Sociological Approach To Terrorism Essay

Prior to the September 9/11 attacks the social phenomenon of terrorism was a subject sociologists did not seem to delve into (Turk, 2008). It wasn’t until the events of 9/11 did the world see a sudden

There is a lot of difficulty in finding a definition of Terrorism that is universally accepted (Mitchell, 2012), as definitions of terrorism vary from country to country (Cinoglu & Ozeren, n.d). However according to Mitchell (2012) political goals, violence, unlawfulness, and a “psychological impact and fear” (para. 2). Most, if not all the time, the goal of terrorism is to send a message that is either ideological or religious (Hudson, 1999). This is achieved by terrorising the public, often through high-profile impacts on targets that are symbolic or represent the targeted nation and/or other enemies (Hudson, 1999). Worldwide, terrorist attacks rose by 43% from 2012 to 2013, killing 17 891 people globally and wounding 32 577 people (Ballantine, Korgen and Roberts, 2015). In order to prevent such fatalities, we need to understand Terrorism. This can be done by studying terrorism under the scope of a sociological theoretical perspective such as the Rational Choice Theory perspective, the Structural-Functional Theory perspective and the Symbolic Interactionalist Theory
perspective.

A sociological theoretical perspective helpful in understanding and dealing with the concept of terrorism is the Rational Choice Theory perspective. According to Ballantine, Korgen and Roberts (2015) the Rational Choice Theory assumes that “Humans are fundamentally concerned with self-interests, making rational decisions based on weighing costs and rewards of the projected outcome of an action” (pg. 35). When understanding terrorism from the Rational Choice Theory perspective, there are two methods within the perspective worth looking at, the Cost Benefit Analysis and Constrained Utility Maximisation (Lindauer, n.d). As stated by Watkins (n.d) the Cost Benefit Analysis is a method of seeing if projects are worthwhile by estimating and totalling up the money that is equivalent to the value of the benefits and costs to the community. Potential terrorists before carrying out an act of terror look at a simple form of cost-benefit analysis (Lindauer n.d). As stated by McCormick (2003) terrorists will try to achieve their political goals at the lowest cost possible. Terrorist organisations do the same by putting in any level of effort to gain the maximum of their expected political return. Terrorists, with few inputs are able to generate “extraordinary” political outputs (Lindauer, n.d, p. 6). This was demonstrated in 1983 when Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist organisation bombed the U.S military barracks in Beirut. The bombing resulted in the withdrawal, by U.S President Roland Reagan, of American troops from Lebanon (Goldberg, 2002).
Constrained Utility Maximisation is “The process or goal of obtaining the highest possible level of utility under given restrictions, when the highest overall level of utility cannot be reached” (Economic Glossary, para. 1). Lindauer (n.d) states that terrorists are content with their attacks coming close to specific goal of the attack.
For example, according to Gartenstein-Ross (2011) pushing America to bankruptcy was the ultimate goal of the 9/11 attacks. The attacks did not cause America to go bankrupt but Chan (2011) states that they cost New York City over $95 Billion.

According to Ballantine, Korgen, and Roberts (2015) the Structural-Functional theory perspective, founded by Emile Durkheim, runs cohesively, due to all parts of the social structure, the cultural and social processes working together. It also views social problems such as crime and deviance as possibly being useful to society, despite the issues and difficulties they may cause, they create thousands of jobs in Law Enforcement, courts and correctional services (Barkan, 2015). There are not any specific statements regarding terrorism in the Structural-functional Theory, however terrorism can potentially be explained by the clarifications of crime and deviance in studies of crime under the Structural-Functional Theory perspective (Cinogiu & Ozeren, n.d). The Structural-Functional perspective has similar views in how war and terrorism is useful for society (Barkan, 2015). According to Park (1941) one of the functions of war is that within countries and societies, it generates a stronger sense of social bonding and solidarity. Cinogiu and Ozeren (n.d) state that the same social solidarity can be seen with terrorism. People in society tend to become more united and patriotic when facing a common enemy, which was seen in the aftermath of 9/11. It is this social solidarity and unity that prevents anomie (Cinogiu & Ozeren, n.d).
Another belief of functionalists, according to Cinogiu and Ozeren (n.d) is that in order to maintain a health society, social change is needed, which is brought about by a social shock. They state that when a society experiences a social shock they start to establish new ways to ensure the protection of its way of living. This was evident when America underwent social change after the event of 9/11. Cinogiu and Ozeren write that their way of living was heavily impacted due to enacting new laws and establishing new institutions that would hopefully prevent another act terrorism. It is these new changes and development that functionalists believe provide society with the social need that is needed. Terrorism can be seen as functional as it well and truly provided a social shock that pushes society.

The Symbolic Interaction Theory is another theoretical perspective that can be used to understand terrorism. According to Ballantine, Roberts and Korgen (2015) the symbolic Interaction Theory “sees humans as active people who create shared meanings of symbols and events, and then interact on the basis of those meanings” (p. 35). They also state that human’s ability to shape society and to share ideas is learnt through these interactions.
George Herbert Mead is a symbolic Interaction theorist. He examined how people learnt to carry out certain roles that are assigned to their social status, these include behaviours, privileges, rights and responsibilities (Ballantine, Roberts & Korgen, 2015). Mead insists that it is from our social experience and interaction with the people around us that our idea or understanding of who we are becomes apparent (Ballantine, et al., 2015).
Another idea Mead claims is that individuals will need to form their behaviours according to their own understandings and judgements of the many individual realities that they will come across in their life (Ballantine, Roberts and Korgen, 2015).
A major element of one’s judgement and understanding of reality is group membership (Cinoglu & Ozeren, n.d). Cinolglu and Ozeren state that “Crime and therefore Terrorism are treated as learned behaviours” (n.d, p. 56). They also claim that it is through these interactions with other terrorists that individuals learn how to become a terrorist and through involvement of group activities, an individual assimilates the realities that their terrorist group
asserts.