Putting historical materialism into terrorism studies

Contemporary discourse in terrorism studies have been polarised into two dominant schools of thought—Orthodox tradition and Critical terrorism studies (CTS). Orthodox approach argued that state has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and that terrorism is carried out by non-state actors only. While critical theorists critique orthodox approach for ignoring terrorism used by the state against its own citizens, and argued that terrorism and its nature is not limited to violent acts itself but depends on the context, circumstance and intention. In this paper, the author offered the critique of both theoretical schools for failing to provide a class analysis of terrorism, and then introduce Historical Materialism (HM) as theoretical perspective to fill this knowledge gap. HM approach to terrorism uses Karl Marx’s materialist conception of history and argued that there are two form of terrorism—Individual terrorism and State terrorism, and these forms of terrorism are used by all classes in the society or state (the ruling class, working class and the lumpen class) whenever their interests is undermined or likely to be undermined. With HM approach to terrorism, the paper concluded that terrorism is an inevitable feature of the contemporary global capitalist of mode of production such that the use of terror is the tactics of all classes in the society or state rather than that of the lumpen (suppressed) class.