The concept of revolutionary terrorism

A recent article by Sartori stresses the importance for comparative politics of the construction of basic concepts which are discriminatory and classificatory, enabling to study one thing at a time and different things at different times (1970, p. 1040). Sartori emphasizes the need for precise conceptual connotation; only by making the definitional attributes of a concept more exact, rather than by increasing their number to extend the range of the concept, does retain the possibility of empirically testing the concept. The article concludes that the most needed concepts are on a middle-level of abstraction, combining high explanatory power with precise descriptive content (p. 1052). Although the contemporary importance of the phenomenon of insurgent terrorism in internal war is undeniable, a review of theoretical literature on the subject reveals the absence of a concept of terrorism, defined in accordance with Sartori's requirements.