Is Terrorism Really a Weapon of the Weak? Debunking the Conventional Wisdom

• Author: Virginia Page Fortna
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00220027221121143
• Published date: 01 April 2023
• Date: 01 April 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Journal of Conf‌lict Resolution

2023, Vol. 67(4) 642–671

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/00220027221121143

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Is Terrorism Really a Weapon

of the Weak? Debunking the

Conventional Wisdom

Virginia Page Fortna

1



Abstract

That terrorism is a “weapon of the weak”is such deeply held conventional wisdom it

has become almost a clich´

e. “Weak”means many different things in the literature,

however, and little rigorous empirical research has tested the contention that weaker

groups, however conceived, are more likely to employ terrorism. This article explores

prominent weapon of the weak arguments to develop testable hypotheses about group

strength and the prevalence of terrorism. Using measures of deliberately indiscriminate

attacks on civilians by rebel groups in civil conf‌licts, as well as multiple measures of

rebel strength, it examines systematically whether weaker groups are more likely to

employ terrorism. I f‌ind surprisingly little empirical support for the conventional

wisdom. There is no clear or consistent evidence that deliberately indiscriminate

terrorism is a weapon of the weak rather than the strong.

Keywords

terrorism, civil wars, rebellion, capabilities, civilian casualties, conf‌lict, internal armed

conf‌lict, power

Terrorism is frequently said to be a “weapon of the weak.”

1

Indeed, this conception is so

common in the terrorism literature that it is almost a clich´

e.

2

However, little empirical

work has tested whether weaker groups are more likely to employ terrorism than

1

Department of Political Science, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Virginia Page Fortna, Political Science, Colimbia University, 420 W. 118th St, 13th f‌loor, New York, NY

10027, USA.

Email: vpf4@columbia.edu

stronger ones; it is simply taken as a given. Is the truism that terrorism is a weapon of the

weak true?

The conventional wisdom is also undertheorized. What people mean by “weak”

varies considerably, and however it is conceived, the rationale for why weaker groups

should be more likely than strong ones to employ terrorism is rarely articulated. This

article does not propose new theory so much as explore prominent existing arguments

to elicit clear empirical hypotheses about strength and the prevalence of terrorism. I test

these in the context of civil conf‌licts. I focus on deliberately indiscriminate terrorism as

the form of terrorism for which weapon-of-the-weak arguments should be most

applicable.

While some variations of the argument fare better than others, I f‌ind remarkably thin

support for the deeply held conventional wisdom that terrorism is a weapon of the

weak, despite numerous research decisions designed to make for an easy test of the

argument. Given the ubiquity of the claim in the academic literature, policy discussions,

and journalism, this absence of evidence is substantively important.

Def‌ining “Terrorism”

Terrorism is a loaded term, making def‌initions notoriously contentious. As another

clich´

e goes, ‘one person’s terrorist is another’s freedom f‌ighter,’perhaps particularly so

in the context of civil wars. The term is also often used inconsistently, in politically

biased ways. I def‌ine terrorism as political violence against public civilian targets to

inf‌luence a wider audience. In this project, I focus on deliberately indiscriminate

attacks on civilians. This def‌inition captures aspects considered fundamental in the

terrorism literature.

3

Like many, but not all def‌initions of terrorism, mine focuses on

deliberate attacks on civilians, excluding attacks on military and state targets that all

rebels conduct by def‌inition.

4

I narrow the focus further to exclude forms of violence against civilians that almost

all rebel groups (and almost all governments involved in civil wars) engage in, namely,

violence to induce civilian cooperation or deter collaboration with the enemy.

5

Much of

the civilian targeting and “one-sided violence”literatures, including prominent work by

Weinstein (2007),Kalyvas (2006),Wood(2010),Hultman (2007) ,and others, focus on

such violence to control the population. This type of violence is ubiquitous in civil wars

(Stanton 2016, 30), but is not what we normally think of as “terrorism.”Focusing

instead on deliberately indiscriminate violence, I seek to capture the inherent ran-

domness that makes terrorism so terrifying.

6

This narrower lens excludes some attacks that are commonly thought of as terrorism,

however, including assassination of prominent civilian f‌igures. It is an open question

whether such attacks have the same causes or effects as deliberately indiscriminate

attacks on random civilians. While it makes sense for some research purposes to include

these discriminate attacks on civilians, I exclude them here for two reason s. First, there

is no bright line between such attacks and those on “ordinary”collaborators, making it

diff‌icult to distinguish discriminate terrorism from this more ubiquitous type of

Fortna 643