Explore: Terrorism Social Aspects

1Militant Islam

A Sociology of Characteristics, Causes and Consequences

By Stephen Vertigans, Donncha Marron and Philip W. Sutton

Militant Islam provides a sociological framework for understanding the rise and character of recent Islamic militancy. It takes a systematic approach to the phenomenon and includes analysis of cases from around the world, comparisons with militancy in other religions, and their causes and consequences. The sociological concepts and theories examined in the book include those associated with social closure, social movements, nationalism, risk, fear and ¿de-civilising¿. These are applied within three main themes; characteristics of militant Islam, multi-layered causes and the consequences of militancy, in particular Western reactions within the ¿war on terror¿. Interrelationships between religious and secular behaviour, ¿terrorism¿ and ¿counter-terrorism¿, popular support and opposition are explored. Through the examination of examples from across Muslim societies and communities, the analysis challenges the popular tendency to concentrate upon ¿al-Qa¿ida¿ and the Middle East. This book will be of interest to students of Sociology, Political Science and International Relations, in particular those taking courses on Islam, religion, terrorism, political violence and related regional studies.

2Understanding Terrorism and Political Violence

The Life Cycle of Birth, Growth, Transformation, and Demise

By Dipak K. Gupta

This book provides a multidisciplinary approach to understanding human behavior and uses it to analyze the forces shaping the life cycle of violent political movements. This new edition has been revised and updated, with three new chapters being added. The 2nd edition takes us deeper inside human motivations, which cause otherwise rational people to join dissident groups, willing to kill and be killed. In doing so, the book draws upon research on brain science, evolutionary biology, and social psychology to help explain pathological collective behavior. From the motivations of individual participants, the book turns to the evolution of terrorist groups by venturing into theories of organizational development. Together, these theories explain the life cycle - the birth, growth, transformation from an ideological group to a criminal syndicate, and demise -- of a dissident organization. These hypotheses are supported with detailed case studies of three disparate terrorist movements: the nationalists of the IRA, the communist Naxalites of India, and the religious fundamentalists of al-Qaeda and ISIS. The book's theory leads to an explanation of the current global trend of rising tribalism and authoritarianism. The author warns that this latest wave of xenophobia and authoritarianism is likely to be exacerbated by climate change and the consequent rise in sea-levels, which could displace millions from the areas least able to mitigate the effects of global warming to the countries that can. This book will be essential reading for students of terrorism studies, and of great interest to students of social psychology, political science and sociology.

3Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change

A Durkheimian Analysis

By James Dingley

Aimed at students, scholars and researchers, Terrorism and the Politics of Social Change is a decisive contribution to our understanding of the political and social relevance of terrorism as we know it and live it today. --

4Law, Text, Terror

Essays for Pierre Legendre

By Peter Goodrich, Lior Barshack and Anton Schütz

The essays collected here under the governing signs, Law, Text, Terror have their origins in a singular and topical desire. Their motive is most immediately that of acknowledging the massive and eccentric contribution of the philologist, psychoanalyst and Romanist jurist Pierre Legendre to the study of legal institutions and juridical practices. He has unceasingly asked the question 'why law?' and in endeavouring to answer that question, in the course of over twenty-five books published during the last forty years, he has traversed a unique and uniquely idiosyncratic body of disciplines and knowledges relevant to the symbolic forms and institutional functions of the Western legal order. These essays reflect that singularity of drive as well as that diversity of scholarly interests by taking up, playing with, varying and developing the themes of text and terror, law and territory, that Legendre either introduced or made peculiarly his own.

The essays collected here under the governing signs, Law, Text, Terror have their origins in a singular and topical desire. Their motive is most immediately that of acknowledging the massive and eccentric contribution of the philologist, psychoanalyst and Romanist jurist Pierre Legendre to the study of legal institutions and juridical practices. He has unceasingly asked the question 'why law?' and in endeavouring to answer that question, in the course of over twenty-five books published during the last forty years, he has traversed a unique and uniquely idiosyncratic body of disciplines and knowledges relevant to the symbolic forms and institutional functions of the Western legal order. These essays reflect that singularity of drive as well as that diversity of scholarly interests by taking up, playing with, varying and developing the themes of text and terror, law and territory, that Legendre either introduced or made peculiarly his own.