Terrorism: A continuation of politics by other means?

摘要

The idea that violence is a viable mechanism for realizing political change is not a new one. States and non-state entities alike have looked to war or violence as a means for accomplishing political goals. In his 1882 magnum opus, Vom Kriege (On War, p. 585), the influential Prussian military philosopher Carl Von Clausewitz wrote, It is of course well known that the only source of war is politics---the intercourse of governments and peoples....We maintain...that war is simply a continuation of political intercourse, with the addition of other means.; In his view, war is simply a continuation of politics by other means. If this premise is accepted, and there are hundreds of examples of wars that were not initiated arbitrarily but rather with a specific political objective in mind, one must begin to consider whether the asymmetrical wars the targeted country. Is terrorism an effective continuation of politics by other means?; The existing body of research, largely anecdotal, presents substantial support both for and against the premise that terrorism can influence policy. This absence of any definitive conclusion on the utility of political violence presents a significant gap in the existing body of knowledge on terrorism. The first part of the analysis for this research project seeks to determine if international acts of terrorism that target civilians influence changes in the foreign policy positions of democratic governments by analyzing statistically the nature of the relationship between incidents of terrorism that occur during the period prior to an election and the foreign policy positions of the government that is elected. The results indicate that for every incident of terrorism that targeted a civilian in an OECD country, there was a 0.022 percent shift to the left of the government's foreign policy polarity in the subsequent election. The second part of the analysis evaluates terrorist attacks and foreign policy outcomes for individual countries to assess, in detail, the dynamics of the political violence that occurred in those countries.