MEMORIALUNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND
DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
Sociology 3320 / Anthropology 3320
Winter 2007
Slot 056: Thursday, 19:00-21:30, Room A-1049
Instructor:
Dr. Anton Oleinik (
***
Office hours:
Tuesday & Thursday, 15.15-16.00, AA-4071
***
Course title:
Terrorism and Society
***
The task of the course consists in exploring sociological roots of a large variety of phenomena commonly described as terrorist activities.Some parallels between the personalities of a criminal and a terrorist are drawn. The ‘bottom up’ approach (e.g. sources of terrorism in everyday life and social action) is compared with the ‘top down’ approach (e.g. focus on power relationships and globalization in its current form). Terrorists are not the only actors involved into activities under study: they interact with intellectuals, media, governmental bodies and security industry. Terrorism can be better understood as a product of their interaction, as an often ‘unexpected result of intentional human actions’.
The teaching heavily relies on case studies (special attention will be paid, in particular, to the cases of Chechnya and the ‘homegrown’ terrorism in the US) and game simulation.
***
Bibliography:
Andoni Lamis, ‘Searching for Answers: Gaza’s Suicide Bombers’ // Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4, 1997, pp. 33-45
Annual Editions: Violence and Terrorism, 2004/2005, Guilford, CN: McGraw Hill, 7th edition
Arutiunov S., Ethnicity in the Caucasus: Ethnic Relations and Quasi-Ethnic Conflicts, unpublished report <stable URL:
Bandura Albert, Mechanisms of Moral Disengagement, in: Reich Walter, ed., Origins of Terrorim: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind, Cambridge: WoodrowWilsonInternationalCenter for Scholars and CambridgeUniversity Press, 1990, pp. 161-191
Bell Stewart, ‘The Making of a Canadian Terrorist’, Maclean’s, August 22, 2005, pp. 16-20
Brym Robert and Araj Bader, ‘Suicide Bombing as Strategy of Interaction: The Case of the Second Intifada’, Social Forces, Vol. 84, No. 4, June 2006, pp. 1969-1986 <stable URL:
Brym Robert, Intellectuals and Politics, London: George Allen & Unwin (Publishers) Ltd, 1980 <stable URL:
Butler Linda, ‘Suicide Bombers: Dignity, Despair and the Need for Hope:An Interview with Eyad El Sarraj’, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 31, No. 4, 2002, pp. 71-76
Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization, Democratizing the Global Economy: The Role of Civil Society, Warwick, UK, 2004 <stable URL:www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/csgr/research/projects/englishreport.pdf
Enders Walter and Todd Sandler, The political economy of terrorism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006
Erickson Richard, Crime in an Insecure World, Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007, Chapter 2
Frey Bruno, Dealing with Terrorism: Stick or Carrot?, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub., 2004
Friscolanti Michael, Gatehouse Jonathon and Gillis, Charlie, ‘Homegrown Terror: It’s not over’, Maclean’s, June 19th, 2006, pp. 18-25
Gambetta Diego, ‘Reason and Terror: Has 9/11 made it hard to think straight?’, Boston Review, April/May 2004 <stable URL:
Gambetta Diego, ‘“In the beginning was the Word”… The symbols of the Mafia’, Archives Européennes de sociologie, Vol. XXXII, 1991, pp. 53-77
Gareau Frederick H., State Terrorism and the US: From Counterinsurgency to the War on Terrorism, Atlanta: Clarity Press and London: Zed books, 2004
Heyboer Kelly, ‘Face to Face with a Suicide Bomber’, American Journalism Review, June 2002, Vol. 24, Issue 5, pp. 10-12
Howard Russell, Forest James and Moore Joanne, Homeland Security and Terrorism: Readings and Interpretations, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006
Howard Russell and Sawyer Reid, Defeating Terrorism: Shaping the New Security Environment, Guilford, CT: McGraw Hill, 2004
Martin, Gus, Understanding Terrorism, Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2006. 2nd edition
Media Education Foundation, Hijacking Catastrophe: Study Guide, 2004 <stable URL:
Oleinik Anton, Organized Crime, Prison and Post-Soviet Societies, Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2003. Preface by Alain Touraine
Oleinik Anton, ‘A Distrustful Economy: An Inquiry into Foundations of the Russian Market’, Journal of Economic Issues, Vol. XXXIX, No. 1, March 2005 <stable URL:
Pape Robert A., ‘The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 3, August 2003, pp. 343-361
Poland, James M., Understanding Terrorism: Groups, Strategies, and Responses, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson – Prentice Hall, 2005. 2nd edition
Schelling Thomas, The Strategy of Conflict, Cambridge: HarvardUniversity Press, 1960
Snowden Lynne and Whistel Bradley, Terrorism: Research, Readings and Realities, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Person – Prentice Hall, 2005
Soros George, The Age of Fallibility: The Consequences of the War on Terror, Public Affairs, 2006
Soto Hernando de, The Other Path: The Economic Answer to Terrorism, New York: Basic Books, 2002 (1989) <stable URL:
Stern Jessica, The Ultimate Terrorists, Cambridge, MA and London: HarvardUniversity Press, 1999
Tilly Charles, ‘Terror, Terrorism, Terrorists’, Sociological Theory, Vol. 22, No. 1, March 2004, pp. 5-13
Tilly Charles, ‘Violence, Terror, and Politics as Usual: America’s “new war” reflects an epochal change in the nature of collective violence’, Boston Review, Summer 2002 <stable URL:
Tilly Charles, ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, in: Evans Peter, Rueschemeyer Dietrich and Skocpol Theda, eds., Bringing the State Back In, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1985, pp. 169-191
Turk Austin T, ‘Sociology of Terrorism’, Annual Review of Sociology, 30: 271-286, 2004
Wieviorka Michel, The Making of Terrorism, Translated by David Gordon White, With a new preface, Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004
White Jonathan R., Terrorism: An Introduction, Belomont, CA: Thomson – Wadsworth, 2003. 4th edition
Zulaika Joseba and Douglass William A., Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism, New York and London: Routledge, 1996
***
Method of Evaluation:
%Class attendance and participation (participation in class discussions and/or submitting occasional one-page papers) / 15 (10+5)
1st writing assignment / 15
Mid-term test / 15
2nd writing assignment / 20
Final exam / 35
***
Course description:
1. Introduction
A suspicious concept. Terrorist or freedom fighter. A plurality of definitions (an experiment). Methodological remark: conventional nature of concepts. Violence and its types. Old and new (post 9/11) tendencies in terrorist activities.
MARTIN, Chapter 2; TURK; TILLY, 2004
2. Focus on the terrorist’s personality
Merton’s taxonomy of deviant behavior. Studies in the personality of a criminal.
How one becomes a terrorist: life stories. Case study: Mohamed Atta, one of the 9/11 hijackers <‘The shy, caring, deadly fanatic’, stable URL: ‘A Fanatic’s Quiet Path to Terror’, stable URL:
BANDURA; WHITE, Chapter 2; ANNUAL EDITIONS, pp. 152-161 (article 26); ANDONI; BUTLER; STEWART; BELL
3. Economic approach to terrorism
Explanations based on the model of rational choice. Theorizing threats with the help of game theory. Empirical evidence supporting the thesis about the strategic logic of suicide terrorism. Counterarguments.
FREY; PAPE; BRYM AND BADER, 2005
4. The bottom up approach
Interactionist perspective. Game simulation: terrorism as a play.
Sociology of action’s perspective. Movement and anti-movement.
Predictions about terrorists’ tactics.
ZULAIKA, Chapter 3; SNOWDEN and WHITSEL, Chapter 1; WIEVIORKA, Chapters 1 and 5
5. The top down approach
Power and its types. Imposed power.
State-sponsored terrorism. Genocide and politicide. Outsourcing (militia).
Embededdness in the processes of non-democratic globalization. Invidious comparison.Institutional importation.
Predictions about terrorists’ tactics.
GAREAU, Introduction, Chapter 10; OLEINIK, 2005, Section ‘Type of Authority as a Parameter of the Institutional Environment’; ZULAIKA, Chapter 6; TILLY, 1985; TILLY, 2002; CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF GLOBALIZATION AND REGIONALIZATION
6. Principal actors and their interlocking interests
Terrorists:a network approach. A blind cell structure. Network structures in the cases of Mafia, drug dealers(P. Kopp), organized crime.
Medias (cf. the case of Mafia)
Intellectuals. Violence in the academia. Functionalist and network approaches. Case study: the Unabomber file <stable URL:
State officials
Power institutions
Security industry
WIEVIORKA, Chapters 2 and 3; WHITE, Chapters 3 and 16; BRYM, 1980, Section ‘Intellectuals and Politics’; HEYBOER; GAMBETTA, 1991; ANNUAL EDITIONS, pp. 120-124 (article 20); HOWARD, RUSSEL AND MOORE, Chapter 22; OLEYNIK, 2004
7. Counterterrorism
Technical solutions. The USA PATRIOT Act debate
Military solutions. The torture debate
Economic solutions
Political solutions
Social solutions
HOWARD, RUSSEL AND MOORE, Chapter 24; HOWARD, SAWYER, pp. 51-73, 119-126; FRISCOLANTI ET AL.; DE SOTO, Preface; ZULAIKA, Chapter 7; BUCKLEY AND MEESE
8. Case studies
Chechnya. Case study: web-sites of Chechen separatists ( a selection of articles published in New York Times). Game simulation: hostages crisis
The American terrorism
OLEINIK, 2003, pp. 181-187, 267-269 (Postscript);GAREAU, pp. 212-213; ARUTIUNOV; MARTIN, Chapter 12; WHITE, Chapter 14
Time schedule:
## / Topic / Date1 / 1. Introduction / 10/1
2 / 1. Introduction
3 / 2. Focus on the terrorist’s personality / 17/1
4 / 2. Focus on the terrorist’s personality
5 / 3. Economic approach to terrorism / 24/1
6 / 3. Economic approach to terrorism
7 / 4. The bottom up approach / 31/1
8 / 4. The bottom up approach
9 / 4. The bottom up approach / 7/2
10 / 4. The bottom up approach
11 / 5. The top down approach / 14/2
12 / 5. The top down approach
Deadline for submission of the 1st writing assignment
Fall semester break: No lectures / 21/2
13 / 5. The top down approach / 28/2
14 / 5. The top down approach
15 / 6. Principal actors and their interlocking interests / 6/3
16 / 6. Principal actors and their interlocking interests
17 / 6. Principal actors and their interlocking interests
Mid-term test / 13/3
18 / 6. Principal actors and their interlocking interests
19 / 7. Counterterrorism / 20/3
20 / Movie Hijacking Catastrophe
21 / 7. Counterterrorism / 27/3
22 / 7. Counterterrorism
23 / 8. Case studies / 3/4
24 / 8. Case studies
Deadline for submission of the 2nd writing assignment
Final exam
The outlinemay be subjectedto changes
1