{"title":"Extremism and Terrorism: Rebel Goals and Tactics in Civil Wars","authors":"Renanah Miles Joyce, V. P. Fortna","doi":"10.1017/s1537592724000598","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Extremism and terrorism are thought to go hand in hand in civil wars. Yet do they? Are rebel groups with more extreme goals more likely than moderate ones to use terrorism, as commonly assumed? Arguments linking extremism to terrorism are often circular: groups are tagged as extremist because they do extreme things. Our article addresses this problem by articulating a novel conceptualization of extremism as the distance of group goals from the status quo. Understanding the relationship between what groups want and how they try to achieve it has obvious theoretical and policy implications. We theorize mechanisms that might connect extremist goals to terrorism and use new data on rebel group aims in civil wars from 1970 to 2013 to examine the empirical relationship between extremism and terrorism in a nontautological way. The results show that some extremist goals are associated with terrorism but not others. Groups with goals that involve changing the political ideology of the state or transforming political power across identity groups are more likely to use terrorism or to use more of it. Secessionist groups, however, are no more likely to produce terrorism than are those with less extreme territorial aims such as autonomy.","PeriodicalId":48097,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Politics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":4.0000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Perspectives on Politics","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1537592724000598","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Extremism and terrorism are thought to go hand in hand in civil wars. Yet do they? Are rebel groups with more extreme goals more likely than moderate ones to use terrorism, as commonly assumed? Arguments linking extremism to terrorism are often circular: groups are tagged as extremist because they do extreme things. Our article addresses this problem by articulating a novel conceptualization of extremism as the distance of group goals from the status quo. Understanding the relationship between what groups want and how they try to achieve it has obvious theoretical and policy implications. We theorize mechanisms that might connect extremist goals to terrorism and use new data on rebel group aims in civil wars from 1970 to 2013 to examine the empirical relationship between extremism and terrorism in a nontautological way. The results show that some extremist goals are associated with terrorism but not others. Groups with goals that involve changing the political ideology of the state or transforming political power across identity groups are more likely to use terrorism or to use more of it. Secessionist groups, however, are no more likely to produce terrorism than are those with less extreme territorial aims such as autonomy.
期刊介绍:
Perspectives on Politics is a journal of broad interest to scholars across many fields, in addition to professional political scientists, political analysts, policy makers, and the informed public. Essays synthesize and extend significant research and developments in all dimensions of political science scholarship. In many cases, the journal aims to connect research findings, conceptual innovations, or theoretical developments to real problems of politics.