The Historical Roots of Terrorism
Barcelona Summer School in Global Politics, Development and Security
- 6 hour course by Ignacio Sánchez Cuenca (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)
- June 26, 27 and 28
(3.00 - 5.00 pm)
This course is about terrorism onset. Following a comparative approach, the question is why terrorism emerges in some countries and periods but not in others. In order to answer this question, long-term or historical factors are analyzed. This assumes that terrorism cannot be fully explained by contemporary variables. Particular attention will be paid to the wave of revolutionary (or radical Left) terrorism that hit affluent countries in the seventies and eighties of the 20th century. It will be shown that this terrorism has its roots in the ways in which the capital-labor conflict was dealt with in the interwar period. The potential application of historical explanations to other cases of terrorism will be discussed.