DEFINING TERRORISM AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION

Terrorism is both a political and security challenge. From a security perspective, many terrorist groups are diffusely organized and function largely outside of normal diplomatic channels, making them difficult to confront with conventional military resources.

In a thoughtful piece exploring the mind of the terrorist, Victoroff (2005) provides a compelling review of terrorism definitions. He concludes that terrorism is aggression against innocents, aimed largely at influencing a target audience to achieve essentially political goals. In a refinement of this view, Hayes et al. (2003) further divide terrorists into absolute and traditional forms. The absolute types are not willing to enter into political discourse. Their demands are immediate, unconditional, and universal, often using suicide attacks to draw attention to their issues. In contrast are traditional terrorists who focus on more specific ethnic and ideological causes, such as changing a specific political structure in a particular location.

This distinction suggests that there are two general approaches to the issue of dispute resolution with terrorists. For abso­lute terrorists, the leaders are generally hidden, unknown, and tangible goals are unclear, making direct negotiations infeasible. Yet, Hayes et al. (2003) contend that those who oppose terrorism have instead opted to engage in a broader set of dispute resolution strategies. These efforts include negotiating with state supporters of terrorism to eliminate their involvement, isolating the violent actors by, for example, negotiating with agencies that control their finances, and negotiating with nations to fight these terrorist groups through cooperation among intelligence ser­vices, incentives for cooperation and so on. While these broad political efforts fall within the general framework of dispute resolution, the focus of this chapter is on managing the terrorist threat through the use of more direct negotiations with contingent terrorist groups.

Perhaps the most common form of dispute resolution with contingent terrorist groups is hostage negotiation. Terrorists might grab a set of innocents by hijacking a plane or capturing athletes in a hotel to draw attention to political issues. In Hayes' (2002) review of terrorist negotiation strategies, based on the analysis of several data sets across a number of studies, some clear trends emerge. First, in hostage events, governments negotiate extensively with terrorists. In these situations, they are more likely to make concessions in external events (outside their geographical boundaries) but to reject them in internal events. Governments also tend to reject demands for prisoner releases more than demands for ransom, publicity, or asylum and safe passage. And, when governments wholly or partially comply with terrorist demands, hostage safety improves, regardless of terrorist demands or the type of event.

Other studies summarized by Hayes (2002) also provide important strategic insights about negotiating with terrorists. For example, governments that make major substantive concessions under threat are likely to expe­rience more terrorism than governments who hold a firm policy about incident management and demonstrate resolve over time. However, making minor concessions for food, safe surrender and even safe passage are not associated with increases in terrorism. In spite of these trends, terrorists remain optimists and assume governments will make major concessions which explains a great deal of their persistence. In addition, research finds that terrorists adapt quickly by changing targets and the types of their attacks on the basis of demonstrated government will and capacity to defeat them.

What sustain such groups are beliefs and attitudes that form the terrorists' iden­tity which is driven largely by ideology (Crenshaw, 1988; Hoffman, 1999). A terror­ist's ideological perspective provides a set of beliefs about the external world that not only foster an identity around commitment to a cause, but also shape expectations about the rewards of terrorism and dictate the extent to which the terrorists' goals are dependent on the cooperation of the authorities.

Although every terrorist has an individual identity, researchers have identified three major ideological perspectives (Hoffman, 1999; Post, et al. 2002; Victoroff, 2005). The nationalist-separatist seeks to establish a geographically separate political state based on either ethnic or political criteria (e.g. Provisional Irish Republican Army, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). These terrorists are often accountable to a developed criminal organization and are both trained and experienced in the terrorist role. The ideology itself is generally an extreme example of the beliefs and backgrounds of the immediate social group, such that these communities treat the role of terrorist with respect and importance (Silke, 2003).

The social revolutionist uses terrorism as a way of drawing attention and applying pressure on the authorities to promise changes in social or economic order (e.g. Hezbollah). These terrorists necessarily possess a degree of interdependence with the authorities because their goals focus on fighting for improvement or change in a system of which they are already part. By using the threat of killing hostages as a bargaining tool, these terrorists expect to force authorities to compromise on a position or make concessions in support of their cause. How­ever, since one of their aims is to gain support for the revolution, they are likely to avoid levels of aggression that would serve to reduce the public's sympathy (Wilson, 2000).

Radically different from the two secular groups is religious fundamentalist terrorism, which is viewed as a “sacramental act” carried out in fulfillment of some theological order (Hoffman, 1999). While the focus of secular terrorists is on using terrorism to change some aspect of the current political or social order, the religious terrorist seeks to cause damage directly to a society (e.g. al-Qaida). Their role is one of an extreme martyr figure who, in making an honorable sacrifice, would expect to receive both social recognition and rewards in the afterlife (Silke, 2003). This set of goals means that religious terrorists have a clear out­group mentality and are likely to show little interdependence with authorities or hostages. They consider themselves as being at “total war,” such that greater use of violence is not only morally justified but a necessary expedient for the attainment of their goals (Hoffman, 1999).

A useful way of uncovering the roots of these organizations is detailed in Wagner's (2006) article examining the peace psychol­ogy of terrorism.