Therefore, for Political Scientists like myself, it is especially important to distinguish between political violence and other forms of violence (such as more ‘ordinary’ crimes like fraud, murder, etc).

In studying terrorism, Political Scientists have realized that signficant ambiguity exists as to what exactly constitutes “terrorism” at any given point of time or environment. This is not a deliberate result of political science, but reflects a response to the international environment. Since, terrorism (and actors) are politically motivated, there has been no strong international consensus on a specific statement defining this phenomenon, whether among governments/nation-states or non-governemental actors. In the search for an objective study of terrorism, Political Scientists themselves have struggled to create a set of descriptions for terrorism that takes into the reality that nation-states will act on behalf of their own interests, while attempting to avoid making value judgments over the national interests of nation-states. How nation-states define terrorism is as a much a product of their adherence to their own national interests at a given time as other factors, and so Political Scientists try to avoid getting caught in the subjectivity net national interests create. I would expect a similar process of analyzing terrorism to occur any respectable news agency with strong journalistically professional credentials/reputation.

There are, however, some basic general characteristics that Political Scientists have identified for terrorism. These basic guidelines help not only to distinguish between political violence and other forms of violence, but also to distinguish between terrorism and other forms of political violence (such as riots, coups, and to some extent guerrilla warfare). If my memory serves me well, the general characteristics of terrorism violence are:

(1). the act of violence must be politically motivated (eg’s destablize a government, eliminate a government’s monopoly over the use of violence, or to extract concessions from a government);

(2) the act of violence must be performed for an audience/media–hence the increasing dramatism and intensity of terrorist acts over time;

(3) the act of violence must be at least intended to provoke wide-spread fear, confusion, disorientation among the population—hence the increasing dramatism and intensity of terrorist acts over time;

(4)the act of violence must be a deliberate effort to target innocent civilians (”non-combatants”) in addition to non-civilian targets, either through actual direct attack on non-combatants or indirectly through fear (see #3).

Government structures do not necessarily have to be included in the mix of targets in a given attack or plan of attack, as recent trends involving greater frequencies of non-government (i.e. civilian & non-combatant) targets have emerged. The main point here is satisfying the intention to target civilian/non-combatants either directly or indirectly as mentioned above. But attacks against government structures that intended to provoke concerns about security and public safety could also potentially be considered as a terrorism if a political motivation to it is attached/associated.

Terrorist acts can be:

a) conducted by governments,

b) sponsored (but not directly or even indirectly conducted by) nation-states/governments,

c) can be conducted by non-state private actors, whether they operate internationally, regionally, or within a country.

As you can see, defining “terrorism” can entail an enormously complex set of tasks and analyses. While treading this complexity carefully can lead to charges of “not being resolute,” moving away from a careful and thoughtful approach to analysis and reporting can lead to serious inaccuracies. It is important that one remains resolute in opposing terrorism. It is equally and sigificantly important that a high level of objectivity and accuracy be maintained during identification and analysis as well. Fall, this balance is very tricky and much easier said than done.