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Limitations and inconsistencies of using the four waves of modern terrorism to understand Latin America
Abstract
Rapoport's theory of waves of terrorism has been considered a milestone when studying terrorist movements worldwide. This theory states that terrorism develops due to temporal, ideological and technological trends, which stimulate or diminish expressions of terrorism. More concretely, Rapoport argues that since the 19th century, global events have generated four waves of terrorism: anarchist, anticolonial, New Left, and religious. Using the Latin American experience of terrorist movements, this article explores inconsistencies and two main limitations in Rapoport's theory. Firstly, it shows how Latin America's historical and political particu-larities led to the weakness or absence of the anarchist and religious waves. Secondly, this article evidences that Rapoport ignored state terrorism and narcoterrorism, both extremely relevant to understanding terrorism in the region. Consequently, this study concludes that, despite it constituting a powerful theory for understanding terrorism from a global perspective, it requires a more nuanced regional approach and attention to more exhaustive expressions of the terrorist phenomenon.
Se realiza la presente narrativa apoyándonos en tres elementos básicos que menciona el historiador Pierre Nora, en relación a la historia, la memoria y el papel que debe jugar el historiador ante los acontecimientos. Para ello se considera el caso de la Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa, en el cual perdieron la vida 43 estudiantes a manos de grupos delincuenciales, apoyados por elementos policiacos que, en vez de defenderlos, los entregaron a Guerreros Unidos para su ejecución. Se intenta también desenmascarar la “verdad histórica” construida por el Estado mexicano con el fin de confundir a la ciudadanía y en defensa de personalidades de la política, policías locales y federales, así como del ejército. Esa “verdad” acordada bajo el liderazgo de Jesús Murillo Karam -hoy preso- se narra junto con el recorrido por la formación encomendada a las escuelas normales rurales y la creación de la Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa “Raúl Isidro Burgos”.
Post-9/11 framing of Islam in western intelligentsia and policymakers have given birth to a new way of global terrorism, i.e., Islamophobia, revolving around unfounded fear of Islam. Islamophobia is an internationally driven predominant energy – hatred against Muslims – which continues to shape the character of this new wave and relations among the perpetrators belonging to various parts of the world. Politically-driven framing of Muslims, Islam and one of its key tenants – Jihad – by the western media has heralded transnational terrorism (the Fifth Wave of terrorism), which fulfils all the essential prerequisites. Therefore, the theoretical framework of this paper peeps through the Four Waves Theory of modern terrorism put forth by David Rapoport to examine whether the current rise of Islamophobic violence in different parts of the world qualifies to be the Fifth Global Wave of terrorism. The paper delineates how Muslims have been discriminated against and demonized worldwide. It also unfolds how religious-linked terrorism has been exploited, resulting in Islamophobia, which has turned into a transcultural and transnational threat.
Bibliography Entry
Jalil, Muhammad Raza. 2021. "The Rise of the Fifth Wave of Global Terrorism (Islamophobia)." Margalla Papers 25 (2): 14-22.
Far-right terrorist incidents are proliferating throughout the Western world. There has been an exponential increase in such incidents in the past ten years. To better understand this phenomenon, the author uses David Rapoport’s seminal theory on Modern Waves of Terrorism. Applying Rapoport’s measurement criteria, this article seeks to determine whether the increase in far-right violence constitutes a new terrorist wave. The study provides an extensive analysis using the Global Terrorism Database, linking research dedicated to comprehending domestic occurrences of far-right extremism with patterns and themes across the affected regions. Based on mixed-methods empirical analysis, this article contends that the data’s common themes and patterns fulfill Rapoport’s distinctive
wave conditions with regard to the phenomenon’s international nature, the type of terrorist activity, its prompting cause, and its predominant energy.
The January 6 attack was unique in its target and potential consequences. But the methods employed were common in the 5 th Wave where far-right demonstrations became commonhave prevailed.. They began against President Obama and were then encouraged by President Trump. The article examines those demonstrations, the participants,, methods, and the difficulties government forces have had in dealing with them.
A number of new and exciting datasets on terrorist groups have been created in recent years. However, most data have limited temporal coverage. In this article, we explore a dataset of historical terrorist groups formed between 1860 and 1969 to determine which insights from the terrorism literature are generalizable over time. A cursory look into the dataset reveals several trends that have been overlooked by both the qualitative historical terrorism literature and the quantitative contemporary terrorism literature. We also perform an econometric analysis of terrorist group formation to test hypotheses derived from the extant research. Our results show limited support for existing hypotheses, although civil society participation appears consistently associated with terrorist group formation.
The increasing global prominence of right-wing extremism and terrorism has been noted by scholars and government agencies alike. While right-wing terrorism has been documented throughout postwar history, groups have evolved, resulting in diverse materializations of violence perpetrated on behalf of varying ideologies and perceived threats. This paper draws upon Campion’s research into Australian right-wing extremism and terrorism, where three ideological threat narratives were identified. The aim of this research was to determine the applicability of Rapoport’s ‘wave’ theory to the international evolution of extreme right-wing activity. In doing so, Campion’s framework is utilized and a case study analysis undertaken, investigating anti-communist, anti-immigration and anti-Islamic rhetoric on a transnational and transhistorical basis. It is argued that waves are found internationally, and that Rapoport’s model is therefore applicable to the right-wing milieu. The paper concludes that the extreme right is on the cusp of the next wave and discusses trends that may inform those in a position to counteract the forthcoming wave of activity. There remains a need for law enforcement and security agencies to monitor right-wing extremism and terrorism activity to remain attuned to the ever-evolving threat as the next wave manifests.
Territory is a persistent concern in international politics but is unevenly explored in the terrorism literature. We argue that territory has salience for terrorist actors and apply our argument to Rapoport's influential 'four waves' thesis of the modern history of terrorism. By examining the key ideologies and groups associated with each historical era, we find that territory was a crucial element to each wave even when it took on different forms. We conclude by calling for additional concern for territory in terrorism studies which promises to yield new insights into pressing questions.
David Rapoport’s Wave theory of terrorism is one of the most oftencited theories in the literature on terrorist violence. Rapoport is praised for having provided researchers with a universal instrument which allows them to explain the origin and transformation of various historical types of terrorism by applying to them the concept of global waves of terrorist violence driven by universal political impulses. This article, testing the Wave theory against the recent phenomenon of homegrown jihadism in Europe, uncovers this theory’s fundamental weaknesses and questions its real academic and practical value.
David Rapoport's concept of Four Waves of terrorism, from Anarchist terrorism in the 1880s, through Nationalist and Marxist waves in the early and mid-twentieth century, to the present Religious Wave, is one of the most influential concepts in terrorism studies. However, this article argues that thinking about different types of terrorism as strains rather than waves better reflects both the empirical reality and the idea that terrorists learn from and emulate each other. Whereas the notion of waves suggests distinct iterations of terrorist violence driven by successive broad historical trends, the concept of strains and contagion emphasizes how terrorist groups draw on both contemporary and historical lessons in the development of their tactics, strategies, and goals. The authors identify four distinct strains in total—Socialist, Nationalist, Religious, and Exclusionist—and contend that it is possible to trace each strain back to a “patient zero” active in the 1850s.
"The September 11 attack has created a resolve in America and elsewhere to a end terror everywhere. But the history of terror does not inspire much confidence that this determination will be successful."
A dramatic increase in criminal violence in Mexico since 2007 has resulted in an estimated 60,000-70,000 “additional” homicides, often of an especially brutal form, related to drug trafficking and other organized-crime activities. This violence has been accompanied by a steep increase in rates of kidnapping and extortion and has targeted participants in the narcotics trade as well as government officials, journalists, and civil society activists. Despite the magnitude of the violence and enormous public concern about it, scholarly literature on this topic has been scant. This issue offers some of the most promising analyses conducted thus far on the trends in violence and their causes, focusing largely, though not exclusively, on the role Mexico’s government has played in the business of illegal drugs and the violence that accompanies it. In this introduction, we discuss the challenge of deriving reliable statistics on drug-related violence, its spatial and temporal patterns, prevailing explanations, its relationship to organized crime in general, and differences between this violence and substate political violence.
The world's most popular sport, soccer is a global and cultural phenomenon. The television audience for the 2010 World Cup included nearly half of the world's population, with viewers in nearly every country. As a reflection of soccer's significance, the sport impacts countless aspects of the world's culture, from politics and religion to business and the arts. In The World through Soccer: The Cultural Impact of a Global Sport, Tamir Bar-On utilizes soccer to provide insights into worldwide politics, religion, ethics, marketing, business, leadership, philosophy, and the arts. Bar-On examines the ways in which soccer influences and reflects these aspects of society, and vice versa. Each chapter features representative players, providing specific examples of how soccer comments on and informs our lives. These players—selected from a wide array of eras, countries,, and many others. Employing a unique lens to view a variety of topics, The World through Soccer reveals the sport's profound cultural impact. Combining philosophical, popular, and academic insights about our world, this book is aimed at both soccer fans and academics, offering readers a new perspective into a sport that affects millions.
Set in the larger context of the evolution of international human rights, this cogent book examines the tragic development and ultimate resolution of Latin America's human rights crisis of the 1970s and 1980s. Thomas Wright focuses especially on state terrorism in Chile under General Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990) and in Argentina during the Dirty War (1976–1983). The author probes the background of these regimes, the methodology of state terrorism, and the human rights movements that emerged in urgent response to the brutality of institutionalized torture, murder, and disappearance. He also discusses the legacies of state terrorism in the post-dictatorial period, particularly the bitter battle between demands for justice and the military's claim of impunity. Central to this struggle was the politics of memory as two radically different versions of the countries' recent history clashed: had the militaries conducted legitimate wars against subversion or had they exercised terrorism based on a misguided concept of national security?
The book offers a nuanced exploration of the reciprocal relationship between state terrorism and its legacies, on one hand, and international human rights on the other. When the Chilean and Argentine militaries seized power, the international human rights lobby was too weak to prevent the massive toll of state terrorism. But the powerful worldwide response to these regimes ultimately strengthened international human rights treaties, institutions, and jurisprudence, paving the way for the Rwanda and Yugoslavia genocide tribunals and the International Criminal Court. Indeed, Chile and Argentina today routinely try and convict former repressors in their own courts.
This compelling history demonstrates that the experiences of Chile and Argentina contributed to strengthening the international human rights movement, which in turn gave it the influence to affect the outcome in these two South American countries. Ironically, the brutal regimes of Chile and Argentina played the major role in transforming a largely dormant international lobby into a powerful force that today is capable of bringing major repressors from anywhere in the world to justice. These intertwined themes make this book important reading not only for Latin Americanists but for students of human rights and of international relations as well.
What is terrorism? How is it different from other kinds of political violence? Why exactly is it wrong? Why is war often thought capable of being justified? On what grounds should we judge when the use of violence to be morally acceptable? It is often thought that using violence to uphold and enforce the rule of law can be justified, that violence used in self-defense is acceptable, and that some liberation movements can be excused for using violence—but that terrorism is always wrong. How persuasive are these arguments, and on what bases should we judge them? How Terrorism is Wrong collects articles by Virginia Held that offer a moral assessment of various forms of political violence, with terrorism the focus of much of the discussion. Here and throughout, Held examines possible causes discussed, including the connection between terrorism and humiliation. Held also considers military intervention, conventional war, intervention to protect human rights, violence to prevent political change, and the status and requirements of international law. She looks at the cases of Rwanda, Kosovo, Iraq, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Finally, she explores questions of who has legitimate authority to engage in justifiable uses of violence, whether groups can be responsible for ethnic violence, and how the media should cover terrorism. Held discusses appropriate ways of engaging in moral evaluation and improving our moral recommendations concerning the uses of violence. Just war theory has been developed for violence between the military forces of conflicting states, but much contemporary political violence is not of this kind. Held considers the guidance offered by such traditional moral theories as Kantian ethics and utilitarianism, and also examines what the newer approach of the ethics of care can contribute to our evaluations of violence. Care is obviously antithetical to violence since violence destroys what care takes pains to build; but the ethics of care recognizes that violence is not likely to disappear from human affairs, and can offer realistic understandings of how best to reduce it.
Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction examines the historical, ideological, and local roots of terrorist violence and explores terrorism in relation to revolutionary power, nationalism, and religious extremism. Is one person’s terrorist another’s freedom fighter? Is terrorism crime or war? What can we do to stop it? For many, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 changed the face of the world, pushing terrorism to the top of many political agendas. This VSI considers recent changes in terrorism, such as the emergence of ISIS and upsurge in individual suicide action, looking at the impact and consequences of several recent terrorist attacks, and outlining the complex issues related to antiterrorist and counterterrorist measures.
The chapter surveys the extremely varied and fragmented landscape of research on political violence and proposes a way to unify the study of its various manifestations in a way that is tractable, consistent, and analytically fruitful. Drawing on research that has focused on distinct types of political violence, it identifies eleven basic types. Classification is based on two key dimensions: whether the perpetrator of violence is a state or a non-state actor and whether the target of violence is a state or a non-state entity. The chapter briefly discusses key research findings associated with each type of political violence and explores how they are linked with each other by pointing to four connecting logics: hierarchy, instrumentality, escalation, and substitution. It concludes by drawing the implications.
Terrorism: A Very Short Introduction examines the historical, ideological, and local roots of terrorist violence and explores terrorism in relation to revolutionary power, nationalism, and religious extremism. How does terrorism end? Is one person's terrorist another's freedom fighter? Is terrorism crime or war? For many, the terrorist attacks of September 2001 changed the face of the world, pushing terrorism to the top of many political agendas, leading to a series of world events including the war in Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. This VSI considers complex issues related to the successes of specific terrorist and anti-terrorist campaigns in the distant past, and in recent years.
The Cambridge History of Terrorism provides a comprehensive reference work on terrorism from a distinctly historical perspective, offering systematic analyses of key themes, problems and case studies from terrorism's long past. Featuring expert scholars from across the globe, this volume examines the phenomenon of terrorism through regional case studies, largely written by local scholars, as well as through thematic essays exploring the relationship between terrorism and other historical forces. Each of the chapters - whether thematic or case-study focused - embodies new, research-based analysis which will help to inform and reshape our understanding of one of the world's most challenging problems.
This book aims to clarify competing and confusing definitions of terrorism, and of terrorist acts, that proliferate in specialist publications as well as in popular discourse, and then to construct a concept of a terrorist act that both reflects a central core of the usages examined and provides for a more coherent and fruitful discussion of terrorism and its moral and political significance. The book’s project thus treats the idea of meaning as involving a concern not only for semantic clarity, but also for probing various dimensions of what our understanding of terrorism can mean morally for complex social and political circumstances. The first two chapters sketch the types of definition abroad and propose what is called a tactical definition, with a focus on terrorist acts as violent attacks upon non-combatants or innocents (in a special sense). They discuss the benefits of such an approach and defend it against numerous objections that can be and have been made to it. Chapter 3 discusses critically theorists who argue that, independent of its definition, terrorist acts have a special, and profoundly disturbing, moral significance. Chapter 4 explores the scope and meaning of non-combatant status and its relation to recent controversies in the philosophy of war. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss important attempted philosophical defenses of terrorism for certain contexts. Chapter 7 discusses the moral challenges facing attempts at counter-terrorism, and Chapter 8 examines the commonly held view that religion is particularly prone to cause terrorism or some of its most extreme manifestations.
The Cambridge History of Terrorism provides a comprehensive reference work on terrorism from a distinctly historical perspective, offering systematic analyses of key themes, problems and case studies from terrorism's long past. Featuring expert scholars from across the globe, this volume examines the phenomenon of terrorism through regional case studies, largely written by local scholars, as well as through thematic essays exploring the relationship between terrorism and other historical forces. Each of the chapters - whether thematic or case-study focused - embodies new, research-based analysis which will help to inform and reshape our understanding of one of the world's most challenging problems.
The Cambridge History of Terrorism provides a comprehensive reference work on terrorism from a distinctly historical perspective, offering systematic analyses of key themes, problems and case studies from terrorism's long past. Featuring expert scholars from across the globe, this volume examines the phenomenon of terrorism through regional case studies, largely written by local scholars, as well as through thematic essays exploring the relationship between terrorism and other historical forces. Each of the chapters - whether thematic or case-study focused - embodies new, research-based analysis which will help to inform and reshape our understanding of one of the world's most challenging problems.
The causes and consequences of terrorism are matters of considerable debate and great interest. Spectacular events are recognized by their dates, including the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington and the 7/7 London bombings. Many other attacks, including those in non-Western countries, receive far less attention even though they may be more frequent and cumulatively cause more casualties. In Terrorism: What Everyone Needs to KnowRG, leading economist Todd Sandler provides a broad overview of a persistently topical topic. The general issues he examines include what terrorism is, its causes, the roles of terrorist groups, how governments seek to counter terrorism, its economic consequences, and the future of terrorism. He focuses on the modern era and how specific motivations, ranging from nationalism/separatism to left- or right-wing extremism or religious ideals, and general conditions, such as poverty and inequality or whether a country is democratic or authoritarian, affect the frequency and costs of terrorism. The diversity of terrorist groups and type of attacks can be overwhelming, and Sandler provides a unifying framework to generate insight: strategic interaction. That is, like other organizations, terrorist groups organize to pursue goals and respond in an optimal fashion to a risky environment that can influence the group's size, its diversity of attacks, its regional location, its host country's characteristics, and the group's ideology. Terrorists also responded to enhanced security measures by altering their tactics, targets, and location. As such, they are formidable opponents to their stronger government adversaries. Governments, in turn, pursue various costly strategies to prevent terrorism, including passive barriers and active attacks against terrorists, their resources, and those who support them. Terrorism covers numerous questions on the subject and sheds lights on a wide-range of theoretical and empirical research.
Terrorism and radicalization came to the forefront of news and politics in the US after the unforgettable attacks of September 11th, 2001. When George W. Bush famously asked "Why do they hate us?," the President echoed the confusion, anger and fear felt by millions of Americans, while also creating a politicized discourse that has come to characterize and obscure discussions of both phenomenon in the media. Since then the American public has lived through a number of domestic attacks and threats, and watched international terrorist attacks from afar on television sets and computer screens. The anxiety and misinformation surrounding terrorism and radicalization are perhaps best detected in questions that have continued to recur in the last decade: "Are terrorists crazy?"; "Is there a profile of individuals likely to become terrorists?"; "Is it possible to prevent radicalization to terrorism?" Fortunately, in the two decades since 9/11, a significant body of research has emerged that can help provide definitive answers. As experts in the psychology of radicalization, Sophia Moskalenko and Clark McCauley propose twelve mechanisms that can move individuals, groups, and mass publics from political indifference to sympathy and support for terrorist violence. Radicalization to Terrorism: What Everyone Needs to Know synthesizes original and existing research to answer the questions raised after each new attack, including those committed by radicalized Americans. It offers a rigorously informed overview of the insight that will enable readers to see beyond the relentless new cycle to understand where terrorism comes from and how best to respond to it.
Within Terrorism Studies, Rapoport, D. C.’s (2004. The Four Waves of Modern Terrorism. In A. Cronin, & J. Ludes (Eds.), Attacking Terrorism: Elements of a Grand Strategy (pp. 47–65). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.) Wave Theory is a theoretical landmark that covers modern terrorism since 1880. However, this masterpiece neglects Eco-Terrorism, a phenomenon starred by the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and some other ideologically similar organizations. Even though it has been catching authorities’ attention around the world, such negligence towards the phenomenon has been replicated by others working on Rapoport's Wave Theory, leaving a question unaddressed: ‘Was/Is there an ‘Eco-Terrorist Wave’?’ Methodologically built upon a Time Series analysis on the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) (1970–2017), the present research harmonizes Eco-Terrorism under Rapoport's Wave Theory. Based on the evidence collected, the phenomenon has been evolving in a Rapoportian ‘Wave-Like’ pattern since 1972.
This essay is an ethnographic exploration of the ethos and mores of Mexico’s contemporary drug culture. It uses temporal directionality (telos) to interpret the idiosyncratic symbols and rituals developed for the warrior order known as the Caballeros Templarios or Knights Templar cartel (Michoacán). The essay shows that Mexican drug organizations, in their dedication to the business of privatizing public goods, are thus at the same time parallel state structures and trust-based organizations of brothers working to build a collective future. The essay emphasizes the cultural elaboration of competing communitarian and bureaucratic organizational forms and ideals in order to explore the leadership style and moral codes of honor of the Knights Templar, underscoring the centrality of transnational movement in the invention of an acutely gender- and class-based culture of violent domination and caste formation.
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, research on terrorism has grown exponentially. Data limitations, however, have made temporal generalization difficult. Most terrorism datasets extend back only to the 1970s, which inhibits the ability to quantitatively examine earlier waves of terrorism. To address this limitation, this article presents a dataset of over 250 terrorist organizations formed between 1860 and 1969. These data, which have global coverage, include country-year information on group formation, allowing scholars to examine the relationship between various country-year factors and the emergence of terrorist organizations. To illustrate their usefulness, these data are used to examine the relationship between democracy and terrorist group formation. Following several recent studies, the empirical analysis reveals a curvilinear or inverted u-shaped relationship between terrorism and democracy.
Drawing on Rapoport’s four waves thesis, this study asks whether the emergence of terrorist semi-states (TSS) in the 21st-century MENA region and Pakistan mean that we are seeing the beginning of a new (fifth) wave. We define a TSS as a rebel group that a) has control over portions of a weak state’s territory, maintaining governance there; b) but still launches terrorist attacks against third-party states. To be considered a fifth wave, the new terrorism phenomenon at hand must both fit Rapoport’s criteria of a wave (be global, have the same driving force) and also be significantly different from the prior wave. Clearly, the TSSs are different from the religious terror groups of the fourth wave in key respects: they prioritize territorial control, they engage in a much wider array of governance activities (not just social services), most of their victims have been members of the same religion—namely, Muslims (which suggests that they are driven more by the pursuit of power than by Jihad); and finally, their behavior (though not their statements) shows they have a local rather than a universal agenda. The main counter-argument is that TSSs are all Islamic and have so far not been exported globally.
Focusing on the phenomenon of terrorism in the age of ISIS/ISIL, Terrorism and Counterterrorism investigates this form of political violence in an international and American context and in light of new and historical trends. In this comprehensive and highly readable text, renowned expert Brigitte Nacos clearly defines terrorism's diverse causes, actors, and strategies; outlines anti- and counter-terrorist responses; and highlights terrorism's relationship with the public and media. Terrorism and Counterterrorism introduces students to the field's main debates and helps them critically assess our understanding of, and our strategies for, addressing this complex and enduring issue. New to the 5th Edition Covers important terrorist developments since 2012 including the death of Osama bin Laden, the rise of ISIS, the proliferation of home-grown jihadism including the Boston Marathon bombing, and the revelations of Edward Snowden and the NSA. Refines the treatment of important issues including "justifiable" or "legitimate" terror, waves of terror, and state sponsored terror, among others. Amplifies the coverage of media and terrorism including e-terrorism, the role of social media in recruitment, "propaganda by deed," and other cutting edge topics.
Most policymakers in the United States and Israel have it wrong: Hezbollah isn't a simple terrorist organization--nor is it likely to disappear any time soon. Following Israel's war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, the Shi'i group--a hybrid of militia, political party, and social services and public works provider--remains very popular in the Middle East. After Lebanon tottered close to disaster, Hezbollah and its allies gained renewed political power in Beirut. The most lucid, informed, and balanced analysis of the group yet written, Hezbollah is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Middle East. A new afterword brings readers up to date on Hezbollah's most recent actions.
Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God is the first thorough examination of Hezbollah’s covert activities beyond Lebanon’s borders, including its financial and logistical support networks and its criminal and terrorist operations worldwide. Hezbollah - Lebanon’s “Party of God” - is a multifaceted organization: It is a powerful political party in Lebanon, a Shia Islam religious and social movement, Lebanon’s largest militia, a close ally of Iran, and a terrorist organization. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including recently declassified government documents, court records, and personal interviews with intelligence and law enforcement officials around the world, Matthew Levitt examines Hezbollah’s beginnings, its first violent forays in Lebanon, and then its terrorist activities and criminal enterprises abroad in Europe, the Middle East, South America, Southeast Asia, Africa, and finally in North America. Levitt also describes Hezbollah’s unit dedicated to supporting Palestinian militant groups and Hezbollah’s involvement in training and supporting insurgents who fought US troops in post-Saddam Iraq. The book concludes with a look at Hezbollah’s integral, ongoing role in Iran’s shadow war with Israel and the West, including plots targeting civilians around the world. Levitt shows convincingly that Hezbollah’s willingness to use violence at home and abroad, its global reach, and its proxy-patron relationship with the Iranian regime should be of serious concern. Hezbollah is an important book for scholars, policymakers, students, and the general public interested in international security, terrorism, international criminal organizations, and Middle East studies.
This article demonstrates how world political binaries (democratic–autocratic, civilized–barbarian, etc.) are materially, as well as ideationally, constructed. By drawing on the analytical sensibilities of Actor-Network Theory, it is shown that differences in the actions, practices and/or behaviours of states usually situated at one or another extreme of socio-political dichotomies are sometimes dependent only on the availability of, and/or global inequalities in, mundane material ‘allies’, such as airplanes, sedatives and military bases. Empirically, the article evidences this claim by constructing a comparative case study of the Argentine torture regime and ‘Death Flights’ programme (c. 1975–1983) and the post-9/11 US-led ‘extraordinary rendition’ programme. By describing the contours of each case in microsociological detail, I suggest that differences in the forms of violence enacted in these two cases (both involving torture but one resulting in death and the other indefinite detention) were not related to the democratic or ‘civilized’ status of the US and the authoritarian or fascist-cum-barbarian status of Argentina (and the subjective motivations that we attribute such binary signifiers), but, rather, to differences in the agencies of the non-human object of the aircraft available in each case. These empirical findings allow the article to affirm the value-added of Actor-Network Theory’s ‘reconstructive’ method in International Relations for: 1) ‘mangling’ power-saturated world political binaries without relying on critical ‘deconstruction’; 2) revealing the ever-present material-semiotic fragility of those dualisms; and 3) unveiling the ideational ‘purifications’ that sustain dichotomies in spite of their often lacking an empirical basis through a refusal to engage with materiality.
This article contends that takfiri jihadist groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria and the Islamic State exhibit tendencies consistent with Jeffrey Kaplan's fifth wave of terror theory. Beyond placing these groups within Kaplan's framework, this essay also discusses them within the context of takfiri precursors, like the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), Al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Contrary to Kaplan's argument that Islamist groups are not part of the fifth wave, this article concludes that his theory does pertain to takfiri jihadist groups and underscores why this is an important distinction.
There are no psychological characteristics or psychopathology that separates terrorists from the general population. Rather it is group dynamics, with a particular emphasis on collective identity that helps explain terrorist psychology. Just as there is a diverse spectrum of terrorisms, so too is there a spectrum of terrorist psychologies. Four waves of terrorism can be distinguished: the Anarchist wave, associated with labor violence in the United States in the late 19th century; the Anti-Colonial wave (nationalist-separatist), with minority groups seeking to be liberated from their colonial masters or from the majority in their country; the New Left wave (social revolutionary); and now the Religious wave. With the communications revolution, a new phenomenon is emerging which may presage a fifth wave: lone wolf terrorists who through the Internet are radicalized and feel they belong to the virtual community of hatred. A typology of lone wolf terrorism is proposed.
