Martha Crenshaw The Causes Of Terrorism Analysis

Martha Crenshaw’s 1981 article “The Causes of Terrorism” outlines an analysis on the causes of terrorism by examining the preconditions, precipitants, reasons, the psychological aspects of the individual. Crenshaw attempts to show the reader the causes of terrorism in this article. She begins by providing a definition of terrorists. She defines terrorism as the premeditated use or threat of violence committed by a group of people in order to convey a political message. She then divides her paper into three distinct categories that explore the framework, the reasons, and the motivation for terrorism. For each category, she uses terrorist events that have occurred between the French Revolution and the present day of the article. She emphasizes the idea of opportunity and the ability to act for terrorists. She also argues that terrorism does not stem from low economic classes. Instead, it usually comes from the educated middle class. Ultimately Crenshaw argues that …show more content…
She looks at the permissive, direct, reasons, and the individual to explain the causes of terrorism. By examining the permissive causes of terrorism, some preemptive policies could be established. Governments should be willing to stop terrorist groups before they start gathering resources. However, this could be a policy idea difficult to enact because the terrorist group may see these policies as further proof of the grievances set against them. These new policies could become direct causes to the rise of terrorism. Some other policies could involve the inclusion of all minority groups into the government. Therefore, people in the minority could have a say in the government. An interesting question to ask the author would be how does she propose nations solve the issue of