The issue of terrorism has often been raised since the attacks are often generalized to the government agencies as well as the regular civilians. In some parts of the world, the issues of terrorism have become a threat to the normal day to day activities or even create fear in the constituents. Many people often wonder about the motivations for terrorist acts or even the reasons why these acts are committed. Researchers have found it difficult to come up with a general definition of terrorism and hence it's quite challenging to identify the motivations of terrorist activities. A general definition of Terrorism can generally be defined as the use of violent means with the aim of advancing either an ideological or a political agenda at the expense of the society (Horgan, 2017). The acts of terrorism can be grounded on political, psychological, religious or even social reasons. Regardless of the motivation or reasons involved, terrorism is characterized by loss of lives. This theory is developed on a psychological basis. The paper also addresses some of the general motivations of terrorism, examples of existing models, ways in which terrorism is influenced by internal, environmental or social-cultural factors and finally evaluate the effectiveness of terrorism; does terrorism meet the organizational or the individual goals?
One major motivation for terrorism is Religion. The numbers of terror attacks carried out in the name of religion were famous during the 1990s. The Japanese Aum Shinrikyo, a doomsday cult, effected two noxious sarin gas attacks in the Tokyo subways in 1994 and 1995, and In the Middle East, since the 1980s, several suicide attacks have been witnesses and are associated with the works of Islam martyrs (Reich, 1998). Career experts of terrorism began an argument that there was a rise of a new form of terrorism associated with dangerous concepts of Armageddon and martyrdom. Thoughtful commentators and studies have been pointed out. Such groups exploit and interpret religious concepts in order to support terrorism. However, it would be wrong to indicate that religions themselves cause terrorism. It is clear that Religious activities were and are still motivating factors of terrorism.
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Politics is also regarded as a motivating factor of terrorism. Originally, terrorism was theorized in the guerrilla warfare and insurgency contexts; an organized form of political violence by a group or a non-state army. In the 1960s, abortion clinic bombers, Individuals, or even groups, such as the Vietcong can be easily understood as tactical ways of trying to justify what is normally perceived to be socially, historically and politically wrong by choosing terrorism (Reich, 1998). In Northern Ireland, during the “troubles” that stretched from 1968 to 1998, Protestants and Catholic groups waged an ongoing violence campaign against one another in England and N. Ireland with the aim of seeking dominance in politics. Political influences have a great impact on terrorist activities.
Several social economic and cultural factors are also motivating factors of terrorism. Socio-economic elucidations of terrorism propose that numerous forms of deficiency lead individuals to terrorism. Additionally, such deprivations make individuals more susceptible to recruitment by organizations or people engaging in terrorist tactics. Lack of satisfactory education, poverty and even lack of political freedom are just but a few examples of such deficiencies (Reich, 1998). There is evocative evidence to support the two sides of the arguments. Assessments of dissimilar conclusions are often puzzling since they do not differentiate between societies and individuals. Moreover, they pay little or no attention to the distinctions of how individuals understand deprivation or injustice regardless of their social status or otherwise material circumstances. In an attempt to create a Marxist state, the Shining Path group carried out a yearlong violence campaign against the government of Peru in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
It is obviously problematic to characterize terrorism as an expression of psychological disruption. It might at some point appear to belittle the social and political effects of terrorism while also shrouding the psychological development of terrorism in a piece of ambiguous ideological baggage. Several studies have however talked a persistent issue of the relationship between terrorism involvement and mental disorders (Horgan, 2017). One of the earliest arguments is that there is an association between mental illness and willingness to be involved in terrorist activities. Subsequent themes, however, explain the “normality” of terrorism just like any other kind of protest; terrorism is an activity performed by mentally upright persons. There developed a widespread consensus that terrorism cannot be explained by lame arguments about the existence of mental illness in its enthusiasts (Horgan, 2017). The emergence of different kind of terrorists has made researchers such as Corner and Gill revisit the relationship. They argue that future research on the relationship between terrorism and mental disorders should be improved using better questions, dichotomous thinking, moving away from simplicity, and a more careful interpretation of the already existing concepts. From this information, we can conclude that although terrorist activities are not necessarily associated with mental illness, future research should be conducted in order to come up with a firm argument or knowledge about the same.
In relation to mental illness, some researchers argue that terrorism is influenced by situational behaviors and not personal qualities. This does not imply that personal behavior has no role to play in terrorism (Horgan, 2017). According to Mohaman, personal qualities of an individual have not suggested any predictive information in determining who becomes and who does not become a terrorist. Specific researches should, however, be conducted to investigate exactly where and how terrorism processes are affected by personal behavior (Horgan, 2017). We would be partially wrong and partially correct if we say that situational and not personal behaviors determine who to be involved in terrorist activities. There exists a research gap that needs to be filled in order to determine if there is a relationship between the personal qualities of a person and their involvement in terrorism. If no relationship exists, we would then conclude that terrorism is only affected by situational behaviors.
The question we are left asking is whether the terrorists meet their individual or organizational goals. Abrahms Max in his article addresses this issue in depth. According to him, terrorists attack the public in order to pressure their governments into developing political concessions. The effectiveness of this strategy is, however, questionable. To empirically evaluate the efficiency of terrorism in meeting their goals, Max exploits disparity in the 125 violent campaigns selected. The results demonstrate that “terrorist campaigns against civilian targets are considerably less effective than guerrilla campaigns against military targets at inducing government concessions,” (Abrahms, 2012, p. 376). The destructive political impacts of terrorism are evident across the logit model stipulations after careful control of the tactical misperceives. The author concludes by developing a theory that will account for the failure of the government to comply with the targeted civilians. However, there are shreds of evidence to support the fact that terrorists effectively achieve their psychological goals of instilling fear and torture to the civilians and the government at large (Horgan, 2017). We, therefore, can conclude that although the terrorists fail terribly in achieving their political goals, they achieve immeasurably in instilling fear and torturing the psychology of the civilians.
This paper focused on developing a theory that explains terrorism. Several social, religious and political factors were generally addressed and it is clear that they served as a motivation of terrorism. A psychological basis of terrorism was majorly addressed and several psychological relationships were discussed. It is clear that there exist research gaps of whether there is a relationship between personal qualities and terrorism and whether such a relationship exists between mental illness and terrorism involvement. The terrorists are not effective in achieving political goals but are effective at achieving psychological goals such as torture or fear.
References
Abrahms, M. (2012). The political effectiveness of terrorism revisited. Comparative Political Studies , 45 (3), 366-393.
Horgan, J. G. (2017). Psychology of terrorism: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist , 72 (3), 199.
Laquer, W. (1998). Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies, theologies, states of mind . Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
Reich, W. (1998) Origins of terrorism: Psychologies, ideologies, theologies, states of mind . Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
