What do we mean by ‘causes’? Background conditions? Enabling/facilitating factors? Triggering events? Causation on what level? International? – e.g. end of Cold War, changed foreign policies, global inequality etc National/societal? – e.g. social cleavages etc Group level? – e.g. specific grievances Individual level? – psychological factors

Internal v external causes Personal Social (inequality, modernisation etc) Cultural (history of violence etc) Governmental (corruption etc) Political (exclusion, discrimination etc) Economic (inequality) International system States’ foreign policies New technologies, communications Globalisation Inequality

Why do individuals do anything? Why vote? Join a party? March in protest? Follow a sports team? Do an MA? Laqueur: “Given that men and women at certain times and at various places have engaged in political violence … does not necessarily prove that they had any more in common with one another than have rose growers or stamp collectors…” Rational choice theory: material and/or psychological benefits

Diversity of stated motivations – for example… RAF: parliamentary democracy an illusion; violence only method of carrying forth revolution PIRA: undemocratic partition; failed statelet; internal reform impossible; foreign occupation Anti-abortionists: failure of peaceful methods; God’s will Al-Qaeda: defence of Islam; corrupt regimes What do they have in common? Impatience with potential of non-violent political action?

Dealing with causes? Is it possible to deal with all possible causes of political violence? Almost certainly not, given the diversity of different groups and their motivations, aims and ideologies For example, no one form of society is likely to equally satisfy (a) religious fundamentalists, (b) revolutionary Marxists and (c) neo-fascists… So, which ‘causes’ should we address?

Different ‘terrorisms’, different causes… No single explanation or universal cause Certain forms of terrorism arise from different combinations of factors The more deep-rooted or general a supposed cause, the less directly it relates to terrorism per se eg: ‘poverty’ gives rise to all sorts of social movements, of which terrorist groups may be just one

Bjorgo (2005:3-4): levels of causation Structural causes: demographics, relative deprivation globalisation, modernisation, etc Facilitator/accelerator causes: make terrorism possible – availability of modern weapons, technologies, communications etc Motivational causes: the actual grievances (but may have to be articulated/organised onto the agenda by ‘political entrepreneurs’) Triggering causes: momentous/calamitous events (But: such causes result in all sorts of movements, so is the role of political entrepreneurs vital?)

How many of these apply to… Lack of democracy, civil liberties, rule of law Failed or weak states Rapid modernisation Extremist ideologies Historical antecedents Hegemony/inequality of power Illegitimate/corrupt governments Powerful external actors supporting these Foreign occupation, colonialism Perceived/experienced discrimination on basis of religion or ethnicity Perception/experience of social injustice Exclusion of dissenting groups/classes Charismatic leaders Triggering events

Grievances among a subgroup Rise of a social reform movement Extremists within this resort to terrorism Elite disaffection – terrorism as the strategy of an impatient minority Crenshaw (1990:116): “Perhaps terrorism occurs precisely where mass passivity and elite dissatisfaction coincide.”

Impatience “We must act now!” – why? Unique opportunity (weakened or distracted enemy – e.g. colonial powers during/after a major war) Visible apparent successes of other similar groups may create an impetus to emulate Dramatic failure of alternatives – e.g. brutal suppression of a peaceful protest movement

Crenshaw (1990: 120) “…terrorism is an attractive strategy for groups of varied ideological persuasions who challenge the state’s authority. Groups who want to dramatize a cause, demoralize the government, gain popular support, provoke regime violence, inspire followers, or dominate a wider resistance movement, and who are impatient to act, often find terrorism a reasonable choice.”

“A reasonable choice”? Gupta (2005) frames it in terms of a collective action problem – but we’re back down to the level of the individual again… A rational individual can join in a collective action even if his net personal welfare is negative, as long as the perceived benefit to the group is large enough to compensate for these personal losses Related to the need to belong to/identify with a group Perception of group welfare – role of socialisation, culture, religion. Also: leaders…

Political entrepreneurs Political grievances necessary but not sufficient The political entrepreneur adds the ‘sufficient’ Political violence occurs “when a leader gives voice to the frustration by formulating a well- defined social construction of collective identity” and identifies an oppositional ‘other’ But: we can’t predict appearance of such leaders “Since factors of structural deprivation are only necessary conditions, any attempt to correlate terrorism … with poverty and lack of political or religious freedom will only produce a weak statistical correlation” (Gupta 2005: 19).