Class privilege & power, white supremacy
Consider how these ideas relate to class privilege & power, white supremacy, patriarchy, immigrant status, & social struggle.
Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual group, or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal, or political reasons, whereby – in contrast to assassination – the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat – and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organisation), (imperilled) victims, and main target (audiences (s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid & Jongman, 1988, p. 28)
For their study, Weinberg, Pedahzur and Hirsch-Hoefler selected 73 definitions from the 55 articles and compared these to Schmid’s (1988) 22 elements. The exercise yielded mixed results. For example, while some components such as the psychological elements of terrorism were in decline (41.5% to 5.5%), probably due to the absence of contributors from the field of psychology; the authors of the articles in the three journals made no variations between terrorist targets, that is – “combatants and non-combatants” or the “immediate target and wider audience” (p. 782). However, certain traits remained prevalent across both studies, and were used by the authors to generate another definition: “terrorism is a politically motivated tactic involving the threat or use of force or violence in which the pursuit of publicity plays a significant role” (p. 782).
The significant achievement of the trio lay in the ability to adopt observable and measurable terrorism components in designing their definition of terrorism. Thus, a remarkable achievement for research in the field of terrorism, especially media-related terrorism research as a result of the renewed focus on the publicity component, an element, which has remained relatively constant across both studies (p. 781).
However, in line with Sartori’s (1970) assertion that “the rules for climbing and descending along a ladder of abstraction are thus very simple rules ….We make a concept more abstract and more general by lessening its properties or attributes …” (p. 1041), the definition by the trio, may have lost one of the core ingredients of terrorism – the psychological impact. The trio had, however, explained that the reduction in salience accorded the psychology element, is not unconnected to the temporal differences from Schmid’s study. They also suggested that the writers of the published articles, which they used for the
Sample Solution
In our society, certain classes of people are privileged over others due to the systems of power and oppression that have been put in place. This can be seen through the way white supremacy, patriarchy, and other forms of discrimination disproportionately affect marginalized groups such as immigrants or racial minorities.
For example, class privilege ensures that those who come from wealthy backgrounds often have access to better educational & economic opportunities than those from lower income families which can further widen the social gap between them (Mokros et al., 2019). Additionally, since many positions of power continue to be held by white men it reinforces a status quo which benefits them at expense of everyone else thus making it more difficult for anyone outside their circle succeed.
Similarly, immigrant status affects one’s ability to work or even live in certain areas since there are still laws on books which limit where people without proper documentation can go plus this is also compounded by language barriers creating additional obstacles when trying establish oneself in new countries.
Ultimately, we must understand how these ideas relate back to systemic issues like class privilege & white supremacy if we ever hope to create an equitable world free from these oppressive forces.