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Existential Terrorism: Civil Society and its Enemies
Author(s) -
Bendle Mervyn F.
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
australian journal of politics and history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.123
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1467-8497
pISSN - 0004-9522
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8497.2006.00411a.x
Subject(s) - terrorism , realm , civil society , ideology , existentialism , state (computer science) , political science , sociology , political economy , environmental ethics , law , politics , philosophy , algorithm , computer science
This paper explores the attitude of contemporary terrorism towards civil society, the intermediate realm between the family and the state that accommodates the free play of economic and cultural forces and individual and group interests. Terrorism now targets not only people and institutions that operate within civil society but civil society itself , i.e., terrorism increasingly targets the very possibility of an autonomous realm of everyday life. This tendency is found in the Islamism of Al‐Qaeda, but also in any group that adheres to the “Augustinian paradigm” of civil society that arose in the West and dominates radical ideologies. An exploration of this situation illuminates both the nature and tactics of contemporary terrorism and the role of civil society itself.