Targeting Strategies of Terrorist Groups A Comparative Case Study of Northern Ireland and Spain

Date of Award

2010

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Hicks, Barbara

Keywords

Terrorism, Political Violence, Nationalism

Area of Concentration

Political Science

Abstract

This study addresses the question of why terrorist groups target civilians by analyzing the targeting strategies of nationalist terrorist groups in Northern Ireland and Spain. Nationalist terrorist groups are considered to be the most likely to apply violence in a way that preserves and maximizes their base of support. This study tested the hypothesis that greater levels of violence inflicted on the supporting communities of these groups cause supporters to become radicalized, thus allowing the groups to engage in increasingly indiscriminate violence without sacrificing public support. The central hypothesis was broken down into four parts so that different measures of indiscriminate violence could be examined: sectarian killings, collateral killings, and civilian deaths carried out under novel, idiosyncratic justifications. Sectarian killings were measured in two time frames to determine whether the motivation was deterrence or attrition. The study examined the nationalist groups� targeting strategies in the periods surrounding the six individual months in each conflict that saw the highest number of civilian deaths within the nationalist group�s supporting community caused by both government forces and right-wing terrorist groups. One hypothesis was confirmed, but only in two periods under study. Both periods occurred in Northern Ireland in the unusual context of a British ceasefire with the IRA. The other hypotheses were not confirmed. The findings suggest that the use of indiscriminate violence by nationalist terrorist groups is better explained by organizational dynamics, and particularly organizational weakness, than by the level of violence sustained by their supporting community.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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