The 'New' Terrorism: Causes, Conditions, and Conflict Resolution
by
Dennis J. D. SANDOLE
Professor of Conflict Resolution and International Relations
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution (ICAR)
George Mason University, USA
ABSTRACT
This talk addresses the tendency for busy policymakers -- if not most humans -- to respond to complex conflicts, including their violent (e.g., terrorist)
manifestations, by addressing only their symptoms (e.g., number of attacks,
number of people killed, monetary value of destroyed property).
The presenter proposes that we will never deal effectively with the 'new'
(9/11-type) terrorism unless we move beyond symptoms to deal also with the
underlying conflicted relationships which give rise to the symptoms, and then
ultimately with the deep-rooted causes and conditions of those fractured
relationships.
The presenter offers a comprehensive framework to facilitate doing precisely
that: to analyze any particular act of terrorism in terms of the elements of
the conflicted relationship that has given rise to it and then by exploring
the complex, multi-level causes and conditions of the conflicted relationship
in order to design effective responses to it, including its terrorist
expression.
