The phenomenon of terrorism in foreign socio-political theories

Abstract

For a long time, terrorism studies were not built around any methodological constructs and were mainly based on descriptions of individual terrorist groups or organizations, while the study of the reasons for the transition to terrorist activity did not attract attention. Currently, several approaches to the study of the causes and dynamics of terrorism have been found in Western scientific literature, for example, organizational, instrumental, communicative and psychological. The most common of these is the instrumental approach, according to which terrorism is viewed as deliberate violence, a means to an end. This approach has become most widespread among researchers due to its simplicity, since the intention of the actors was formed from their behavior in accordance with logical rules, and information about the dynamics, internal structure of the organization, as well as the motives of its members is practically not used, which ultimately provides a limited context for the interpretation of factual data. Within the framework of the instrumental approach, several theories are identified to explain the causes of terrorism, their heuristic potential in explaining the dynamics of the activities of terrorist organizations and the limitations in the socio-philosophical foundations of explanatory models are shown.