Choose a Group You can choose from the following groups (or if there’s another g

Posted: September 11th, 2023

Choose a Group
You can choose from the following groups (or if there’s another group you’re interested in, get in touch):
Group Name Primary Location Total Attacks
Taliban Afghanistan 8,727
Shining Path Peru 4,562
Al-Shabaab Somalia 3,774
Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) El Salvador 3,351
New People’s Army (NPA) Philippines 3,054
Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) UK 2,669
FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) Colombia 2,490
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) Turkey 2,427
Basque Fatherland and Freedom (ETA) Spain 2,024
LTTE (Tamil Tigers) Sri Lanka 1,606
I recommend choosing a group that you’re not very familiar with. All of these groups were very active and may have some level of name recognition. I included the total number of attacks recorded for each group in the Global Terrorism Database (through 2018) so you can get a feel for their level of activity. Please note that ISIS, Al Qaeda, and Boko Haram (our case studies for the week plus ISIS) are purposefully excluded.
Paper Overview
There will be three main parts to the assignment (there is also a rubric available in the assignments folder):
I. Group Background
Give a general background on the group that focuses on their origins, area of operation, and general trajectory of the group. The goal of this section is to give enough background information to understand why and how the group carries out terror attacks. Research who founded the group; what its ideology is; where the group is active; major events over time; and the group’s status today. This should be about 500 words.
II. The Use of Terrorism: How and Why
For this section, you will first describe the preconditions and precipitants framework. This will be followed by an application of this framework to your terror group. Make sure to have the following parts:
Describe the preconditions and precipitants framework, and in particular, break apart preconditions and discuss the role of motivations and permissive conditions. This section should cite class readings and the lectures where possible. (Think of this like the take-home exam section. I want to know that you fully understand this topic.)
Motivations:
What is the ultimate goal of your group? Do they seek territorial control, control of the central government, a policy change, social control?
What are the grievances that led your group to adopt that as their central goal? Give examples where possible. For example, if your group was discriminated against, can you find information on laws against these groups? Are there statistics about relative employment rates or representation in governance?
Permissive Conditions:
What permissive conditions have allowed your group to be active? Do they operate in a democracy or in a fragile state? How has that helped your group operate day-to-day (stay active, train, plan, etc.) as well as carry out attacks?
Provide at least one visual in this section that ties into permissive conditions. This could be a map of where the group is active, where you consider questions like whether the attacks are carried out close to where the group formed, or if this area is a fragile state or a democracy, or if there are other relevant permissive conditions that explain the patterns. If your group acts transnationally, think about why they are attacking the foreign countries that they are.
This section should be around 750 words or more.
III. Analyzing Attacks
For this section, you will choose two attacks that your group carried out. Try to find variety. For example, one might be domestic and the other transnational. One might be a major attack, generating significant casualties, and the other a fairly typical attack. This section should include the following:
First, give the definition of terrorism. (This is another take-home exam section. Tie in readings/lectures as possible.) Why is terrorism hard to define? What are the basic criteria that we discussed?
Next, for each attack, do the following:
Describe the attack. Give the date, location, type of attack, and write a short paragraph describing what happened. If you can find information on the impact of the attack, such as government reactions, changes in public opinion, etc., note that as well.
Apply the definition of terrorism that we discussed in class. Explain why we should consider these terror attacks. Make sure to go through each criteria that we discussed in class.
Finally, provide analysis on questions like why the attack was carried out, why a specific target was chosen, and how the attack relates back to your group’s original goals. This should tie back into our discussion about rationality and the idea that attacks are designed to achieve a goal.
This section should be around 500 words or more.
Works Cited
Include a works cited list at the end of your paper. This should include properly formatted citations for all of the sources you cited in your analysis.