European Terrorist Groups In The New Millennium: Case of ETA
European Terrorist Groups In The New Millennium: Case of ETA

Summary/Abstract: The end of 1960s saw the dawn of what Walter Laqueur named the "age of terrorism"2. The upsurge of groups, determined to use violence to achieve a great variety of objectives — reestablishment of a state, based on the traditional values, the advent of the world-wide revolution or national liberation — was spectacular and most of the states had to face the challenge they posed to the existing structures of power. Even though such groups appeared in all the parts of the world, it was the challengers of the developed European states that received the greatest share of attention. Prosperity of the fifties and sixties made social scientists believe that democracy and economic welfare will make violence disappear from the old continent. They were thus puzzled by the rise of small but virulent groups that threatened the established political systems. Attention seeking strategies of this new threat prompted many investigators to the field as well as numerous pseudo-scientists, attributing the new terrorist events to the mental problems of the people involved in terrorist organizations or to the manipulations of arch-enemy of the times Soviet Union.

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