Some Unanticipated Consequences of Terrorism

Abstract The spread of terrorism in democratic societies forces one to examine once more the rela tionship between society and political violence. From a conceptualization of terrorism based on the cross between two types of characteristics (tactical-strategic; instrumental-finalistic) some observations appear which make common explanations of the causes of terrorism unsatisfactory. For this one might substitute the hypothesis that societies which must cope with terrorism are 'blocked', i. e. incapable of advancing and at the same time immune to disintegration. In this interpretation, the appearance of terrorism becomes an indicator that the society in question is only apparently democratic. But, at the same time, this study denounces the inability of terrorism to eliminate the block, to the point of involuntarily acting as a restabilizing element.