An Evolutionary Approach to Techniques of Political Violence

The field of terrorism studies has been repeatedly accused of omitting hundreds of years of political violence which could be incorporated into terrorism literature and of lacking a definite historical approach. Research on terrorism has largely limited its study of historical instances by concentrating on the contemporary phenomenon of terrorism and likening recent instances to similar forms of violent behaviour throughout history. These studies anachronistically impose current conceptions of terrorism on to historical events, comparing and equating modern terrorism to a select few historical incidents, thus decontextualizing historical events by imposing upon them a reductive understanding based on modern experience, and ignoring that these acts had different aims, used different tactics, and were interpreted in different ways at the times in which they took place. In order to redress this gap in the current literature, this paper proposes of a new methodology which not only reconceptualises terrorism, but also provides a sound model which can be used to examine the evolution and spread of techniques of political violence commonly associated with terrorism. In order to advance the understanding of how and when techniques associated with terrorism enter various repertoires of contention, this paper moves beyond definitional debates, eschewing some of the modern definitions of terrorism which are overly concerned by the modern appearance of the phenomenon. Instead, it is argued that terrorism should be viewed as an umbrella term for a wide range of techniques viewed (by the societies in which they are enacted) as illegitimate means of collective action aimed at making political claims and seeking to influence political processes and outcomes. This conceptualisation of terrorism treats various techniques of political violence as single epistemological entities which are affected by an evolutionary process. To understand why certain techniques of political violence arose, spread, ensued and disappeared in Western Europe, a model loosely based on the application of an evolutionary approach is introduced. This model advances three arguments: (1) techniques of political violence have variation in fixed traits, behavioral patterns, or tendencies; (2) these traits, patterns or tendencies can be transferred either through reproduction or emulations; and (3) the relative rate of this transmission is partially determined by these traits’ usefulness in adapting to the technique’s ever-changing environment. Within this proposed model, the source of variation is environmental change, herein defined as changes in social, cultural, economic, political or religious contexts, and including technological and scientific advances. This evolutionary approach allows us to conceptualize each different technique of political violence as one variant among many which may have undergone a range of mutations in the past in its development toward its current form. As with any entity, each technique’s development can therefore be traced by looking at its predecessors, some of whose mutations will have survived and been reproduced (and will have undergone further mutation), and some of which will have died out.