Eye On L. Richardson´s Three R´s

I. Introduction

One of the major changes regarding post 9/11 terrorist-studies is rarely taken notice of: The sudden and more urgent than ever before manifested strive to understand terrorism in its roots and methods by both political decision makers and society. Seemingly almost in accordance to the political behavior of the former US-administration, promptly demanded answers for questions of a kind not being posed before by the public, led to quite a variety of outcomes that can be subsumed the same way the socio-critical American journalist Henry Louise Mencken noted as early as 1920: "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem - neat, plausible, and wrong."(Mencken 1920: 158).

This paper takes a close look at the three R's of revenge, renown and reaction that the well- known political scientist Louise Richardson identified (Richardson 2006: 88-101) as the immediate motives of terrorists and hence sine qua non for the phenomenon. The matter of interest is whether her attempt to impose a coherent trigger on different kinds of terrorism, referring to Richardson's statements, will sustain detailed and direct comparison between Northern Ireland and the Islamist terrorist movements?

Digging deeper into the topic a certain methodical fundament needs to be accomplished. This includes a clear working-definition of the subject terrorism, likewise drawing a distinction between the movements involved in the analysis. Later on these points will be taken directly into consideration of Richardson's position regarding the motivation of terrorists, finally leading to contemplation about the means of not socio-political tinted counterterrorism.

The intention herein is to take up the problematic nature of far-reaching observations, while a critical look at different manifestations of the phenomenon addresses the complex compositional background which provides the motivational aspects of terrorism. Besides that, the primary objective of this thesis is not putting up an argument about the real basis and motivation of terrorist movements - respectively individuals - but the presentation of a methodical criticism regarding the introduced approach. This concept is applicable in consideration of the three R's, where it will be shown that terrorism research as well as other branches of science cannot constitute in itself while no tangible results expand our knowledge and open up policy options - in this case in regard to counterterrorism efforts. In respect to that, the scientific value lies in identifying a wrongly constructed connection between terrorist movements to which the complexity of the actual conditions does not correspond, as well as providing reasons for that kind of misperception - as contribution to the contemporary Critical Terrorism Studies and with particular consideration towards the concerns of security forces.

II. Definitions & Basics

This paper so far relies on Richardson's definition of terrorism as “deliberately and violently targeting civilians for political purposes" (Richardson 2006: 4), based on seven principles she puts up at the very beginning of her previously mentioned book. It is well working for the present analysis, in this case especially because of its limitation to a theoretical part of the subject matter - also due to the fact that it is not politically or even religiously inspired, therefore avoiding subjectivity speaking of different forms or groups. Going into detail, terrorism is being described by Richardson as “politically inspired" and “involving violence or the threat of violence" (Richardson 2006: 4), which is similar to the approaches of other prominent authors such as Bruce Hoffman (Hoffman 2006: 40/41). Furthermore, it is important to mention that both do consider terrorism not as incidence newborn to the late 20th or early 21st century the way it has often been displayed throughout western societies and its media during the aftermath of September 11th 2001 (Werthes/Kim/Conrad 2002: 84­90). Other characteristics that suggest that terrorism always brings along a “message" and does have “symbolic significance" (Richardson 2006: 4) are also being taken into account; which is close to Mark Juergensmeyer's standpoint (Juergensmeyer 2003: 121-147).

The probably most controversial argument presents the phenomenon as being an “act of sub-state groups" (Richardson 2006: 5) - as by following the author's point of view it is clearly impossible to understand terrorist movements in setting them to the same stage as state-actors. The remaining two contentions hold the truth that the victims and the audience sought by terrorist violence are not the same (Richardson 2006: 5), as well as the lamentable circumstance that the “most important defining characteristic is the deliberate targeting of civilians” (Richardson 2006: 6). Comparing this kind of determination to that in use by British law-enforcement or the US-American "Patriot Act", it is easy to determine their focus on terms of lives, property or public order (Gross 2006: 14-17). Let alone these factors are not of any help in understanding terrorism in its origins, they also present a target for those previously mentioned Critical Terrorism Studies, which offer a trenchant assessment on traditional state-centric perspectives (Jackson 2007: 246). This thesis is conscious of the existence of an ongoing debate on how to define terrorism scientifically - quite apart from the attempts having been made by authorities so far.

With regard to the research question, the next step of the analysis is to distinguish the phenomena of both Northern Ireland and Islamistic terrorism which were chosen on behalf of two different aspects: First their frequent occurrence in connection to Richardson's three R's bound to this analysis; second that political scientist's affection to the cause of Northern Ireland due to her personal background - accompanied by her hefty focus on Al-Qaeda being perceived as main threat to western societies. One striking point is the apparently broad width of terrorist groups, respectively movements that in general are often named and spoken of in the same breath, while there is no definite distinction except that of their overall motivation by terms simply taken out of their declarations. The problem herein is seen on closer inspection: There are a number of salient contrasts in the development of history, political system, religion, society and even geography providing the background of those constellations, accompanied by a certain degree of misperception respectively due to media coverage that too has influenced our knowledge and attitude.

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