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along with the hypothesis that it is the manifestation of an ongoing process whose final outcome is cosmopolitanism (or the erasure of any nonglobal, nonecumenical sense of belonging), has prompted sociologists to study the phenomenon empirically by focusing on the subjective definition of belonging provided by individuals with reference to themselves. Taking the process of growing systemization at the ‘‘energetic’’ level for granted, attention has been focused on how the phenomenon is subjectively reflected in the subjective definition individuals give to their territorial belongings. The aim of these studies has been to single out the factors that induce a person to feel that she or he belongs primarily to one unit rather than to another and, more generally, why she or he expresses a primarily cosmopolitan sense of belonging rather than one anchored in a particular geographic unit. Other studies have explored attachment to units of a particular size (home and neighborhood, local community, region, nation, continent, etc.).

The data gathered in both types of studies have included highly modernized contexts. On the home and neighborhood, see Fried and Gleicher (1961), Galster and Hesser (1981), and Fried (1982). On the local community, see Kasarda and Janowitz (1974), Rojek et al. (1975), Taylor and Townsend (1976), Wasserman (1982), Fried (1982), Goudy (1990), and Beggs et al. (1996). On regional units, see Piveteau (1969) and Gubert (1997). On belongings and national pride, apart from studies of nationalism and ethnicity, see the European Values Study in Ashford and Timms (1992, pp. 89–91) and the World Values Study in Ingleheart (1997, pp.303–305). On territorial belongings on the localism–cosmopolitanism contiuum, see Treinen (1965), Gubert and Struffi (1987), Gubert (1992a), and Strassoldo and Tessarin (1992). These data confirm the complexity of the phenomenon of territorial belonging when it is defined subjectively (a sentiment of belonging). Subjectively felt belongings are multiple, and each has its own role to play; that is, they become socially important in accordance with the particular context, which may change rapidly. For example, the sense of national belonging is exalted during international sports events, but local and regional senses of belonging

emerge during sports events within a country. This multiplicity of territorial belongings therefore rules out their mutual exclusiveness; this emerges clearly when subjects are asked to declare the absolute level of attachment they feel to different territorial units (Gubert 1998).

It is probable that partly diversified belongings underlie this multiplicity. This diversity was not grasped in early empirical studies of the sentiment of belonging, which relied largely on relative measures of the strength of attachment to socioterritorial units arranged along a continuum, with the neighborhood and community at one extreme and cosmopolitanism at the other (Terhune 1965; Gubert 1972, p. 181). Relative measures also were used in later large-scale surveys such as the European Values Study and the World Values Study. It is difficult to imagine that a Pole’s identification with his or her nation is the same as his or her attachment to his or her place of residence. One may feel strongly Polish while also having close bonds with one’s local community, and this cannot be explained by a single-dimensional conception of localism–cosmopolitanism, which instead suggests a social experience in which the nation as a sociospatial unit has weaker emotional connotations.

Further evidence that feelings of belonging to diverse socioterritorial units differ is provided by analyses of the attitudes of subjects who declare that they do not feel attached to any particular territorial unit. These individuals may be called cosmopolitans, but their cosmopolitanism is not only the extreme position on the localism–cos- mopolitanism continuum; it is also symptomatic of difficulties of social integration, or anomie (Bertelli 1992). The distribution of the strength of socioterritorial belonging therefore measures not only the territorial size of the main social collectivities of reference but also the intensity of social integration, which in the case of declared nonbelonging to any territorial unit is markedly diminished, perhaps more in some cases than in others; therefore, cosmopolitanism is internally differentiated or heterogeneous. Parsons’s assumption that there is social belonging (and therefore loyalty and attachment) if there is social conformity—if, that is,

the subject conforms with the institutional obligations of solidarity (Parsons 1951)—receives empirical support in that a lack of social integration is connected with a lack of belonging to any socioterritorial unit.

Localism–cosmopolitanism as a single-dimen- sional continuum. Taken for granted (or given) the multiplicity of socioterritorial belongings and their partly diverse nature a further finding of empirical surveys concerns the relative importance of each of these belongings with respect to the others. It is assumed here that, to some extent, they express the localism–cosmopolitanism dimension and therefore can be plotted along a continuum.

When asked about the matter, even interviewees in highly modernized contexts tend to assign more importance to local belongings than to national and supranational ones. Overall, the two units that predominate are the commune and the nation or state. The importance of the other subnational and supracommunal units (province, region) depends on the structure of the public powers (the federal or nonfederal structure of the state) (Gubert 1995) or on whether an ethnic and/or national minority constitutes the majority in a subnational unit (Gubert 1975, p. 305). By contrast, the emergence of subcommunal units (neighborhoods, districts) depends on the settlement pattern of a commune: When it is articulated into several settlements (districts), importance is more frequently ascribed to subcommunal units, while the neighborhood acquires more importance when it constitutes a ‘‘natural area’’ within the communal settlement and has weak links with the rest of the urban territory.

If, rather than proposing a predetermined set of spatial units largely defined in political-adminis- trative terms, individuals who declare their attachment to a particular territory are asked to freely describe it, to give it a name or define its boundaries, the area of belonging is generally more circumscribed. Indeed, it is sometimes restricted to the domestic ambit and its immediate surroundings, with little consideration of supralocal spatial units (Gubert 1992b, pp. 266–277). One therefore may conclude that the immediate bond with a

territory is mainly local or microlocal and that only the mention of larger socioterritorial units prompts individuals to consider supralocal territorial attachments.

Between negation of the hypothesis of an evolution toward cosmopolitanism and the reasons for the persistence of localism in a modern society. Multiple regression analysis shows that the social conditions that orient people to cosmopolitan or supralocal belongings (e.g., higher educational level, greater geographic mobility, residence in a metropolis) attenuate local attachments, although they do not entirely eliminate them (Gubert 1992d, pp. 506–523). These conditions seeming to affect the intensity of territorial attachment, attenuating it all levels rather than eliminating its primacy at the local level. Residential mobility seems to multiply local attachments rather than creating a single cosmopolitan attachment (Rubinstein and Parmalee 1992, 1996; Gubert 1992b, pp. 326—330; Feldman 1996).

This phenomenon can be explained to some extent by the reasons adduced to account for the most important territorial attachments. These reasons mainly concern day-to-day living (Kasarda and Janowitz’s [1974] duration of residence) and the places of infancy and the family (Taylor and Townsend 1976); much less important are the physical characteristics of places (except for places which are morphologically very distinct, such as mountains and coastlines, partially confirming Fried’s [1982] argument) or utility and opportunity.

Therefore, the strongest territorial attachment is connected with strongly affective social relations or with affectively important individual experiences, such as those of a child who progressively establishes a relationship with his or her immediate surroundings.

It is evident that the geographic mobility for mainly utilitarian reasons (work, access to services, use of free time) typically induced by life in modern society does not affect this type of attachment greatly. For the same reason, little influence is exerted by educational level: Although it may extend relational ambits, it does so mainly for utilitarian reasons or ones tied to a person’s profes-

sional role (Webber 1964). This has evident consequences for the territorial area of matrimonial choice and the areas which contain a person’s best friends or relatives; these areas have increased in size, but they are nevertheless of modest proportions. Also, as was found for residential mobility, the consequence of this extension is more to increase the number of places of particular attachment than to induce an attachment to broader spatial units. In other words, the elasticity of relational ambits to the reduced costs of overcoming distance is much greater for secondary instrumental relationships than it is for primary relationships, especially family ones, which are firmly anchored in residence (Parsons 1951, p. 180 ff; 1960, p. 250 ff).

Regression analysis not of the size of the area of main attachment but of the (absolute) intensity of the feeling of belonging to it reveals, as was already mentioned, that the social conditions most typical of modernity (residence in large cities, geographic mobility, residential mobility, higher levels of education, secularization, ethical relativism, individualism, etc.) tend to attenuate the intensity of local attachment but do not erase it. Another explanation for the continuing primacy of local attachments over cosmopolitan ones is therefore that modernity tends to reduce the intensity of territorial belongings, but not to such a varied extent across territorial units that it alters the hierarchy of subjective importance assigned to them by most individuals. This sheds light on why the indicators of localism and cosmopolitanism with regard to the territorial extension of main attachments are determined by a factor independent of the one that groups together the indicators of the intensity of attachment (in any case, the correlation between the indicators is weak).

In addition to intensity, the features that connote greater ‘‘modernity’’ of ecological social and cultural positions in individuals exert a certain amount of influence on the social importance of the sentiment of territorial belonging (Gubert 1992d). Perception of the boundaries that mark the zone of principal attachment are less sharp: The inside–outside boundary, unless it is marked by obvious physical barriers against communica-

tion and vision, is not connected with the perception of distinct sociocultural differences and tends to assume the features of a zone rather than those of a line. The identifying features of the collectivity on the other side of the boundary, except in the case of physical barriers against communication or vision, display not abrupt discontinuities but gradual variations. Stereotypes and the ingroup–out- group opposition are not as marked as those which arise when racial or ethnic differences are involved.

Moreover, the multiplicity of territorial belongings and their dependence on the particular and contingent nature of the context prevent the onset of radical in-group–out-group conflicts. Factor analysis has shown that the intensity of territorial attachment and in-group–out-group opposition (which is measurable, for example, by acceptance or rejection of immigrants in the area of principal belonging) are independent factors. Feeling stronger attachment to a particular territory therefore is weakly correlated with greater hostility toward or less acceptance of outsiders. The explanation of variance in these attitudes has more to do with the sphere of interests than with that of territorial belongings.

Equally independent (or weakly correlated) are factors relative to the social significance of the sentiment of territorial belonging and indicators of the territorial extension of the most important units.

Expectations of a positive relation between modernity and cosmopolitanism are not borne out by the data, although cross-sectional analysis is not conclusive on this matter. Certainly contradicted are claims that cosmopolitan attachments predominate in contemporary societies. What the advance of modernity seems to have done is breed a plurality of territorial belongings and reduce their intensity and social significance.

Distribution models of territorial attachments.

Having ascertained that territorial attachment is felt mainly at the local level (the primary community of everyday life), one may inquire about the distribution pattern of the intensity of territorial attachment, extending the analysis to ambits that do not occupy the highest position in the hierarchy of spatial units.

Once again, the most detailed surveys have been carried out in Italy, a country where the dialectic among localism, nationalism, and cosmopolitanism is particularly lively. If one considers the first three positions in a decreasing scale of attachment from subcommunal units to the whole world, it is possible to identify the most common and significant rank orderings (Gubert 1992b, pp. 279–281). By far the most prevalent is a model one may call ‘‘lococentric:’’ Territorial units diminish in importance as they grow larger. In three-dimen- sional space, where a two-dimensional geographic plane constitutes the horizontal axes and the relative intensity of territorial attachment is the vertical axis, they assume a cone shape whose apex is the smallest spatial unit.

Two other patterns emerge: the opposite model (upside-down cone), where the importance of a territorial unit decreases as one moves from broader to narrower spatial units, and, more commonly, a volcano-shaped model, a variant of the cone where the greatest importance is attributed to intermediate units, the next greatest importance to smaller units, and the least importance to larger ones.

Despite the prevalence of the lococentric model, a model that might develop instead of the ‘‘cosmopolitan’’ one (upside-down cone) as a consequence of the continuing advance of modernity is the volcano model, which places greater emphasis on supralocal sociospatial units compared with smaller communal or subcommunal ones, but without the units assuming greater importance as they become more inclusive and extensive. This is a type of territoriality that reflects adaptation to the extension of relational spaces beyond the settlement of residence that assumes a form other than cosmopolitanism.

CONCLUSIONS

Sociological research into territorial belonging as it is subjectively defined by self-reference contradicts the claim that the extension of relational spaces and the increased frequency of relations across larger distances (continental and global) have led to the superseding of local or at least

noncosmopolitan attachments. Attachment to local ambits still largely predominates. If anything, one discerns adaptations of a different kind, such as the increased complexity of the subjectively felt territorial bond and its closer dependence on changing contexts, the diminished intensity and social significance of various kinds of attachment, and a shift of primary attachment from the local level to one midway between localness and ecumene (the inhabited world). Rejection of any particular territorial attachment that might represent the outcome of cosmopolitan development is at least partly due to a lack of social integration.

Predictions that the demise of Toennies’s Gemeischaft and Durkheim’s segmentary society would indicate the end of the overriding importance of attachment to particular places is not supported by empirical inquiry. Toennies’s Gemeinschaft has disappeared from modern society, but territorially restricted areas still have social relations of a communitarian nature, that is, relation in which community action in Weber’s sense (Weber [1922] 1972, p. 21) predominates.

However, this may not explain the facts unless one refers to Pareto’s assertion (1916, vol. II, sections 112–120, 1023–1041; Treinen 1965) that the sentiment of territorial belonging is a ‘‘residue’’ that can be included among those of the ‘‘persistence of aggregates.’’ A sentiment springs from the psychological association between emotionally significant experiences and the context in which they happen. For example, emotionally positive experiences tied to childhood and the family and relationships involving sexuality are positively associated with the places in which they have occurred. This gives rise to deep emotional bonds with those places, bonds that lie beyond reasoning or rationalization. In Pareto’s account, the attachment to places thus depends not on the communitarian or societal nature of the collectivity settled in the place of residence but instead on the fact that the most emotionally significant experiences in a person’s life necessarily occur in a territorially limited context, if only because of the limits imposed by the perceptive horizon. This also explains why the dispersion of these emotionally significant experiences tends more to multiply

the places of attachment than to create broad and inclusive attachments.

The technical progress of the means of communications and the means of transportation that facilitate the expansion of relational ambits, the individualization and secularization of culture, and the proliferation of the utilitarian businesslike relationships of Gesellschaft have had little or no effect on the processes that, according to Pareto’s theory, cause the birth and persistence of attachment to place. As the negation of a particular bond with a particular place, cosmopolitanism unless it is not an ideological position that is deliberately assumed and declared to the interviewer, therefore may be a symptom of social marginalization caused by a lack of emotionally significant positive experiences. It is thus only rarely caused by the extreme territorial dispersion of those experiences and much more frequently caused by other personal and family events.

There are a number of reservations about the premises of the phenomenon known as globalization. Although relational ambits certainly extend over broader areas or, more precisely, relations have increased in intensity in even the largest of those areas, there is little evidence that the relative intensity of relations has increased. One cannot rule out the possibility that a diminution in the ‘‘friction of space’’ has intensified relations with all the territorial levels into which social life is structured, and it is likely that the intensification at medium and low levels is even greater for certain types of relation than it is at higher and broader ones. The increase in international trade, for example, does not mean that the system is becoming increasingly globalized; the increase may be greater at the national and regional levels, and so in relative terms, regional and national systems have become more self-con- tained (Deutsch 1960; Deutsch and Eckstein 1960– 1961). The unproven assumption that the increase in the absolute density of relations has been accompanied by an increase in their relative density is credited to the existence of globalization processes that may not exist or may exist only for particular types of relations. Moreover, it is evident that in subjective perception (and not only in this area), the importance of the various levels

depends much more on their relative density than on their absolute density.

If more detailed empirical research confirms the validity of these remarks, the persisting primacy of local, or at least noncosmopolitan, belongings may be explained not only by Paretian hypotheses but also by the predominance at the relational level of local, regional, and national systems compared with continental and global ones.

Belonging as being part of is a phenomenon of central importance in sociological analysis. Territorial belonging is only one way to manifest social belonging. It may be associated with (ethnic and national belonging) or in competition with (membership in universal religions or international interest groups) other forms of social belonging. It also is a complex phenomenon, but it nevertheless seems to be characterized by features more durable than those of other social or group belongings. It resembles ethnic and national belongings but may be less exposed to change if the Paretian hypothesis is correct. It is a phenomenon that probably is grounded in enduring features of human experience, in what once might have been called human nature. Even the dissolution of Toennies’s Gemeinschaft into a nonorganic assembly of communitarian relations or the reduction of these relations to simple human relations confined to interindividual space has not severed the bond felt by individuals with the places where they had their most emotionally significant and gratifying personal experiences. Theories of modernity should take account of this fact, and the historicist paradigms that hypothesize a progressive evolution toward cosmopolitanism should be revised. Empirical research must continue, enrich itself with longitudinal surveys, and increase the number of cases observed. Feeling part of a territory and feeling tied to places are still important phenomena in numerous areas of social life.

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TERRORISM

Terrorism became an issue of worldwide concern in the last third of the twentieth century. Terrorist tactics were not new; they had been used for centuries before being defined as terrorism. The word ‘‘terror’’ entered the political lexicon during the French Revolution’s ‘‘reign of terror.’’ In the late nineteenth century, at the beginning of the twentieth, and again in the 1920s and 1950s—all periods between major wars on the European continents—terrorism became a technique of revolutionary struggle. Stalin’s regime in the 1930s and 1940s was called a reign of terror, but from the late 1940s to the 1960s the word was associated primarily with the armed struggles for independence waged in Palestine and Algeria, from which later generations of terrorists took their inspiration and instruction. After World War II, ‘‘terror’’ emerged

as a component of nuclear strategy; the fear of mutual destruction that would deter nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union was referred to as a balance of terror.

In the 1970s, ‘‘terrorism’’ became a fad word, promiscuously applied to a wide spectrum of conditions and actions. Bombs in public places were one form of terrorism, but some people asserted that oppression, poverty, hunger, racism, gang violence, spousal or child abuse, environmental destruction, and even medical malpractice were also forms of terrorism. Some governments labeled as terrorism all violent acts committed by their opponents, while antigovernment extremities claimed to be, and often were, the victims of government terror.

In an effort to get a firm hold on a slippery subject, those studying the phenomenon of terrorism were obliged to define it more precisely. Terrorism could be described simply as the use or threat of violence to create an atmosphere of fear and alarm and thus bring about a political result. But making this definition operative in political debate, rules of war, or criminal codes was anything but easy. Is all politically motivated violence terrorism? How does terrorism differ from ordinary crime? Should terrorism be considered a crime at all, or should it be seen as simply another form of armed conflict that is no less legitimate than any other form of war? Is the term properly reserved for those trying to overthrow governments, or can governments also be terrorists?

Definition was crucial because it ultimately determined the way in which terrorism has been studied. A major problem was that terrorism almost always has a pejorative connotation and thus falls in the same category of words as ‘‘tyranny’’ and ‘‘genocide,’’ unlike such relatively neutral terms such as ‘‘war’’ and ‘‘revolution.’’ One can aspire to objective and dispassionate research, but one cannot be neutral about terrorism any more than one can be neutral about torture. Thus, defining terrorism became an effort not only to delineate a subject area but also to maintain its illegitimacy. Even the most clinical inquiry was laden with values and therefore political issues. The very

study of terrorism implied to some a political decision.

Terrorism can be defined objectively by the quality of the act, not by the identity of the perpetrators or the nature of their cause. All terrorist acts are crimes, and many also would be war crimes or ‘‘grave breaches’’ of the rules of war if one accepted the terrorists’ assertion that they wage war. All terrorist acts involve violence or the threat of violence, sometimes coupled with explicit demands. The violence is directed against noncombatants. The purposes are political. The actions often are carried out in a way that will achieve maximum publicity, and the perpetrators are usually members of an organized group.

Terrorist organizations are by necessity clandestine, but unlike other criminals, terrorists often but not always claim credit for their acts. Finally—the hallmark of terrorism—the acts are intended to produce psychological effects. This introduces a distinction between the actual victims of terrorist violence and the target audience. The connection between the victim and the target of terrorism can be remote. The identity of the victims may be secondary or even irrelevant to the terrorist cause. ‘‘Pure terrorism’’ is entirely indiscriminate violence.

Terrorism differs from ordinary crime in its political purpose and its primary objective. However, not all politically motivated violence is terrorism, nor is terrorism synonymous with guerilla war or any other kind of war.

Terrorist techniques can be used by governments or those fighting against governments: however, scholars generally use the term ‘‘terror’’ when discussing fear-producing tactics employed by governments and ‘‘terrorism’’ when referring to tactics used by those fighting against governments. The distinction is primarily semantic. Both groups may use threats, assassinations, or abductions, but government terror also may include arbitrary imprisonment, concentration camps, torture, mindaffecting techniques, and the use of drugs for political purposes. Antigovernment terrorists generally lack the infrastructure for such tactics. Government terror produces more victims than terrorism does. Terrorists tend to seek more publicity than do governments.

Although a prerequisite to empirical research, the attempt to define terrorism inevitably lent greater coherence to disparate acts of violence than did any analysis offered by the terrorists themselves, few of whom thought of assassinations, bombings, kidnappings, and airline hijackings as elements of a unified tactical repertoire, let alone the basis of a strategy. Ironically, in an effort to understand a phenomenon, researchers ran the risk of attributing to terrorists a level of strategic thinking they may not have possessed.

The term ‘‘international terrorism’’ refers to terrorist attacks on foreign targets or the crossing of national frontiers to carry out terrorist attacks. It was the dramatic rise in international terror- ism—especially in the form of attacks on diplomats and commercial aviation in the late 1960s— that caused mounting alarm on the part of governments not directly involved in those local conflicts.

Although terrorist tactics were centuries old, contemporary terrorism, especially in its international form, emerged in the late 1960s from a unique confluence of political circumstances and technological developments. The political circumstances included the failure of the rural guerrilla movements in Latin America, which persuaded the guerrilla movements to take their armed struggles into the cities, where, through the use of dramatic actions such as kidnappings, they could be assured of attracting national and international attention. Their actions also provoked terrorist responses by governments that resorted to using ‘‘disappearances’’ of suspected guerrillas and their supporters, torture, and other tactics of terror.

In the Middle East, the failure of the Arab armies in the Six-Day War in 1967 caused the Palestinians to abandon dependence on Arab military power to achieve their aims and rely more heavily on the tactics of terrorism with the approval of some Arab governments. Israel retaliated with both military attacks and assassinations of suspected terrorist leaders.

The third political root of contemporary terrorism grew from widespread antigovernment demonstrations in universities in western Europe, Japan, and the United States that were provoked in

large measure but not exclusively by the war in Vietnam. By no stretch of the imagination could these antigovernment protests be called acts of terrorism, but the mass marches spawned extremist fringes that were inspired by third world guerrilla movements to carry on an armed struggle even after the student movements subsided.

Technological advances were equally important. Developments in communications—radio, television, communication satellites—made possible almost instantaneous access to global audiences, which was critical for a mode of violence aimed at publicity. Modern air travel provided terrorists with worldwide mobility and a choice of targets. Modern society’s dependence on technology created new vulnerabilities. Global weapons production guaranteed a supply of guns and explosives.

Once the tactics of terrorism were displayed worldwide, they provided inspiration and instruction for other groups, and terrorism became a selfperpetuating phenomenon.

The 1980s saw a new form of international terrorism: state-sponsored terrorism. Some governments began to use terrorist tactics or employ those tactics as a mode of surrogate warfare. Unlike government-directed terror, which is primarily domestic, state-sponsored terrorism is directed against foreign governments or domestic foes abroad. International diplomacy, economic sanctions, and in some cases, military actions brought about a reduction in this type of terrorism in the 1990s.

Despite great differences in political perspectives and outlook toward armed conflict, the international community gradually came to accept at least a partial definition of terrorism and prohibited certain tactics and attacks on certain targets. This approach reflected that of the academic community, focusing on the terrorist act and rejecting judgment based on the political objective or cause behind an act. Thus, by 1985, the United Nations General Assembly unanimously condemned international terrorism, including but not limited to acts covered by previous treaties against airline hijacking, sabotage of aircraft, attacks at civil air-

ports, attacks against maritime navigation and offshore platforms, attacks in any form against internationally protected persons (i.e., diplomats), and the taking of hostages.

By 1998, there were ten multilateral counterterrorism agreements that covered roughly half of all incidents of international terrorism but omitted primarily bombings of targets other than airlines or diplomatic facilities. One difficulty in delineating this type of terrorist act was distinguishing between terrorist bombings and aerial bombardment, which is considered a legitimate form of war. The rules of war prohibit indiscriminate bombing, thus providing at least a theoretical distinction between war and terrorism, although even with modern precision-guided munitions, collateral civilian casualties from aerial bombing in populated areas may fastly exceed casualties caused by the deliberate, indiscriminate bombs of terrorists.

In 1998, an International Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings attempted to address this lacuna. Unable to draw a clear distinction between terrorist bombings and other types of bombings, the treaty stated that the ‘‘activities of armed forces during an armed conflict . . . and the activities undertaken by military forces by a state in the exercise of their official duties, inasmuch as they are governed by other rules of international law, are not governed by this Convention.’’

Terrorism is a subject matter, not a discipline. It has been approached by scholars from various academic perspectives with political scientists in the lead. Psychologists and psychiatrists have examined individual and group behavior, while jurists have formulated international legal approaches. Sociologists have not played a major role in research focusing specifically on terrorism but have addressed it in the broader context of deviance or social control.

Much research on terrorism has focused more narrowly on the topic. In part, this reflects the desire of researchers to avoid the murky, politically loaded area of underlying causes, where any discussion might be seen as condemnation or rationalization of terrorist violence. Nonetheless, there have been excellent case studies of individual groups and their tactics.

Defining terrorism in terms of the act has enabled researchers to maintain a theoretically objective approach and conduct at least some primitive quantitative analysis. Event-based analysis has enabled them to discern broad patterns and trends and chart the growth of terrorism and its diffusion around the globe. They have been able to demonstrate statistically that as terrorism has increased in volume, it has also become bloodier. Researchers were able to illustrate a clear trend toward incidents of large-scale indiscriminate violence in the 1980s and infer that terrorists tend to be more imitative than innovative in their tactics. Event-based analysis also has permitted researchers to distinguish the operational profiles of specific terrorist groups, and these profiles have been useful in identifying changes in a group’s modus operandi.

At the same time, event-based analysis has led the analysts into some methodological traps. An exclusive focus on terrorist actions, for example, resulted in terrorists being viewed first as if they were all part of a single entity and second as if they were almost extraterrestrial. While there are connections and alliances among some terrorist groups, the only thing the terrorists of the world have in common is a propensity for violence and certain tactics. Moreover, each group is rooted in its own social, political, and cultural soil, and cross-na- tional comparisons are difficult. This has led to the question of whether there is such a thing as a terrorist-prone society.

It is, however, dangerous to attribute the actions of a few to perceived political defects or cultural flaws of a society as a whole, and researchers’ attempts to discern deeper causes or conditions that lead to high levels of terrorism in certain societies have produced meager results. Terrorism is not demonstrably a response to poverty or political oppression. The liberal democracies of western Europe have suffered high levels of terrorist violence, while totalitarian states are virtually free of terrorism. Overall, countries with perceived terrorist problems tend to be comparatively advanced politically and economically. They are more highly urbanized and have higher per capita incomes, larger middle classes, more university stu-