International Relations Perspectives on Terrorism

Historical & Political Overview

Since the end of the Cold War, dramatic emerging shifts in the focus of international relations, from the world superpowers, have veered to that of terrorism and counterterrorism. Terrorism and in/direct threats to the order of international stability of sovereign states did not come to the forefront of significance and study until the 20th century with the events occurring on September 11, 2001 at the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon. Immediately following these traumas, there “began a reorientation in foreign policy towards weak and failing states” (Skuldt, n.d., p. 1). The world of academia has traditionally focused on international relations as a discipline, with a sub-categorization on foreign policy. Historically, terrorism was not study specific. Focus on foreign policy allows for further exploration of policy analysis, theory and prescripts; however, the study of terrorism has been dotted through these areas disallowing the formulation of a concise framework for analysis. Because of these factors, building theories that focus on the connections between the two subjects has been difficult; and yet, in our current global society, they are critical. “Terrorism has [in fact] become a mode of doing politics” (Skuldt, n.d., p. 2) and can no longer merely be a subset to other areas of research and analysis.

Prior to the 1960s, acts of terrorism were viewed as an internal policing issue rather than a matter of foreign policy. Around the late 1970s, policy began to shift its focus towards a few aspects of counterterrorism such as: the sabotage of aircraft, hostages, violence onboard an aircraft, and, hijacking of an aircraft; and, it predominately remained aligned with domestic response sys...

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... on the relationship between states, state-centric functions; and, policy on counterterrorism and theory are strongly focused on the activities of clandestine non-state actors, IR has been faced with a challenge. It has been widely proposed by IR theorists that neither the realism nor liberal perspectives can fully examine terrorism to any great degree leaving a paradigmatic shift after 9/11…but in the recent past, this has taken a new direction.

Works Cited

Skuldt, A. (n.d.). Terrorism and foreign policy. Unpublished manuscript, Department of

Government, University of Texas, Austin, TX. Retrieved from http://www. academia.edu/879824/Terrorism_and_Foreign_Policy Tkachenko, S. (2006). An international perspective on terrorism. Stetson Law Review, 35, 879-

902. Retrieved from http://www.stetson.edu/law/lawreview/media/an-international-perspective-on-terrorism.pdf