ABSTRACT Oath Keepers (OK) is a prominent organization within the militia/patriot movement in the United States. The group rejects the legitimacy of the Biden administration and played a major role in the storming of the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. Reasons for OK’s predominance include not only its record of opposition to the federal government but also its national reach and its ability to recruit former military and law enforcement personnel. Members have also been elected to public office on state and local levels. OK draws on historical memory of the American Revolution and presents itself as the heir of the Founding Fathers. It aims to protect Americans from what it perceives as violations of citizens’ natural rights by the federal government and is known for participating in armed standoffs with federal agents in the western United States. In 2016, OK aligned itself with the administration of President Donald Trump and in opposition to the anti-fascist (antifa) movement.

The following discussion outlines the attractions of a strategy of terrorism and its implications for political order. It also argues that a body of knowledge has been built up over time that provides a foundation for explaining current events. Research has shown that terrorism can be an effective substitute for the mobilization of large numbers when that mobilization is thwarted. Terrorism can sustain an illusion of power, provoke official over-reaction and community counter-mobilization, and deepen political polarization. Studies also suggest that if a broader movement dissolves, the followers who remain strengthen their commitment and become more inclined to violence. The future threat environment is most likely to be multidimensional, with multiple groups cooperating and competing along with individual actors who perceive themselves to be part of an ideological collectivity.

This chapter reviews the evolution of Martha Crenshaw’s interests in and approaches to researching terrorism, a trajectory that begins in the 1960s and extends to the present. The story is necessarily partial and incomplete as well as personal. Her first research project concentrated on the use of terrorism by the FLN during the Algerian War, and her current research deals with patterns of cooperation and competition among militant groups and with the relationship between jihadist-oriented transnational terrorism and civil war. Along the way she has analyzed the causes of terrorism as well as its endings, individual motivations for terrorism, group strategies, organizational dynamics, political contexts for terrorism, state responses, and the consequences of counterterrorist policies. Terrorism remains a challenging topic for research as well as a persistent policy problem for decision-makers. We still struggle to explain both the “why” and the “how” of terrorism.

The essays in this volume trace an intellectual odyssey, a search for a genuinely critical theory. The book begins with the question of why the Frankfurt School as well as other neo-Marxist and post-Marxist analysts, both in the West and in dissident circles in the East, failed to produce a critical theory of Soviet socialism or to establish a dynamic relationship with contemporary social movements. As the political struggle in Eastern Europe intensified, the author of this book disengaged from his own efforts to reconstruct a critical Marxism. Instead, he attempts a reconstruction of democratic theory based on civil society rather than class categories, and with a critical relevance not only to the transition from state socialism but more generally to the universal goal of emancipation.

Can We Construct a Grand Strategy to Counter Terrorism?Fifteen years after September 11, the United States still faces terror threats—both domestic and foreign. After years of wars, ever more intensive and pervasive surveillance, enhanced security measures at major transportation centers, and many attempts to explain who we are fighting and why and how to fight them, the threats continue to multiply. So, too, do our attempts to understand just what terrorism is and how to counter it. Two leaders in the field of terrorism studies, Martha Crenshaw and Gary LaFree, provide a critical look at how we have dealt with the terror threat over the years. They make clear why it is so difficult to create policy to counter terrorism. The foes are multiple and often amorphous, the study of the field dogged by disagreement on basic definitional and methodological issues, and the creation of policy hobbled by an exacting standard: the counterterrorist must succeed all the time; the terrorist only once. AsCountering Terrorismshows, there are no simple solutions to this threat.

When rebels also employ terrorism, civil wars can become more intractable. Since the 1980s, jihadism, a form of violent transnational activism, has mobilized civil war rebels, outside entrepreneurs, foreign fighters, and organizers of transnational as well as domestic terrorism. These activities are integral to the jihadist trend, representing overlapping and conjoined strands of the same ideological current, which in turn reflects internal division and dissatisfaction within the Arab world and within Islam. Jihadism, however, is neither unitary nor monolithic. It contains competing power centers and divergent ideological orthodoxies. Different jihadist actors emphasize different priorities and strategies. They disagree, for example, on whether the “near” or the “far” enemy should take precedence. The relationship between jihadist terrorism and civil war is far from uniform or constant. This essay traces the trajectory of this evolution, beginning in the 1980s in the context of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

This timely reference book places the growing 20th century phenomenon of terrorism in an historical context. Starting with the use of assassination in Ancient Greece and including the recent bombing of the American military complex in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, this encyclopedia covers the globe in its presentation of all aspects of terrorism: history, theories of, types of, and responses to, as well methods and techniques. There is a chronology of major terrorist events from 1945, an A to Z listing of terrorist groups and leaders, a select bibliography, and indexes (general, name, and geographical).

Looking back at the beginnings of academic research on terrorism just over 40 years ago, it is extraordinary to see that what was once a marginal subject for social science has developed into a full-fledged program of “terrorism studies.” In fact, recently a sociologist considered the subject of sufficient importance to write a doctoral dissertation and then a book on the “social construction” of the field (Stampnitzky 2013). This essay highlights some examples of the contributions scholars from different disciplines have made to understanding terrorism. There is no consensus on any general theoretical laws of terrorism (there is no equivalent of a democratic peace theory, for example), but researchers have defined key concepts and deepened explanations of cause, effect, and process.What follows identifies four interrelated areas of explanatory inquiry into terrorism that have emerged over years of research: the effectiveness of terrorism as a strategy of opposition, the determinants and consequences of counterterrorism policies, how campaigns or waves of terrorism end, and how analysis of terrorism can be situated in a broader theoretical framework rather than treated as a phenomenon sui generis. Particular emphasis is placed on studies that are comparative and/or that situate the specific case of terrorism in a general theoretical perspective.

The deep roots of extremist violence make military responses in most cases ineffective.

Political PsychologyVolume 30, Issue 3 p. 359-364 Intimations of Mortality or Production Lines? The Puzzle of “Suicide Terrorism” Martha Crenshaw, Martha Crenshaw Stanford UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Martha Crenshaw, Martha Crenshaw Stanford UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 08 May 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9221.2009.00699.xCitations: 4Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat REFERENCES Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (2008). Reports: Al Qa'ida's foreign fighters in Iraq: A first look at the Sinjar Records, and bombers, bank accounts, and bleedout: Al Qa'ida's road in and out of Iraq. Available at http://www.ctc.usma.edu. Cullison, A. (2008, August 1). Suicide bombers tip Afghan war. The Wall Street Journal, p. A1. Rashid, A. (2008, June 12). Jihadi suicide bombers: The new wave. The New York Review of Books, pp. 12, 17, 20, 22. United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (2007). Suicide attacks in Afghanistan 2001–2007. 1 September. Available at http://www.unama-afg.org/docs/_UN-Docs/UNAMA%20-%20SUICIDE%20ATTACKS%20STUDY%20-%20SEPT%209th%202007.pdf Wright, L. (2008, June 2). A reporter at large: The rebellion within: An Al Qaeda mastermind questions terrorism. The New Yorker, pp. 37–53. Citing Literature Volume30, Issue3June 2009Pages 359-364 ReferencesRelatedInformation