:Polisci Applied

Note: this is a continuation from part 1, which basically just laid out the definitions of pertinent terms and concepts. As such, I’m not going to define them again, so go back if necessary…

In part 1 of this series I asked how terrorism might be seen in the context of neorealism versus institutionalism: now I will try to answer (part of) that question. Namely, if we hold that the general assumptions of neorealism are true, what does that mean regarding terrorism? How does it affect the possible causes of and solutions to terrorism, and how can it be used to make (hopefully testable) predictions about the nature of terrorism and related issues?

First off, if we take the key tenet of neorealism to be true, namely that the international system is inherently anarchic, then one definite effect is that terrorism can no longer be seen as a “counter the world status quo” type of action (because there is no overarching world organization that actually matters to rebel against). It would have to be seen as action intended against specific states, and further there must be at least some strategy to the targetting. For example, the recently foiled terrorist attack in Canada cannot be dismissed as generic anti-Westernism, but rather indicates that at least some terrorists see at least some utility in attacking Canada. One could certainly argue that this is due to Canada’s association with America, but there still has to be at least some specifically Canadian element of this relationship to justify the attack.

Another core belief of neorealism is that states act chiefly in self-preservation. Note that this can be interpreted a number of ways - the “offensive realism” of John Mearsheimer (see the reading page) asserts that the best way to be secure is to be a hegemon (basically, take over the world), and as such that is the ultimate goal of any state. In fact, I would argue that this view of realism lends itself quite well to the situation of terrorism, on both “sides” of the conflict. Ostensibly at least, everybody seems to simply be trying to preserve a “way of life” - to extremist Muslims that means getting rid of the Western influence in their homeland, and to Western society that means “defending the homeland” and of course getting plenty of oil (which is a bit inconveniently located, and hence a lot of the conflict). In either case, it seems that both “sides” have decided that the best strategy is aggression, and so “offensive realism” seems to be a fair explanation of that.

Now one of the largest difficulties of addressing terrorism in any way is the fact that terrorist organizations are “shadowy” - they’re most definitely not sovereign states, and as such applying any traditional theory (or tactics, when it comes to military engagements) is uncertain at best. Since neorealism essentially denies the significance of any non-state organizations in the international sphere, it is especially important to come up with some sort of explanation that addresses this issue. One argument might be that terrorist organizations are just pawns of actual states, allowing them to act with a greater impunity but still ultimately towards the interests of the state. Such an assertion is at least moderately testable - granted it would be ideal to have access to intelligence that is for the time being classified, but still it seems possible to go through and attempt to identify links (or the lack thereof) between terrorist organizations and actual states (I will reserve that for a later entry, however).

Obviously there’s much more that could be said, and I do intend to get to it (this is a series, after all). But in the interest of keeping these entries readable and down to a typical blog length, I’m going to stop here. I think I’ve generally addressed the main tenets of neorealism and how they might relate to terrorism, and I at least would conclude that some sort of realist view is at least plausible in the context of terrorism. It does a pretty good job of addressing possible motivations on both sides (self preservation), and the fact that targets must be states and not the world as a whole is reasonable as well. The main difficulty is in explaining why international politics now seems to be so influenced by these non-state organizations, and as I said above the best way to deal with this would be to link them to states (something that “hawks” like doing as it is, whether it’s true or not).

In the next part of this series I’ll try to do the same thing I did here but for institutionalism, and after that I’ll draw in more detail and maybe even come to some semblance of a conclusion. Thanks for reading, and please do check back for more in the near future.