
method of conduct, over the psychological. And, surprisingly, given our own under-
standing, neither the distinction between combatants and non-combatants nor
between immediate target and wider audience is mentioned.
In addition to the comparison between Schmids respondents and the contribu-
tors to professional terrorism journals, it is essential to examine whether there are
significant differences among the journals themselves in the way terrorism has been
defined.
Table 2 shows the frequency of definitional elements of the term terrorism
according to the three journals analyzed in this article. However, to test whether dif-
ferences among those three journals are significant, we also performed an analysis of
variance (One way ANOVA). Significant differences were found with relation to:
threat (F (2, 70) 4.49, p < .05) and method of combat =strategy =tactics (F (2,
70) 8.75, p < .001). In terms of threat (m 2.00, sd .00) SCT journal presents
the highest mean (e.g., highest rate of non-usage of this category). In terms of method
of combat=strategy=tactics (m 1.87, sd .34), Terrorism present the highest mean.
The significance in the threat element resulted from the differences between SCT
and Terrorism (p .01) and between the SCT and TPV (p .04). The significant
differences in the tactics element resulted from the difference between the Terrorism
and SCT (p .00) and between Terrorism and TPV (p .02). To summarize the
comparison of definitional elements among the professional terrorism journals, we
may say that significant differences were found with relation to two categories: threat
and tactics. More specifically, SCT did not at all use the threat category in the defi-
nition for the term terrorism, while in the case of tactics, Terrorism presented the
highest rate of non-usage of this category.
Regarding the various definitions presented in these three journals, it seems that,
despite the need for serious conceptual work, only few articles really grapple with the
782 A. Pedahzur et al.
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problem of definition. Most of them just place a definition in the text as a matter of
formality and, in fact, never pay attention to it again. Nevertheless, we believe that
even though most of the articles used in developing our data file did not grapple with
the problem of definition, it is still very important to examine these definitions as
they appear, mainly from the academic point of view, as vital and relevant literature
on the perception of terrorism.
As in most discussions of terrorism, even those taking place in the academic
domain, we should pay some attention to the point of view of the observer. Who
is defining the term and where does s=he come from?
Frequencies of Definitional Elements of Terrorism According to Writers
Professional Affiliation (Figure 1)
Table 2. Frequencies of definitional elements of Terrorism according to the three
journals
Elements
Terrorism
N 38
Studies in conflict and
terrorism
N 10
Terrorism and political
violence N 25
1. Violence 68% 80% 72%
2. Political 63% 50% 60%
3. Fear 21% 20% 24%
4. Threat 50% 0% 44%
5. Victim 16% 50% 28%
6. Tactic 13% 70% 44%
7. Civilians 16% 30% 28%
8. Movement 24% 40% 32%
.
Note: Our survey consists of 73 definitions drawn from 55 articles collected from three
journals.
Figure 1. Frequencies of definitional elements of Terrorism according to writers
professional affiliation. The Survey consists of 73 definitions drawn from 55 articles collected
from three journals.
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism 783
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Frequencies of Definitional Elements of Terrorism According To Writers
Region (Figure 2)
In both cases, we are dealing with academics. A modest six of the seventythree
professional journal contributors were non-academics, and only one of Schmids
respondents identified himself=herself as a journalist; the rest reported various
academic specialties. Second, we are dealing overwhelmingly with North Ameri-
can and Western European academics. (What seems to us a modest number,
only five of the contributors were Israeli.) There were a handful of respondents
in both groups who fell outside the Western orbit, but the preponderance of both
respondents and contributors was based in these regions, with the United States
far and away furnishing the largest contingents. Consequently, we understand
that the consensus over the definition of terrorism among academic specialists
is not universal but one grounded in the view of Westerners, and Americans in
particular.
The question which emerges is whether or not country of origin makes a differ-
ence in definition. In order to answer this crucial question, we examined the fre-
quencies of definitional elements of terrorism according to writers region.
Looking at Figure 2, we may see that country of origin does play a role in the
way scholars in the professional journals define the term terrorism. For example,
scholars from the Middle East never mentioned (0%) the element civilians, while
scholars from Western Europe and North America mentioned this element more
frequently (40% and 21%, respectively). In contrast, half of the scholars from
the Middle East mentioned the element fear in their definitions for the term,
while less than a quarter of scholars from Western Europe and North America used
it. However, although there are differences in the definitional elements used by the
writers, as shown from Figure 2, the most popular element among all ethnic groups
was violence.
15
Before offering an assessment of the merits or deficiencies of the consensus defi-
nition, we should reflect for a moment on why there were such wide differences
between Schmids respondents and the contributors to the professional terrorism
Figure 2. Frequencies of definitional elements of Terrorism according to writers region.
784 A. Pedahzur et al.
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journals. (This is particularly true since we would expect that there would be some
overlap between the two groups.)
We readily admit to engaging in speculation, but an accounting based on the
times at which the studies were conducted may be relevant to our understanding.
Schmids survey was carried out in 1985. Respondents would necessarily have based
their reactions to terrorism on activities or operations which had occurred earlier,
that is from the late 1960s onwards. For the most part, those responding to Schmids
questionnaire would have obtained their understanding from observing what David
C. Rapoport has labeled terrorism of the third wave.
16
The events on which these observers would have based their definitions would
have encompassed the operations of the left-wing revolutionary groups of Latin
America and Western Europe (e.g., the Tupamaros, the Red Army Faction, the
Red Brigades) along with such secular nationalist organizations as those linked to
the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the Irish Republican Army (IRA),
Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA), and a long list of others. These were organi-
zations which wanted, to use Brian Jenkins famous phrase, a lot of people watch-
ing, not a lot of people dead. The type of operations they carried out frequently
involved taking prominent individuals hostage (e.g., Aldo Moro, the former Italian
prime minister, Sir Geoffrey Jackson, the British Ambassador to Uruguay, Patty
Hearst, the newspaper heiress) and holding them for ransom; another method was
seizing members of the public and demanding the release of imprisoned colleagues
in exchange (e.g., 1972 Munich Olympics); and spectacular acts of air piracy in which
the perpetrators demanded various political concessions in exchange for the release
of the plane and its passengers.
Third wave terrorism also engendered widespread discussion of such phenomena
as the Stockholm syndrome, brain-washing, the process of hostage negotiations,
and the role of the mass media in reporting the events which came to be labeled
terrorism. In short, the late 1960s through the early 1980s was a time during which
terrorism seemed to elicit the discussion of psychological issues. Consequently, we
should probably not be surprised that such definitional elements as fear and terror
along with psychological effects and anticipated reactions appear so frequently
among the responses to Schmids questionnaire.
Rapoport and other observers have called our attention to the emergence of
a New Terrorism.
17
Rapoport, in particular, refers to a fourth wave of ter-
rorism which was ignited by the Iranian Revolution of 19791980 but which
really took hold during the mid-1980s. This new or fourth wave of terrorism
has been dominated by religious concerns, and especially Islamist ones. By con-
trast to its predecessor(s), the new terrorists have been willing to inflict mass
casualties, kill large numbers of people, and use or attempt to use unconventional
weapons to achieve this end. Furthermore, from an organizational perspective,
the new terrorists have tended to rely less on hierarchical and more on hori-
zontally articulated and network-based forms than those active in the 1960s
and 1970s.
Frequencies of Definitional Elements of Terrorism According To Years
of Publication (Table 3)
The articles in the three professional terrorism journals which we have used
to compare with the respondents to Schmids 1985 questionnaire clearly cover
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism 785
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a wider time span than the latter. The questionnaire respondents would have
been aware of the early phases of the new terrorism, but the experiences on
which their definitions were based would far more likely have been derived from
the events of the previous decades or Rapoports Third Wave. The journal
contributions, on the other hand, would include the observations of writers
who were able to look back at the terrorist phenomenon from the 1990s and
the early years of the new millennium, after the new terrorism was well under-
way and after some of the dramatic attacks associated with it had already been
committed.
We interpret this distinction, with some overlap in time for both sets of observers
to be sure, to mean that the definitions of terrorism proposed by the journal contri-
butors would be less likely to pay attention to such acts as hostage-taking and kid-
napping, in which the mental states of the victims and perpetrators would be central
considerations. They might also be somewhat less likely to have available various
autobiographies, memoirs, and written reflections that third wave terrorists furn-
ished in abundance. Therefore, we suspect that the journal contributors definitions
were less psychology focused than the questionnaire respondents. But this is, of
course, a post hoc explanation of our own.
The consensus definition to emerge from our merger of the two academic
sources is as follows: Terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat
or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role.
Is this definition good or bad, helpful or not?
One criterion for evaluating definitions of terrorism has been suggested by
Schmid. This standard is whether or not advocates and opponents, authorities
and their challengers, agree over its merits.
18
Whatever else they disagree over,
they would share a common understanding when they use the word terrorism.
But even if we remain within the academic domain, it seems unlikely that the
consensus definition will satisfy some professorial critics. They regard the word
itself as a snare and a delusion, a semantic device by which the state and its
agents divert attention from their own crimes. For those members of academia
Table 3. Frequencies of definitional elements of Terrorism according to years of
publication
19972001
N 16
19921996
N 11
19871991
N 23
19821986
N 13
19771981
N 10 Element
69% 91% 83% 54% 50% 1. Violence
44% 64% 74% 69% 40% 2. Political
19% 36% 17% 8% 40% 3. Fear
0% 54.5% 70% 46% 20% 4. Threat
37.5% 36% 26% 8% 10% 5. Victim
62.5% 54.5% 13% 8% 30% 6. Tactic
19% 45.5% 22% 23% 0% 7. Civilians
31% 54.5% 17% 38.5% 10% 8. Movement
Note: Our survey consists of 73 definitions drawn from 55 articles collected from three
journals.
786 A. Pedahzur et al.
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who wish to express their solidarity with the sufferings of the oppressed, . . . it is
clear that so-called terrorism is the logical and just resistance of the people
against state terrorism, capitalism, racism, sexism and imperialism.
19
Terror-
ism in and of itself is simply a way of changing the subject by transforming vic-
tims into perpetrators.
Frequencies of Definitional Elements of Terrorism According To Writers
Academic Field (Table 4)
In a sense, academic critics of the very idea of terrorism have a point. What we
have identified as a consensus definition bears a relatively strong resemblance to
the way states, and law enforcement agencies, in particular, regard the phenom-
enon. For instance, Hoffman reports that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation
defines terrorism as . . . the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or
property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any
segment thereof, in furtherance of political and social objectives. . . .
20
And
British law (circa 1974) specifies that . . . terrorism is the use of violence for
political ends, and includes any use of violence for the purpose of putting the
public or any section of the public in fear.
21
Whether or not the resemblance
between the definitions provided by the academic domain and by the state is
good or bad depends upon the point of view of the observer. However, it is
relatively common, in international law, for example, for academic discussions
of legal concepts to find their way into the statute books or into international
conventions.
Is the consensus definition helpful to those who wish to study terrorism? By
ignoring the psychological element, by, in effect, taking the terror out of terrorism,
the definition facilitates observation of the phenomenon. It is easier to study politi-
cally driven actions than internal mental conditions. But, of course, the consensus
definition suffers from serious flaws. Sartoris observations make good sense in this
case: The rules for climbing and descending along a ladder of abstraction are thus
very simple rules. . . .We make a concept more abstract and more general by lessening
its properties or attributes . . .
22
The consensus definition is highly general. It seems too vague, in other words. It
also suffers from border problems. The definition includes no distinction between
combatants and non-combatants as targets of violence and, as a consequence, no
way of discriminating between terrorism and, for example, guerrilla warfare of the
type US forces are currently experiencing in Iraq. Nor, for that matter, does it permit
us to separate the highly planned operations of small, clandestine groups from large-
scale attacks carried out by large aggregations intended to attract publicity to a
cause.
The cost of achieving consensus among academic analysts of terrorism is a defi-
nition which has climbed too high on the ladder of abstraction to discriminate
among different types of politically driven violence aimed at achieving publicity.
Thus, unless we are willing to label as terrorism a very wide range of violent activi-
ties, we may be better off finding another governing concept or looking elsewhere for
a definition.
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism 787
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Notes
1. Walter Laqueur, Terrorism (Boston: Little, Brown 1977) p.5.
2. Martha Crenshaw, The Psychology of Terrorism Political Psychology 21=2 (2000)
p.406.
3. David C. Rapoport, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism in Audrey Cronin and
James Ludes (eds), Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (Washington,
DC: Georgetown University Press 2004) p. 54; David C. Rapoport Introduction to Part
I in David C. Rapoport and Yonah Alexander (eds), The Morality of Terrorism:
Religious and Secular Justifications (New York: Pergamon Press 1982) pp.311.
4. The second wave of terrorism, also known as the Anti-Colonial Wave, began in the
1920s and crested in the 1960s. All groups in the second wave struggled against colonial
powers that had become ambivalent about retraining their colonial status. The second
wave receded largely as the colonial powers disappeared (Rapoport, The Four Waves
of Modern Terrorism).
5. Rapoport, The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism, p.54. Moreover, as Rapoport
explained, Because the anti-colonial struggle seemed more legitimate than the purposes
served in the first wave, the new language became attractive to potential political sup-
porters as well. Governments also appreciated the political value of appropriate lan-
guage and began to describe all violent rebels as terrorists. The media, hoping to avoid
being seen as blatantly partisan, corrupted language further. Major American newspapers,
for example, often described the same individuals alternatively as terrorists, guerrillas, and
soldiers in the same account (p.54).
6. See, for example, Boaz Ganor, Defining Terrorism: Is One Mans Terrorist Another
Mans Freedom Fighter? Annual Editions: Violence and Terrorism 03=04 (Guilford,
CT: Dushkin 2003) pp.1119.
7. William Connolly, The Terms of Political Discourse 3rd ed. (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press 1993) p.10. The idea comes from W.B. Gallie, Essentially Contested Concepts
in Max Black (ed), The Importance of Language (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1969)
pp.121146.
8. See, for example, Giovanni Sartori, Social Science Concepts (Beverly Hills: Sage Publica-
tions 1984) pp.2835.
9. David Collier and James Mahon, Conceptual Stretching Revisited: Adapting Cate-
gories in Comparative Analysis, The American Political Science Review 87:4 (1993) p.846.
10. Alex Schmid, The Response Problem as a Definition Problem, Terrorism and Political
Violence 4:4 (1992) pp.725.
11. See, for example, Donatella della Porta, Left-Wing Terrorism in Italy, in Martha
Crenshaw (ed), Terrorism in Context (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University
Press 1995) pp.105159.
12. Alex Schmid, Albert Jongman et al., Political Terrorism (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Books, 1988) p.28. Schmid is in the process of updating this work, see, The Problem of
Defining Terrorism (a paper presented at a conference on Terrorism and Security
Studies, George Marshall Defense Center, Garmisch Germany, June 28 2004) pp.130.
13. Our research attempted to define terrorism throughout the last two decades. In order to
do so, we extensively collected all articles from three central journals (Terrorism; Terror-
ism and Political Violence; Studies in Conflict and Terrorism) that pertain to the matter at
hand. Initially, the data we collected were divided into different categories that did not
only include the context of the article but included information about its author, as well.
Within the context of the article we examined the subject of the article, its focus, its
research method (i.e., qualitative=quantitative case study, qualitative=quantitative com-
parative research, qualitative=quantitative theoretical research), its nature (i.e., concep-
tual, analytic, theoretical or case-study), and whether it constructs a typology, a theory,
or a definition. In addition to the articles context we noted the authors professional
Challenges of Conceptualizing Terrorism 793
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affiliation, field of education, and place of residence. These categories allowed for a wide
observation of the phenomenon of terrorism. The second step of our research was to
extract from the 110 articles found relevant, the various definitions for terrorism. Within
55 articles, the 73 definitions that originated were examined according to twenty-two
elements revealed in the work done by Schmid & Jongman (1988). It was this type of
incongruity which led to the main question of our research: Are the entire twenty-two
elements needed in order to reach a substantial definition of terrorism or are there defini-
tional elements that may have been crucial in the past, but are no longer relevant in the
present?
14. Schmid reported that, of his 58 respondents, 10%said they were psychologists (Scmid and
Jongman, p.207), while 7 of the 55 authors of the journal articles were identified with that
profession.
15. In order to determine whether differences according to country of origin are significant,
we considered performing an analysis of variance (ANOVA, for example). However,
due to the small number of scholars in each origin (e.g., two scholars from Africa, three
scholars from Australia and six scholars from the Middle East) we were unable to perform
this kind of statistical test.
16. David Rapoport, The Fourth Wave: September 11 in the History of Terrorism Current
History (December 2001) pp.419424.
17. See, for example, Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism (New York: Columbia University
Press 1999) pp.86129.
18. Schmid, The Response Problem as a Definition Problem, p.11.
19. Ibid.
20. Hoffman, p.38.
21. Schmid, The Response Problem as a Definition Problem, p.9.
22. Giovanni Sartori, Concept Misinformation in Comparative Politics, The American
Political Science Review LXIV=4 (December 1970) p.1041.
794 A. Pedahzur et al.
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