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Incidence and Evolution

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Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism

Part of the book series: SpringerBriefs in Criminology ((BRIEFSCRIMINOL))

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Abstract

Lone wolf terrorism is not a new phenomenon. Acts of terrorism carried out by single individuals can be found, for instance, in nineteenth century anarchism, with some proponents considering individual acts of violence to be an important part of revolutionary activity [1, 2]. Some leading Russian, Italian, French and German anarchist thinkers advocated a strategy of “propaganda by deed”, urging individuals and small groups to kill those who represented an existing social order [2–4], For example, the Russian anarchist theorist Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) argued that since creating a vast and hierarchical organization would inevitably come to involve the use of coercive power, the anarchist revolutionary should preferably act individually or form small groups of like-minded individuals acting on their own initiative.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There is, however, no necessary association between anarchism and terrorism since many anarchists reject violence of any form. The association between the two seems to owe principally to a series of historical events in Russia and Eastern Europe rather than to some necessary feature of anarchist philosophy [1, 3].

  2. 2.

    This conclusion differs from my earlier assessment of lone wolf terrorism in these countries, which found that there had been no comparable increase in lone wolf terrorism in the European countries under study [48, 50]. This discrepancy has been minimized by the subsequent revision and expansion of the lone wolf terrorism database (see Appendix) using the GTD and other open-source material, which has enabled me to resolve most of the gaps and inconsistencies in the data. The present findings should be considered significantly more reliable and conclusive because they draw on a more complete and accurate data set. Furthermore, the findings presented here show the total number of attacks, whereas my previous publications mainly show the number of individuals carrying out lone wolf attacks in any given year or decade.

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  1. School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Dr. Ramón Spaaij

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Correspondence to Ramón Spaaij .

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Spaaij, R. (2012). Incidence and Evolution. In: Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism. SpringerBriefs in Criminology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2981-0_4

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