The received wisdom on the secularization process in high modern societies is that the process entails first, the decline in religious beliefs and practices, secondly, the privatization of religion whereby religion is confined to the private sphere of one’s life and/or becomes subjectivised, and thirdly, the differentiation or separation of the secular domain of state, economy and science from religion, whereby the religious sphere ceases its domination and control over these spheres [Casanova 2006]. This secularization thesis has been the subject of empirical verification in these modern societies and it is now widely believed that the decline of religious beliefs and practices are more the European experience of secularization (though even that has been revised recently) whereas the American experience has been described more as the “churching” of America rather than one of the decline of religion there.
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 their study may have adopted definitions that reflected the expressions of fourth wave terrorism, as opposed to third wave terrorism, which was in operation during Schmid’s study.
Furthermore, the authors had also noted that the country of origin of journal contributors also played a role in their choice of definition elements. For example, an examination of the “civilian” and “fear” definitional elements by authors from Middle East (ME), Western Europe (WE) and North America (NA) showed marked differences. While experts from the ME had a 0% civilian component, 50% included fear in their definitions. Contrarily, WE and NA authors had a 40% and 20% civilian element and 20% and 17% highlighted the fear component respectively. This to some extent confirms Drake’s (1989) assertion regarding the nature of the definition of terrorism, when he argued that no singular definition can sufficiently capture the meaning of the word. Thus, the word is open to the subjective interpretations of speakers depending on their cultural, political or social leaning (p. xiv).
Richard (2014) study approached terrorism as a mode of violence, appropriated by different groups, states, and ideologies. His definition of terrorism is a product of three key assumptions:
a. No act of violence “is in and of itself inherently terrorist” (p. 222).
According to the author, terrorist’s events are products of a host of violence-based techniques such as bombing, kidnapping for ransom, theft, hostage taking, and more. These approaches are not unique to terrorist organisations, but are also employed by different groups, from social movements to ‘legitimate’ states. However, the techniques adopted become terrorist, only when layers of meaning are applied.
