Volatile Social Movements and the Origins of Terrorism
The Radicalization of Change
By (author) Christine Sixta Rinehart
Publication date:
15 June 2014Length of book:
166 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
238x160mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739197325
Although many scholars have studied terrorism, few scholars have ever studied terrorism from the aspect of its initial origins in social movements. Not only is research concerning this phenomenon outdated, but there has also been no consensus as to what causes terrorism. Many contemporary terrorist organizations were once social movements that formed for a specific purpose using nonviolent tactics to accomplish their agenda. Eventually, terrorist tactics became the method of choice for these once peaceful social movements.
Volatile Social Movements and the Origins of Terrorism: The Radicalization of Change, by Christine Sixta Rinehart, focuses on why this transition occurred; why did a peaceful social movement transition to a terrorist organization? The case studies in this book include the Muslim Brotherhood, the ETA, the FARC, and the LTTE. The study focuses on the individual characteristics, group dynamics, and external forces that caused social movements to use terrorist tactics. It is ascertained who made the decision to use terrorism, and why and how that person or group of people ascended to a leadership position within the social movement. After the (person) people, time, and place are found pertaining to the first decision to use terrorism, Sixta Rinehart examines why terrorism became an attractive option for each social movement. Volatile Social Movements and the Origins of Terrorism asks a necessary question for scholars and researchers in counterterrorism and international policy: Under what conditions do social movements resort to the use of terrorist tactics?
Volatile Social Movements and the Origins of Terrorism: The Radicalization of Change, by Christine Sixta Rinehart, focuses on why this transition occurred; why did a peaceful social movement transition to a terrorist organization? The case studies in this book include the Muslim Brotherhood, the ETA, the FARC, and the LTTE. The study focuses on the individual characteristics, group dynamics, and external forces that caused social movements to use terrorist tactics. It is ascertained who made the decision to use terrorism, and why and how that person or group of people ascended to a leadership position within the social movement. After the (person) people, time, and place are found pertaining to the first decision to use terrorism, Sixta Rinehart examines why terrorism became an attractive option for each social movement. Volatile Social Movements and the Origins of Terrorism asks a necessary question for scholars and researchers in counterterrorism and international policy: Under what conditions do social movements resort to the use of terrorist tactics?
This timely book considers multiple manifestations of political violence in the United States and abroad. Rinehart specifically seeks to discover the causal factors of radicalization in mass movements—the group dynamics that transform nonviolent social movements into organizations employing terrorism. Three radicalizing factors are identified: charismatic leaders deciding to use terrorism, obediently implemented by followers; frustration as the political goals of a movement are not accomplished by peaceful means and violence ensues; ascendance of violent personalities to leadership positions in social movements. This multidisciplinary conceptual framework is applied to four case studies: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Basque Euzkadi ta Askatasuna of Spain, Fuerzas Armados Revolucionarios de Colombia, and Ceylon's Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The concluding chapter analyzes the similarities and differences among the case studies and points to future research topics such as the radicalizing impact of universities, the utility of Marxist ideology, reasons for dissolution of terrorist groups, and the rise of religious terrorism, a most relevant phenomenon to policy makers worldwide. This is a good start on the study of radicalization, an extremely complex phenomenon in need of more extensive and methodologically complex examination. Summing Up: Recommended. All readership levels.