Content of lecture:

State Terror

State terrorism
z

internal
external
terrorism as an instrument of foreign
policy
state-sponsored
state-supported

Slukas definition of state

terror:
the use or threat of violence by the
state or its agents or supporters,
particularly against civilian individuals
and populations, as a means of
political intimidation and control
(Sluka, 2000: 2)

Internal state terrorism:

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Intimidation
z
z
z

arbitrary detention
unfair trial
kidnapping

State Terrorism
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Rgime de la terreur,
France 1793-1794
e.g. Robespierre and the
Law of Suspects (1793)
Internal terrorism
e.g. used against own
population to subdue
groups or create a
climate of fear
External terrorism
e.g. used as an
instrument of foreign
policy

Internal state terrorism:

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Torture
z
z

physical
psychological
punishment

Internal state terrorism:

Internal state terrorism:

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Coerced conversion
z

concentration camps

Nazi Germany
Bosnia

External state terror:

Political murder

External state terror:

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Covert operations
z
z

Coercive diplomacy
z

extra-judicial killings
disappearances
death squads

Nixons bombing of Hanoi, 1972

Bay of Pigs (Cuba)

1961
Kim Hyon Huis
plane bombing
(North Korea)
overthrow of
Allende in Chile

Case study: Libya

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1969 coup Gaddafi

comes to power
Ambition = spearhead
Arab Islamic revolution
Sales of oil = $$$$$ =
sponsorship & support of
terrorist groups
z
z

Surrogate terrorism
z
z

Taliban Al Qaeda
Libya

z
z

Abu Nidal
Red Army Faction
Carlos the Jackal
IRA

Libya continued
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Support training camps,

arms, safe haven
e.g. 1980s 8,000 foreign
terrorists trained per yr
Sponsorship attacks on
Libyan migrs & terror
attacks
e.g. attacks in Vienna,
Rome & Berlin
American action
bombing 1986
Pan Am Flight 103
(Lockerbie)

References and Further

Reading
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Rolston, B. (2005) An Effective Mask for Terror:

Democracy, Death Squads and Northern Ireland, Crime,
Law and Social Change, Vol. 44: 181-203.
Sluka, J.A. (2000) Death Squad. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania Press.
Tanter, R. (1999) Rogue Regimes. Basingstoke:
Macmillan.
Wardlaw, G. (1990) Political Terrorism. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Woodworth, P. (2001) Dirty War, clean hands: ETA, the
GAL and Spanish democracy. Cork: Cork University
Press.

References and Further

Reading
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Combs, C.C. (2003) Terrorism in the Twenty-First

Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
George, A. (ed) (1991) Western State Terrorism.
Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hagan, J. and Rymond-Richmond, W. (2007) The Mean
Streets of the Global Village: Crimes of Exclusion in the
United States and Darfur, Journal of Scandinavian
Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, Vol. 8(1):
1-54.
Korn, A. (2004) Israeli press and the war against
terrorism: The construction of the liquidation policy,
Crime, Law & Social Change, Vol. 41: 209-234.
Martin, G. (2006) Understanding Terrorism. London:
Sage.

Websites:
MIPT Terrorism Information Center:
http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/
| U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/
| U.S. Department of State, Office of
the Coordinator for Counterterrorism:
http://www.state.gov/s/ct/
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