International Terrorism

Definition, differentiation.

Responses.

Introduction

The Significance of September 11, 2001.

Difficulties of Definition and

Differentiation

A. Consensus elements of “terrorism”

B. Controversial elements of “terrorism”

C. Terrorism or terrorisms?

Terrorism and International

Relations

A. Limited contribution to understanding

causes of terrorism

B. Differing IR perspectives help shape

responses to terrorism

C. Frameworks of understanding:

cosmopolitan versus statist responses

The Cosmopolitan Response

A. September 11: act of war or criminal

against humanity?

B. Problems and power of the war

metaphor

C. Cosmopolitan preference for a

legal/law-enforcement response to

attacks such as September 11

The Cosmopolitan Response

D. Long-term response: attacking the root causes of terrorism

A. What are the root causes?

B. Global poverty/inequality usually cited in context of cosmopolitan response

E. The liberal foundations of the cosmopolitan response

The Statist Response

A. This is a war, though a little different than

most wars

B. Limits of the international legal system

limit effectiveness of a legal response

C. Limited capacity of international

organizations to deal with international

terrorism

The Statist Response

D. What are the root causes?

A. Statist skepticism about poverty-causes-terrorism thesis

B. Fundamental conflict of values and interests

E. States still matter

A. Terrorist groups are nonstate actors, but they depend on supportive and/or tolerant states for support

B. Focus of statist response is getting at terrorist organizations through states

C. Regime change is final option in statist strategy

Conclusion

A. Can strategies be combined/reconciled?

B. The problem of trade-offs in the “war” on

terrorism