Comm 355 Terrorism and Political Violence

Course Purpose: Since September 11th, terrorism has received a great deal of attention in the United States, but in fact Americans and American interests have been a priority target for international terrorists for several decades. The range of issues raised by the need to protect Americans and American interests, the homeland, and the national security against terrorism is broad – and not likely to be reduced anytime soon, as the threat of terrorism is not likely to go away anytime soon. This course offers a basic introduction to terrorism and political violence: the history of terrorism, how it functions, the ideology of those groups currently posing the greatest threat to the US, challenges posed by various approaches to countering the threat of terrorism, and so forth.

Readings: The primary text for this course is Inside Terrorism, Bruce Hoffman (Columbia University Press, 2003) available at Student Stories. Other readings will be available either on Blackboard or on e-reserve as noted in the syllabus.

Grades: There are three exams in this course, two one-hour exams worth 25%@ and a final exam worth 50%. Plain vanilla; full in-class and e-review for all three.

Course Schedule

(Note these topics do not correspond to dates. Some may take one class session, some more – we’ll take as long as we need to take and I’ll let you know at the end of each class whether we’ll be beginning a new topic during the next class or not.)

1. What Is Terrorism?

Hoffman Chapter 1

2. How Does Terrorism Function as a Strategy?

Hoffman Chapter 8

3. History of Terrorism

Hoffman Chapter 3

4. Modern Terrorism

Hoffman Chapter 2

5. Islamist Doctrine

Hoffman Chapter 4

6. al Queda Doctrine

(Outside readings, see Blackboard)

7. Suicide Bombing

Hoffman Chapter 5

8. Media (Ours) and Terrorism

Hoffman Chapter 6

9. Media (Theirs) and Terrorism

Hoffman Chapter 7 (may replace with Dauber, SSI monograph)

10. Counterterrorism

Pilar, e-reserve

11. Chemical-Biological-Nuclear Terrorism

Outside readings, see Blackboard