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hat effect may happen in the future (SILKE, 2004a).

The second term to be defined is terrorism. The greatest challenge facing Terrorism research is certainly the definitional one. Schmid and questioned over one-hundred scholars to define 'terrorism' (SCHMID AND JONGMAN, 1988). They responded with over 109 separate definitions .There is still no universal definition for terror, despite many worldwide organisations attempt to create one and despite forty years of wrangling over the subject, there has been little development. For the purposes of this essay, the use of the United Nations Security Council Shepherd Resolution 1566 definition, which refers to it as: 'criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or taking of hostages, with the purpose to provoke a state of terror in the general public or in a group of persons or particular persons, intimidate a population or compel a government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act' (S-RES-1566, 2004).

However, it must be remembered that this is not an official UN definition and is not used universally by UN member states. The challenges of attempting to research a subject in which no universal definition has been agreed upon will be discussed in detail below.

定义的争论-THE DEFINITION DEBATE

Before we can begin to understand Terrorism we must first of all decide what it is. Despite the actions by organisations generally described as 'terrorist' for well over one-hundred years, the study of terrorism still suffers from the lack of a specific and legal definition of terrorism. As C. A. J. Coady wrote 'The definitional question is essentially irresolvable by appeal to ordinary language alone since terrorism as a concept is not 'ordinary' (COADY, 2001). For some, such as the hegemonic power of the day (in the modern context, we should read United States) and for those fighting their own wars against separatists or insurgents using non-conventional tactics this lack of a legal definition could be used as an advantage (FRIEDRICHS, 2006). The post-2001 'War on Terror' during the Bush era was served by the lack of a universal definition as it allowed some nations to describe their own personal fights as part of this global war on terror. The United States, United Kingdom and even Russia were particularly guilty of this as they implied affiliations with Arab nationals and Islamic organisations with that of terror groups and even state terror, despite there being no evidence of collaboration between the main perpetrator Al Qaeda and the West's long term adversary Iraq. Even in Russia with the Beslan school siege, it was found that the terrorist actors had only two Arab members out of thirty-one hostage takers (DE WAAL, 2004). For the UK it was useful to secure the peace laid out in the Good Friday agreement with Irish terrorism, which had been held up by na?ˉve Irish-Americans believing they were supporting a cause against an Imperial power. Terrorism then in its contemporary stance, is an 'essentially contested concept employed to meet the needs of those applying the term' (WEINBERG AND EUBANK, 2008).

For those countries opposed to the 'War on Terror', which for them was simply an excuse for an invasion of Iraq, a universal and legal definition of terror would give them a legal basis for preventing state intervention