Terrorism Social Sciences Coursework Research Paper (Coursework Sample)

1 Conceptualize International Terrorism and the essential elements of the phenomenon
Many issues and controversies surround the concept of terrorism. Defining terrorism has caused disagreements to political, legal and military leaders. An evaluation of contending definitions can go beyond personal opinions and give an ultimate justification on its constituent definitions. There has no universally acceptable definition of terrorism, however, it is possible to identify common features regarding the phenomenon. Considering the definition of contemporary terrorism, it is elucidated as the union of war and theatre, an act of forbidden kind of violence which is intentionally done on civilian noncombatant victims, engaged in front of an audience to create emotions of fear for political reasons. Although, there are significant differences established among all definition of terrorism, the elucidated definition stated share common elements. All acts of violence are not considered as terrorist acts. The violence must be disruptive, against the system and induces devastating mood of fear to be classified as a terrorist act. A terrorist chooses to invoke injury on civilians in an effort to alarm the political and military audience. The main point here is by nature, it involves interference in norms, violation of accepted standards of decency as well as the laws of war applied to the innocent and helpless. To distinguish terrorism from other acts of war, Gross suggested the five types of terror violence existing: Mass terror is a terror by state which targets the general population to pressure the opposition in the population. Dynastic assassination targets the head of the state committed by individuals or groups of the community. Random terror involves plotting bombs where people are gathered the most to destroy anyone. Focus random terror limits the plotting of bombs where significant members of the opposition gather. Tactical terror is done by revolutionary members to target the government and the lone wolf terror which is performed by an individual through bombing public venues to target civilians and government. These conclude the elements of a terrorist act which are: an act of violence, it has a political goal, it is done towards noncombatant civilians, and staged before an audience to create fear and the types of terrorism used today which are: mass terror, random terror, focus random terro categorizes the tactics and targets of each kind of terrorism.