| Summary/Abstract |
Despite ongoing debate, most definitions of terrorism agree that it involves violence against civilians by state or non-state actors intended to send a broader message to an audience well beyond the victims. The targeting of civilians to achieve a political or other goal is widely considered to differentiate terrorism from other forms of political violence. But as this article shows, many other forms of political violence against civilians by both state and non-state actors also hold communicative intent, including hate crimes, riots, group violence during and after conflicts and mass killing and genocide. Despite this, these forms of violence are rarely classified as terrorism. I contend that the concept of terrorism fails to differentiate between many forms of political violence. This article contends that the frequency with which militant actors (both state and non-state) use violence against civilians to intimidate and influence a broader audience means that the term terrorism should be abandoned in favor of a less emotive and selectively applied term. I propose the term Politically Motivated Killing of Civilians.
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