NCJ Number
107735
Journal
Terrorism Volume: 10 Issue: 3 Dated: (1987) Pages: 145-163
Date Published
1987
Length
19 pages
Annotation
Studies of terrorist psychology have typically focused either on single individuals or group dynamics within the organizations that these individuals have joined. Less attention has been paid to the background conditions which give rise to these individuals and organizations, even for environments in which generalization appears to be feasible.
Abstract
This paper focuses on one such environment. Its principal goal is to highlight the theoretical connections between a society's ethnic cleavages; the development of ethnopolitical activity, especially organized violence and terrorism; and the implications of this activity for the functioning of institutions in 'democratic' and 'nondemocratic' societies. A related objective is the identification of policy responses to latent or manifest ethnopolitical activity and an assessment of their potential efficacy. These points are illustrated by examining a small ethnic group, the South Moluccans in Holland, which would appear to have had little motivation to engage in violence or terrorism, but some of whose members nevertheless did. (Author abstract)