Terrorism versus insurgency: a conceptual analysis

Abstract

This study analyzes the distinction between terrorism and insurgency by drawing upon the case of the PKK conflict in Turkey. It provides a conceptual discussion through multi-dimensional analyses from the actor-oriented, the actionoriented, the purpose-oriented, and the ontology-oriented perspectives. In so doing, in addition to the organizational characteristics, it critically identifies the PKK's varying strategies of terrorist and insurgent violence, and their temporality and reasoning as the conflict unfolded to make conceptual inferences. This study found, first, that while the PKK as an actor indicates an insurgent character, the PKK's use of violence reflects intense terrorism action particularly after its military defeat. Second, the use of terrorism by the PKK reflects an inextricable overlap in temporality and a direct link with guerilla methods. Despite the PKK's terrorist and insurgent violence resulted from different factors and reasoning at the intermediate level; they are designed to converge at the overall aim of the PKK's political campaign. Third, the PKK violence reflects varying purposes of terrorism, e.g., intimidation, attrition, survival and group solidarity. Fourth, after reaching the tipping point that resulted in its military defeat in 1994, the PKK resorted to more indirect and asymmetrical violence in an increasing tendency to deflect state power and, thus, to coerce Turkey into a political compromise, i.e., a negotiated settlement.

Insurgency and Nigeria’s Relations with Her Immediate Neighbors in the Twenty-first Century

“…Failure in this aspect prompted consideration of some terrorist groups as insurgent groups or conversely. This is notwithstanding the earlier studies done regarding the conceptual analysis of insurgency (Ünal 2016;Underhill 2014). Thus, it is highly paramount to conceptualize insurgency within the framework of the uprising to avoid constant abuse and misconception created by some authors and at the same time to generate often abandoned nuanced difference between insurgency and, most notably, terrorism.…”

“…Aside from the aforementioned shared property, both insurgency and terrorism are different in many areas such as means of confrontation, targets, widespread support, and overarching objectives. While terrorism is a method of utilizing smaller number of clandestine individuals (Merari 1993) to indiscriminately attack civilians with the motive of calling the attention of the government to issues, insurgency is a ferocious movement that attracts relative popular support of a larger number of committed individuals who confront conventional forces through political and military engagement for the motive of deposing national leaders or carving out territory (Ünal 2016). Most importantly, the act of overthrowing the government in power or subduing a region for political domination consciously differentiates insurgency from terrorism (Merari 1993).…”

Engagement in licit ventures by terrorist organisations and terrorism financing in the Lake Chad region

“…The concept of Terrorism considered by some scholars as a strategy of insurgency (Merari, 1993;Unal, 2016) has been used interchangeably with insurgency (Hentz & Solomon, 2017). In this study, we have also adopted the usage of the two concepts to convey the same meaning.…”

Deciphering the crime-terror Nexus: an empirical analysis of the structural characteristics of terrorists in Narco-terror networks

“…Literature on this contentious issue provides multi-perspective approach and particularly distinguishes the actor-oriented and actionoriented approaches, which suits well to the case of the PKK. Ünal [26], in an empirical study, argues that while the PKK indicates an insurgent character as an actor, its use of violence reflects intense terrorist action, particularly after its military defeat in 1994, when the PKK shifted to revolutionary terrorism from a direct guerilla fight [61]. Yet, PKK's use of terrorism temporally overlaps with its guerilla methods and resulting from different factors and reasoning at the intermediate level, the PKK's terrorist and insurgent violence are designed to supplement for the overall aim of the PKK's political campaign, namely coercing Turkey into a political compromise, i.e., a negotiated settlement.…”

“…Given the aforementioned, this study focuses on the drug-terror nexus in the Turkish context-between Central Asia and Europe-by examining randomly sampled five narco-terror networks that had links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê, PKK)-an insurgent group employing guerrilla and terrorism as a method [26]. Turkey, like many other countries, is positioned at a juncture where drug trafficking and terrorism intersect [1,4,27].…”