Addressing the root causes of terrorism : an analysis of post 9/11

Abstract

This thesis tackles the Root Causes of Terrorism, focusing in particularly on the on-going debates regarding the root causes, and analysing September 11th attacks, as well as the Madrid, London and Bali bombings, as case-studies, to verify whether these debates are useful to the suppression of terrorism. There were many suggestions that such debates are not needed in view of the fact that whatever the motivations, terrorism can never be justified. This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part relates to the literature review which can also be regarded as the theoretic part, because it tackles the different opinions of scholars, academics and politicians. Moreover, there are also expert opinions taken from three major conferences, namely the Oslo Expert Meeting, entitled Root Causes of Terrorism held between 9-11th June 2003, The International Summit on Democracy, terrorism and security held between the 8- 11 March 2005 in Madrid, and a Conference on the Roots of Evil, Fighting Terrorism for humanity, which was held in New York on the 22nd September 2003. The following two chapters refer to the practical part, namely the actual bombings in the Atlantic, European and Asian Continents to get a global picture. The conclusion deals with what has resulted as being the real root causes from my analysis.