Sociology 3363F/G Lecture 4: week-4
17 Dec 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
There is no such thing as an act of violence that is in and of itself inherently terrorism (cf. murder) Terrorism is perhaps best understood as a particular method of political violence. Over time, the psychological impact of terrorism has become a definitional paradox- difficult to define terrorism in terms of instilling terror . By de-emphasizing the terror" in terrorism, the definition facilities observation-never defines a term its root word. Because you unfold the paradox of defining terrorism through reference to terror. Sociologists are interested in studying society as an object of analysis. So how do we study something that lacks a definition. Now we have arrived at a (possible) definition for terrorism, we can begin to explore it as a social phenomenon. As part of scientific method, we move from operationalization of key concepts (definitions), to theories, to hypothesis, to testing of those theories/hypotheses.
