Factors Of Terrorism: What Causes Terrorism?

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What Causes Terrorism? In a discussion of analysis of factors causing terrorism, it is often argued that economic deprivation is a key factor. Both Political Economists and Scientists have conducted research, keeping in mind this factor and many have arrived at surprising conclusions. Blomberg, Hess & Weerapana (2004) analyzes the significance of standard economic parameters like GDP growth per capita, investment on occurrence and severity of terrorist acts. They report that high income and democratic countries have more terrorism or terrorist attacks. They also relate terrorism to business cycle: economic contractions increase the probability of terrorist acts. Also terrorism affects democracies more than the non – democracies. Similarly Shahrouri…show more content…
Sageman (2004) took a sample of 400 odd Islamic terrorists. He broke the common notion that terrorists come from poverty, broken families, ignorance, sociopath, criminals, religious fanatics etc. Three fourth of terrorists under study were professionals or semi professionals and very few had a religious background. Also only four out of these had any hint of mental disorder. They were bright young men who studied abroad and congregated with people like themselves, when they became homesick, whom they would find at mosques. These alienated young men in this process get associated with groups advocating violence to overthrow corrupt regime, transforming them into terrorists. He concludes that terrorism is all about group…show more content…
In permissive causes she mentions the vulnerabilities created by complexity of modernization, social facilitation i.e. social habits and historical traditions sanctioning use of violence against government and inability or unwillingness of government to prevent terrorism. Direct causes include existence of “concrete” grievances among an identifiable subgroup of a population; lack of opportunity for political participation and an unpredictable cause viz an event which acts as catalyst for outbreak or terrorism. However the approach used by her is colonial, imperial and is reminiscent of revolution era. Citing the examples of young, well educated and middle class terrorists, who she believes to be young disillusioned people with a vision to change society, she argues that terrorism is essentially the result of elite disaffection and is more likely to occur where mass passivity and elite dissatisfaction

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