The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Bombs falling (graffiti on a wall of Beirut, Lebanon). Enara Echart Munõz. All rights reserved.What we call “terrorism,” a concept which requires clarification, has in the span of half a century shifted from one configuration to another. From the late 1960s up till the end of the 1980s, its analysis fell under “methodological nationalism,” to use the words of late lamented sociologist Ulrich Beck.
The phenomenon was essentially inscribed within the nation-state, or the interaction between them – so-called international relations. Internally, it applied mostly to the extreme right (of Fascist bent, for example), the extreme left (especially Italy and Germany) or to regional separatist movements (as in Ireland or the Basque country). Internationally, it stood first and foremost for the Palestinian cause.
