Crenshaw, Martha. "The Causes of Terrorism". Comparative Politics, Vol.13, No.4 (1981): 379-399.

Crenshaw, Martha. "The Causes of Terrorism". Comparative Politics, Vol.13, No.4 (1981): 379-399.

• Terrorism can both be a form of violent resistance against the state or a way to serve and further state interests through violence. This article focus on anti-state terrorism, defining it as low-level designed to create a political change by affecting general public perceptions (379).
• Contemporary [1970s] general accounts of terrorism often fail to explain why people become involved in terrorism. Instead most answers are banal theories of privileged and affluent Western youth adopting behaviors from television, the influence of violent ideologies, the weakness or repression of governments, or individual mental instability (379-380).
• None of these theories about the origins and causes of terrorism is testable nor can they be applied in any practical way across different countries (380).
• The author seeks to provide a new account of the causes of terrorism that will explain under what circumstances terrorist groups will form, how terrorist groups will before, and what makes certain individuals more or less likely to participate in terrorism (380).
• The primary cases of terrorism after 1789 have been the socialist revolutionary movement in Russia between 1878 and 1913, anarchist terrorism in Europe in the 1890s, the Irish Republican movement from 1919 onward, Irgun in Palestine between 1937 and 1947, the National Liberation Front [FLN] in Algeria between 1954 and 1962, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine from 1968 onward, the Red Army Faction in the Bonn Republic from 1968 onward, and the Tupamaros in Uruguay between 1968 and 1974 (380-381).
• Unfortunately, there was [in 1981] a lack of evidence regarding the origins of terrorism. The closest relevant field -- the study of civil unrest and criminology -- determined that stable and prosperous nations had less violence. Terrorism would appear to not be connect to general levels of violence then, as the greatest levels of terrorism appear in the prosperous nations of North America and Western Europe (381).
• The author proposes that a study into the causes of terrorism should include both the preconditions for terrorism, the general societal circumstances, and the precipitants of terrorism, the immediate events that cause terrorist groups to form (381).
• The following are identified as preconditions for terrorism:
• Modernization and technological progress enable to the expansion of terrorism, as additional social and economic connections give terrorists increased mobility and increase their access to weapons. Bombings were not a major tactic until the invention of dynamite in 1867 and early terrorist groups were only able to operate because of the mobility offered by new railroad networks (381-382).
• Urbanization makes terrorism more likely by creating areas of dense social, economic, and political connections that both allow for the concentration of terrorist resources, are difficult to effectively police, and present a large number of potential targets (382).
• Traditions of sanctioned violence against the government enable future terrorist acts. Historical myths and societal beliefs that condone organized violence create the preconditions for terrorism. The presence of ideologies that justify violence, such as revolutionary socialism, also create the preconditions for terrorism (382).
• The inability of states to crush terrorist networks, either because of incompetence or an unwillingness or inability to deploy sufficient police and intelligence resources to bear against such organizations, is the biggest factor in allowing the formation of terrorist groups in some state and not others (382-383).
• The following are identified as precipitants of terrorism:
• The existence of substantive grievances among an organized community within the general population, often along ethnic lines, often leads to the formation of a terrorist group. Importantly, the existence of grievances is less important than the perception that grievances exist and are unjust (383).
• The lack of access to political power, often under autocratic regimes, can result in the formation of terrorist groups. These regimes to not have to oppress specific groups. The general restriction of political participation is enough to cause some to resort to terrorism. These terrorists are likely to be well-educated, privileged, and middle-class, representing elites rather than the mass of these societies (383-384).
• Some have suggested that the existence of terrorist groups among societal elites represents the existence of a stable society, since conditions are not repressive enough for the general population to become involved in the struggle. Instead, only a fraction of the elite demanding radical change are involved, and their lack of general support forces them to resort to terrorism as a tactic (384).
• "Terrorism per se is not usually a reflection of mass discontent or deep cleavages in society. More often it represents the disaffection of a fragment of the elite, who may take it upon themselves to act on the behalf of a majority unaware of its plight, unwilling to take action to remedy grievances, or unable to express dissent" (396).
• Specific instances of state repression that represent part of a general trend are the immediate precedents to terrorism. These events can take many forms, such as the use to excessive force against protests, the death of prominent leaders, or certain policy changes (384-385).
• The author assumes that terrorism is a rational reaction to political issues; a reflection of political conditions that lead rational actors to determine that terrorism is the best way to bring about political change (385).
• Just because terrorist groups believe that terrorism is the best way to accomplish their political goals does not means that they are correct or that this will happen. The revolutionaries of Narodnaya Volya, for example, did not explain how assassination of the Tsar would lead to the liberalization of Russia (386).
• The greatest short-term benefit produced by terrorism is the publicity and attention that the cause of the terrorism group receives. This violence also polarizes the population, intensifying the societal basis for the conflict. Terrorism also reduces the legitimacy of the government, by demonstrating its incapacity to prevent violence. In the case of guerrilla warfare, terrorism can also reduce government control over territory (386-387).
• Terrorism can also have the goal of provoking an excessive reaction from the government, with the hope that this reaction will increase public sympathy for the terrorist cause and engender hostility towards the government. This is the express purpose of terrorism by the FLN, Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Red Army Faction (387).
• Terrorism can be used to resolve internal political struggles within an organization. Since the use of terrorism can increase the public legitimacy of a group, it is sometimes used by factions of the organization to increase their support versus internal competitors within that organization (387, 389).
• The actions of other groups can influence an organization's decision to use terrorism. The independence of Morocco and Tunisia, for example, prompted the use of terrorism by the FLN, who felt that their group would be viewed as illegitimate compared to Tunisian and Moroccan nationalists (389).
• Terrorism is most often used by weak organizations facing strong states, as it is cheap and has a high payoff compared to other oppositions of opposition to the state. The weakness that prompts the use of terrorism can either be the result of state repression or a manifestation of the lack of popular support for the terrorist organization (387-388).
• The withdrawal of foreign support can sometimes be the impetus for terrorism, as organizations feel that terrorism is now the only possible tactic. This was the response of Palestinian groups to the withdrawal of Arab support for their cause, as they felt that terrorism was the only possible option after they lost foreign support (389).
• Terrorism is selected as a tactic because groups are impatient, because of their beliefs, or because they rationally calculate their the opportunity for political change exists in a narrow time-frame. The beginning of terrorism against the British in Ireland after WWI, or against the British in Palestine after WWII represent organizations seizing limited windows of relative weakness in which to act (388).
• Terrorism does not arise naturally out of a set of preconditions nor out of group rationality, but is the result of individuals making conscious choices. Only a small number of individuals in the same circumstances will resort to terrorism, but there is no common rational among these persons; terrorists in the same group will often have very different personalities (389-390). Moreover, major differences in personality are consistently found between rank-and-file members and leaders (392).
• The only common thread among terrorists is a strong belief that the state was violent or oppressive and that this violence justified the use of counter-violence by the terrorist organization (390).
• Many individuals are potential terrorists, but only a small number of this group will actually engage in terrorism. Moreover, the psychological traits that make people like to engage in terrorism are common, and present among many diverse personality types within a population (396).
• There a number of methodological problems to studying the connection between certain political attitudes or beliefs and terrorist behavior. The first is that attitudes fluctuate, and may change as a result of joining the terrorist organization rather than being a precursor to membership (391).
• Terrorism requires that individuals commit violence, place themselves in considerable danger for a cause, and that they reside in a closed social community featuring intense bonds between members and general isolation from non-members (393-394).
• This behavior is enabled by psychological methods such as the constant policing of internal dissent to enhance separation from general society, and the exploitation of anger at the death of fellow terrorists to inspire the continuation of terrorist activities (393-394).
• Patterns of vengeance in terrorist activities enable individual members to commit more violence and expose themselves to greater risks, operating out of the belief that their deaths will be avenged by other members of the organization. This cycle of vengeance then generates new opportunities for justifying violence (394).
• Participation in terrorism usually generates intense guilt in group members, generating a psychological desire for justification. This guilt leads members to cling more dearly to the ideology and vision of the group, since this provides justification and allows members to avoid direct confrontation with the immorality of their actions. Feelings of guilt can also make terrorists more likely to accept risks, since they may subconsciously believe that they deserve to die (394-395).
• The social isolation of terrorist membership from the general population, a requirement for the successful organization of terrorist activities, allows these groups to hold extremely out-of-touch views. Only total separation from Bonn society, for example, could explain why the Red Army Faction could legitimately believe that their actions would spark a return to Nazism that would then be toppled by a workers' revolution (393).
• The psychological changes that terrorism inflicts upon the membership of terrorist organizations create motivation for more terrorism, as guilt and vengeance drive members to commit more acts, meaning that once organizations engage in terrorism, it is very difficult for them to abandon terrorism (395-396).
• This means that, even if the preconditions and precipitants to terrorism are removed, terrorism may continue until the terrorist organization itself is destroyed because psychological factors make terrorism so difficult for groups of individuals to abandon (397).