Definition of terrorism


There is no universal agreement on the definition of terrorism. Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions of terrorism. Moreover, governments have been reluctant to formulate an agreed-upon and legally binding definition. Difficulties arise from the fact that the term has become politically and emotionally charged. Since 1994, the United Nations General Assembly has condemned terrorist acts using the following political description of terrorism:
Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.

In the United States of America, terrorism is defined in Title 22 Chapter 38 U.S. Code § 2656f as "premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".
In general, terrorism is classified as:
The following criteria of violence or threat of violence usually fall outside of the definition of terrorism:
There are many reasons for the failure to achieve universal consensus regarding the definition of terrorism. In a briefing paper for the Australian Parliament, Angus Martyn stated that "he international community has never succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. During the 1970s and 1980s, the United Nations attempts to define the term foundered mainly due to differences of opinion between various members about the use of violence in the context of conflicts over national liberation and self-determination." These divergences have made it impossible to conclude a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism that incorporates a single, all-encompassing, legally binding, criminal-law definition of terrorism. In the meantime, the international community adopted a series of sectoral conventions that define and criminalize various types of terrorist activities.
A 2003 study by Jeffrey Record for the United States Army quoted a source that counted 109 definitions of terrorism that covered a total of 22 different definitional elements. Record continued:
Terrorism expert Walter Laqueur also has counted over 100 definitions and concludes that the 'only general characteristic generally agreed upon is that terrorism involves violence and the threat of violence.' Yet terrorism is hardly the only enterprise involving violence and the threat of violence. So does war, coercive diplomacy, and bar room brawls.

Etymology

The term "terrorism" comes from French terrorisme, from terror, "great fear", "dread", related to the Latin verb terrere, "to frighten". The terror cimbricus was a panic and state of emergency in Rome in response to the approach of warriors of the Cimbri tribe in 105 BCE.
The French National Convention declared in September 1793 that "terror is the order of the day". The period 1793–94 is referred to as La Terreur. Maximilien Robespierre, a leader in the French revolution proclaimed in 1794 that "Terror is nothing other than justice, prompt, severe, inflexible."
The Committee of Public Safety agents that enforced the policies of "The Terror" were referred to as "Terrorists". The word "terrorism" was first recorded in English-language dictionaries in 1798 as meaning "systematic use of terror as a policy".
Although the Reign of Terror was imposed by the French government, in modern times "terrorism" usually refers to the killing of people by non-governmental political activists for political reasons, often as a public statement. This meaning originated with Russian radicals in the 1870s. Sergey Nechayev, who founded the People's Reprisal in 1869, described himself as a "terrorist". German radicalist writer Johann Most helped popularize the modern sense of the word by dispensing "advice for terrorists" in the 1880s.
According to Myra Williamson: "The meaning of "terrorism" has undergone a transformation. During the reign of terror a regime or system of terrorism was used as an instrument of governance, wielded by a recently established revolutionary state against the enemies of the people. Now the term "terrorism" is commonly used to describe terrorist acts committed by non-state or subnational entities against a state."

In international law

The need to define terrorism in international criminal law

has noted that a "A combination of pragmatic and principled arguments supports the case for defining terrorism in international law", including the need to condemn violations to human rights, to protect the state and deliberative politics, to differentiate public and private violence, and to ensure international peace and security.
Carlos Diaz-Paniagua, who coordinated the negotiations of the proposed United Nations Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, noted, on his part, the need to provide a precise definition of terrorist activities in international law: "Criminal law has three purposes: to declare that a conduct is forbidden, to prevent it, and to express society's condemnation for the wrongful acts. The symbolic, normative role of criminalization is of particular importance in the case of terrorism. The criminalization of terrorist acts expresses society's repugnance at them, invokes social censure and shame, and stigmatizes those who commit them. Moreover, by creating and reaffirming values, criminalization may serve, in the long run, as a deterrent to terrorism, as those values are internalized." Thus, international criminal law treaties that seek to prevent, condemn and punish terrorist activities, require precise definitions:
Saul noted in this sense that, missing a generally agreed, all-encompassing, definition of the term:

Obstacles to a comprehensive definition

Diaz-Paniagua has noted that, to "create an effective legal regime against terrorism, it would be necessary to formulate a comprehensive definition of that crime that, on the one hand, provides the strongest moral condemnation to terrorist activities while, on the other hand, has enough precision to permit the prosecution of criminal activities without condemning acts that should be deemed to be legitimate. Nonetheless, due to major divergences at the international level on the question of the legitimacy of the use of violence for political purposes, either by states or by self-determination and revolutionary groups, this has not yet been possible." In this sense, M. Cherif Bassiouni notes:
Sami Zeidan, a diplomat and scholar, explained the political reasons underlying the current difficulties to define terrorism as follows:
In the same vein, Jason Burke, a British reporter who writes about radical Islamist activity, said:
The political and emotional connotation of the term "terrorism" makes difficult its use in legal discourse. In this sense, Saul notes that:
Historically, the dispute on the meaning of terrorism arose since the laws of war were first codified in 1899. The Martens Clause was introduced as a compromise wording for the dispute between the Great Powers who considered francs-tireurs to be unlawful combatants subject to execution on capture, and smaller states who maintained that they should be considered lawful combatants.
More recently the 1977 Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, which applies in situations Article 1. Paragraph 4 "... in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes...", contains many ambiguities that cloud the issue of who is or is not a legitimate combatant.
These difficulties have led Pamala Griset to conclude that: "the meaning of terrorism is embedded in a person's or nation's philosophy. Thus, the determination of the 'right' definition of terrorism is subjective."

The sectoral approach

To elaborate an effective legal regime to prevent and punish international terrorism—rather than only working on a single, all-encompassing, comprehensive definition of terrorism—the international community has also adopted a "...'sectoral' approach aimed at identifying offences seen as belonging to the activities of terrorists and working out treaties in order to deal with specific categories thereof". The treaties that follow this approach focus on the wrongful nature of terrorist activities rather than on their intent:
Following this approach, the international community has adopted the following sectoral counter-terrorism conventions, open to the ratification of all states:
Analyzing these treaties, Andrew Byrnes observed that:
Byrnes notes that "this act-specific approach to addressing problems of terrorism in binding international treaties has continued up until relatively recently. Although political denunciation of terrorism in all its forms had continued apace, there had been no successful attempt to define 'terrorism' as such in a broad sense that was satisfactory for legal purposes. There was also some scepticism as to the necessity, desirability and feasibility of producing an agreed and workable general definition." Nonetheless, since 2000, the United Nations General Assembly has been working on a proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.

Comprehensive conventions

The international community has worked on two comprehensive counter-terrorism treaties, the League of Nations' 1937 Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of Terrorism, which never entered into force, and the United Nations' proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, which hasn't been finalized yet.

League of Nations

In the late 1930s, the international community made a first attempt at defining terrorism. Article 1.1 of the League of Nations' 1937 Convention for the prevention and punishment of Terrorism, which never entered into force, defined "acts of terrorism" as "criminal acts directed against a State and intended or calculated to create a state of terror in the minds of particular persons or a group of persons or the general public". Article 2 included as terrorist acts, if they were directed against another state and if they constituted acts of terrorism within the meaning of the definition contained in article 1, the following:

Proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism

Since 2000, the United Nations General Assembly has been negotiating a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism. The definition of the crime of terrorism, which has been on the negotiating table since 2002 reads as follows:
Among the negotiators, that definition is not controversial in itself; the deadlock in the negotiations arises instead from the opposing views on whether such a definition would be applicable to the armed forces of a state and to self-determination movements. Thalif Deen described the situation as follows: "The key sticking points in the draft treaty revolve around several controversial yet basic issues, including the definition of ´terrorism´. For example, what distinguishes a "terrorist organisation" from a 'liberation movement'? And do you exclude activities of national armed forces, even if they are perceived to commit acts of terrorism? If not, how much of this constitutes 'state terrorism'?" The coordinator of the negotiations, supported by most western delegations, proposed the following exceptions to address those issues:
The state members of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference proposed instead the following exceptions:

Sectoral conventions

The various sectoral counter-terrorism conventions defines as terrorist particular categories of activities.

Terrorist Bombings Convention

Article 2.1 of the 1997 International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings defines the offence of terrorist bombing as follows:
Article 19 expressly excluded from the scope of the convention certain activities of state armed forces and of self-determination movements as follows:

Terrorist Financing Convention

Article 2.1 of the 1999 sectoral United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism defines the crime of terrorist financing as the offence committed by "any person" who "by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out" an act "intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act."

Nuclear Terrorism Convention

The 2005 United Nations International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism defines the crime of nuclear terrorism as follows:
Article 4 of the convention expressly excluded from the application of the convention the use of nuclear weapons during armed conflicts without, though, recognizing the legality of the use of those weapons:

Definitions of terrorism in other UN decisions

In parallel with the criminal law codification efforts, some United Nations organs have put forward some broad political definitions of terrorism.

UN General Assembly Resolutions

A 1996 non-binding United Nations Declaration to Supplement the 1994 Declaration on Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism, annexed to the UN General Assembly Resolution 51/210, described terrorist activities in the following terms:
Antonio Cassese has argued that the language of this and other similar UN declarations "sets out an acceptable definition of terrorism."

UN Security Council

In 2004, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1566 condemned terrorist acts as:

High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change

Also in 2004, a High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change composed of independent experts and convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations called states to set aside their differences and to adopt, in the text of a proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, the following political "description of terrorism":
The following year, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan endorsed the High Level Panel's definition of terrorism and asked states to set aside their differences and to adopt that definition within the proposed comprehensive terrorism convention before the end of that year. He said:
The suggestion of incorporating this definition of terrorism into the comprehensive convention was rejected. Some United Nations' member states contended that a definition such as the one proposed by the High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, and endorsed by the Secretary General, lacked the necessary requirements to be incorporated in a criminal law instrument. Carlos Diaz-Paniagua, who coordinated the negotiations of the proposed Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism, stated that a comprehensive definition of terrorism to be included in a criminal law treaty must have "legal precision, certainty, and fair-labeling of the criminal conduct - all of which emanate from the basic human rights obligation to observe due process."

European Union

The European Union defines terrorism for legal/official purposes in Art. 1 of the Framework Decision on Combating Terrorism. This provides that terrorist offences are certain criminal offences set out in a list consisting largely of serious offences against persons and property that;

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

defines terrorism in the AAP-06 NATO Glossary of Terms and Definitions, Edition 2019 as "The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence, instilling fear and terror, against individuals or property in an attempt to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, or to gain control over a population, to achieve political, religious or ideological objectives".

In national law

Argentina

The Argentine National Reorganization Process dictatorship, which lasted from 1976 to 1983, defined "terrorist" as "not only who set bombs and carry guns, but also those who spread ideas opposite to Christian and western civilization".

Brazil

In 2016, Brazil passed for committing, planning, enabling, sponsoring, inciting and participating in terrorist acts. The bill lists a series of acts that provoke social and general terror or endager people, property, infrastructure, or public peace, for reasons of xenophobia, discrimination or prejudice of race, color, ethnics and religion. Shortly after the creation of the law, Federal Police's arrested eleven suspects of planning a terrorist attack in the run-up to the Rio 2016 Olympics.

France

In 1986, France adopted its first "anti-terrorism" law. The French legal definition of "acts of terrorism" as in force since 2016 is to be found in the French Code pénal, article 421. The article starts with:

India

The Supreme Court of India adopted Alex P. Schmid's definition of terrorism in a 2003 ruling, "defin acts of terrorism veritably as 'peacetime equivalents of war crimes.'"
The now lapsed Terrorist and Disruptive Activities Act specified the following definition of terrorism:

Pakistan

The Pakistan Anti-Terrorism Ordinance, 1999 states:
A person is said to commit a terrorist act if he,
in order to, or if the effect of his actions will be to, strike terror or create a sense of fear and insecurity in the people, or any section of the people, does any act or thing by using bombs, dynamite or other explosive or inflammable substances, or such fire-arms or other lethal weapons as may be notified, or poisons or noxious gases or chemicals, in such a manner as to cause, or be likely to cause, the death of, or injury to, any person or persons, or damage to, or destruction of, property on a large scale, or a widespread disruption of supplies of services essential to the life of the community, or threatens with the use of force public servants in order to prevent them from discharging their lawful duties; or
commits a scheduled offence, the effect of which will be, or be likely to be, to strike terror, or create a sense of fear and insecurity in the people, or any section of the people, or to adversely affect harmony among different sections of the people; or
commits an act of gang rape, child molestation, or robbery coupled with rape as specified in the Schedule to this Act; or
commits an act of civil commotion as specified in section &A."

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Interior Ministry issued a set of anti-terrorist laws in 2014. According to Article 1 and 2:
“Calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based” and anyone who questions the King or the government or supports any group, party, organization other than that of the ruling elite inside or outside the Kingdom is a terrorist.

Syria

After the United States attack on Abu Kamal, the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem defined terrorism as "Killing civilians in international law means a terrorist aggression."

Turkey

The definition of "Terrorism" in Article 1 of Anti-Terror Law 3713 is: "Terrorism is any kind of act done by one or more persons belonging to an organization with the aim of changing the characteristics of the Republic as specified in the Constitution, its political, legal, social, secular and economic system, damaging the indivisible unity of the State with its territory and nation, endangering the existence of the Turkish State and Republic, weakening or destroying or seizing the authority of the State, eliminating fundamental rights and freedoms, or damaging the internal and external security of the State, public order or general health by means of pressure, force and violence, terror, intimidation, oppression or threat."

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom's Terrorism Act 2000 defined terrorism as follows:
Section 34 of the Terrorism Act 2006 amended sections 1 and 113 of Terrorism Act 2000 to include "international governmental organisations" in addition to "government".
Successive have commented on the UK's definition of terrorism.

United States

U.S. Code (U.S.C.)

Title 22, Chapter 38 of the United States Code contains a definition of terrorism in its requirement that annual country reports on terrorism be submitted by the Secretary of State to Congress every year. It reads:
Title 18 of the United States Code defines international terrorism as:
Commenting on the genesis of this provision, Edward Peck, former U.S. Chief of Mission in Iraq and former ambassador to Mauritania said:

U.S. Code of Federal Regulations

The U.S. Code of Federal Regulations defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives".

U.S. Department of Defense

The U.S. Department of Defense recently changed its definition of terrorism. Per Joint Pub 3-07.2, Antiterrorism,, the Department of Defense defines it as "the unlawful use of violence or threat of violence to instill fear and coerce governments or societies. Terrorism is often motivated by religious, political, or other ideological beliefs and committed in the pursuit of goals that are usually political."
The new definition distinguishes between motivations for terrorism and goals of terrorism. This is in contrast to the previous definition which stated that the goals could be religious in nature.

U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency contains a definition of terrorism, which reads:
The new definition does not require that the act needs to be politically motivated. The FEMA also said that terrorism "include threats of terrorism; assassinations; kidnappings; hijackings; bomb scares and bombings; cyber attacks ; and the use of chemical, biological, nuclear and radiological weapons" and also states that "igh-risk targets for acts of terrorism include military and civilian government facilities, international airports, large cities, and high-profile landmarks. Terrorists might also target large public gatherings, water and food supplies, utilities, and corporate centers. Further, terrorists are capable of spreading fear by sending explosives or chemical and biological agents through the mail."

U.S. National Counterterrorism Center

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center define terrorism the same as United States Code 22 USC § 2656f. The Center also defines a terrorist act as a "premeditated; perpetrated by a sub-national or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a non-combatant target."

U.S. national security strategy

In September 2002, the U.S. national security strategy defined terrorism as "premeditated, politically motivated violence against innocents." This definition did not exclude actions by the United States government and it was qualified some months later with "premeditated, politically motivated violence against noncombatant targets by subnational groups or clandestine agents".

USA PATRIOT Act of 2001

The USA PATRIOT Act of 2001 defines domestic terrorism as "activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the U.S. or of any state; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the U.S."

Terrorism Risk Insurance Act

Section 102 of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act contains a definition of terrorism in order for insurance companies to provide coverage to all prospective policy holders at time of purchase and to all current policyholders at renewal and requires that the federal government pay 90 percent of covered terrorism losses exceeding the statutorily established deductible paid by the insurance company providing the coverage. It reads:

In general insurance policies

Some insurance companies exclude terrorism from general property insurance. An insurance company may include a specific definition of terrorism as part of its policy, for the purpose of excluding at least some loss or damage caused by terrorism. For example, RAC Insurance in Australia defines terrorism thus:

Social

As Bruce Hoffman has noted: "terrorism is a pejorative term. It is a word with intrinsically negative connotations that is generally applied to one's enemies and opponents, or to those with whom one disagrees and would otherwise prefer to ignore. Hence the decision to call someone or label some organization 'terrorist' becomes almost unavoidably subjective, depending largely on whether one sympathizes with or opposes the person/group/cause concerned. If one identifies with the victim of the violence, for example, then the act is terrorism. If, however, one identifies with the perpetrator, the violent act is regarded in a more sympathetic, if not positive light; and it is not terrorism." For this and for political reasons, many news sources avoid using this term, opting instead for less accusatory words like "bombers", "militants", etc.
The term has been depicted as carrying racist, xenophobic and ethnocentric connotations when used as an ethnic slur aimed at Arabs or Middle Easterners, or at someone of Arab or Greater Middle Eastern descent or when used by white supremacists.

Timeline of political definitions

Listed below are some of the historically important understandings of terror and terrorism, and enacted but non-universal definitions of the term:
Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly or selectively from a target population, and serve as message generators.

... given their nature or context, may seriously damage a country or an international organisation where committed with the aim of seriously intimidating a population.

Criminal acts intended or calculated to provoke a state of terror in the general public, a group of persons or particular persons for political purposes are in any circumstance unjustifiable, whatever the considerations of a political, philosophical, ideological, racial, ethnic, religious or any other nature that may be invoked to justify them.

Any act carried out by an offender in furtherance of an individual or collective project, directly or indirectly, intended to disturb the public order of the state, or to shake the security of society, or the stability of the state, or to expose its national unity to danger, or to suspend the basic law of governance or some of its articles, or to insult the reputation of the state or its position, or to inflict damage upon one of its public utilities or its natural resources, or to attempt to force a governmental authority to carry out or prevent it from carrying out an action, or to threaten to carry out acts that lead to the named purposes or incite .

Scholars and recognized experts on terrorism

Numerous scholars have proposed working definitions of terrorism. Bruce Hoffman, a well-known scholar, has thus noted that:
Hoffman believes it is possible to identify some key characteristics of terrorism. He proposes that:
bus station was the scene of a triple car bombing in August 2005 that killed 43 people.
A definition proposed by Carsten Bockstette at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, underlines the psychological and tactical aspects of terrorism:
In this sense, after surveying the various academic definitions of terrorism, Vallis concluded that:
Academics and practitioners may also be categorized by the definitions of terrorism that they use. Max Abrahms has introduced the distinction between what he calls "terrorist lumpers" and "terrorist splitters." Lumpers define terrorism broadly, brooking no distinction between this tactic and guerrilla warfare or civil war. Terrorist splitters, by contrast, define terrorism narrowly, as the select use of violence against civilians for putative political gain. As Abrahms notes, these two definitions yield different policy implications:
DateNameDefinition and notes
Khan, L. AliL. Ali Khan"Terrorism sprouts from the existence of aggrieved groups. These aggrieved groups share two essential characteristics: they have specific political objectives, and they believe that violence is an inevitable means to achieve their political ends. The political dimension of terrorist violence is the key factor that distinguishes it from other crimes."
Schmid and JongmanSchmid and Jongman"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by clandestine individual, group, or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby—in contrast to assassination—the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly or selectively from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist, victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target, 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".
Gibbs,JackJack Gibbs"Terrorism is illegal violence or threatened violence directed against human or nonhuman objects, provided that it: was undertaken or ordered with a view to altering or maintaining at least one putative norm in at least one particular territorial unit or population: had secretive, furtive, and/or clandestine features that were expected by the participants to conceal their personal identity and/or their future location; was not undertaken or ordered to further the permanent defense of some area; was not conventional warfare and because of their concealed personal identity, concealment of their future location, their threats, and/or their spatial mobility, the participants perceived themselves as less vulnerable to conventional military action; and was perceived by the participants as contributing to the normative goal previously described by inculcating fear of violence in persons other than the immediate target of the actual or threatened violence and/or by publicizing some cause."
Schmid, Alex P.Alex P. Schmidshort legal definition proposed to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: "Act of Terrorism = Peacetime Equivalent of War Crime".
Higgins, RosalynRosalyn HigginsJudge at the International Court of Justice, "Terrorism is a term without any legal significance. It is merely a convenient way of alluding to activities, whether of States or of individuals widely disapproved of and in which wither the methods used are unlawful, or the targets protected or both."
Richardson, LouiseLouise Richardson"Without attempting a lengthy rationalization for the definition I employ, let me simply assert that I see terrorism as politically motivated violence directed against non-combatant or symbolic targets which is designed to communicate a message to a broader audience. The critical feature of terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocents in an effort to convey a message to another party."
Laqueur, WalterWalter Laqueur"Terrorism constitutes the illegitimate use of force to achieve a political objective when innocent people are targeted."
Poland, James M.James M. Poland"Terrorism is the premeditated, deliberate, systematic murder, mayhem, and threatening of the innocent to create fear and intimidation in order to gain a political or tactical advantage, usually to influence an audience".
Bassiouni, M. CherifM. Cherif Bassiouni"'Terrorism' has never been defined..."
Hoffman, BruceBruce Hoffman"By distinguishing terrorists from other types of criminals and terrorism from other forms of crime, we come to appreciate that terrorism is :
  • ineluctably political in aims and motives
  • violent—or, equally important, threatens violence
  • designed to have far-reaching psychological repercussions beyond the immediate victim or target
  • conducted by an organization with an identifiable chain of command or conspiratorial cell structure and
  • perpetrated by a subnational group or non-state entity.
We may therefore now attempt to define terrorism as the deliberate creation and exploitation of fear through violence or the threat of violence in the pursuit of political change. All terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence. Terrorism is specifically designed to have far-reaching psychological effects beyond the immediate victim or object of the terrorist attack. It is meant to instil fear within, and thereby intimidate, a wider 'target audience' that might include a rival ethnic or religious group, an entire country, a national government or political party, or public opinion in general. Terrorism is designed to create power where there is none or to consolidate power where there is very little. Through the publicity generated by their violence, terrorists seek to obtain the leverage, influence and power they otherwise lack to effect political change on either a local or an international scale."
Rodin, DavidDavid Rodin"Terrorism is the deliberate, negligent, or reckless use of force against noncombatants, by state or nonstate actors for ideological ends and in the absence of a substantively just legal process."
Simpson, PeterPeter Simpson"Terrorism consists of acts of indiscriminate violence directed at civilians or non-hostile personnel, in order to terrorize them, or their governments, into carrying out or submitting to the demands of the terrorists."
Ganor, BoazBoaz Ganor"Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence aimed against civilians in order to achieve political ends."
Palmer-Fernandez, GabrielGabriel Palmer-Fernandez"Terrorism is the organized use of violence against civilians or their property, the political leadership of a nation, or soldiers for political purposes."
Novotny, Daniel D.Daniel D. Novotny"An act is terrorist if and only if it is committed by an individual or group of individuals privately, i.e. without the legitimate authority of a recognized state; it is directed indiscriminately against non-combatants; the goal of it is to achieve something politically relevant; this goal is pursued by means of fear-provoking violence."
Bockstette, CarstenCarsten Bockstette"Terrorism is defined as political violence in an asymmetrical conflict that is designed to induce terror and psychic fear through the violent victimization and destruction of noncombatant targets. Such acts are meant to send a message from an illicit clandestine organization. The purpose of terrorism is to exploit the media in order to achieve maximum attainable publicity as an amplifying force multiplier in order to influence the targeted audience in order to reach short- and midterm political goals and/or desired long-term end states."
Lutz, James M. and Brenda J. LutzLutz, James M. Lutz, Brenda J"Terrorism involves political aims and motives. It is violent or threatens violence. It is designed to generate fear in a target audience that extends beyond the immediate victims of the violence.
The violence is conducted by an identifiable organization. The violence involves a non-state actor or actors as either the perpetrator, the victim of the violence, or both. Finally, the acts of violence are designed to create power in a situation in which power previously had been lacking."
Meisels, TamarTamar Meiselsadvocates a consistent and strict definition of terrorism, which she defines as "the intentional random murder of defenseless non-combatants, with the intent of instilling fear of mortal danger amidst a civilian population as a strategy designed to advance political ends."
Petta, De LeonDe Leon Petta"In fact a "terrorist group" is just a label, a layer of interaction between the political groups inside the core of the government with groups outside this governmental sphere. Interpreting the terrorist label by understanding the different levels of interaction and the function of the state may help to explain when such group will or will not be described as terrorist group rather than “just” a criminal organization."
2018Boaz Ganor"Terrorism is the deliberate use of violence against civilian targets by a non-state actor to achieve political aims."