World Society and Terrorism

Abstract

The terrorist attacks on the WTC in New York and the Pentagon in Washington in September 2001 were seen by many observers as phenomena belonging to an emergent world society. From this point of view globalization brings about not only economic advantages like prospering world markets and global wealth, but also an internationalization of terrorism as the dark side of global modernity.

This article takes a closer look at four theoretical perspectives of world society—Immanuel Wallerstein’s world system, Niklas Luhmann’s systemic approach to world society, Ulrich Beck’s world risk society, and Richard Münch’s structural functionalist approach to world society—and discusses the explanations provided by these theories for the new forms of globalized violence. Although they provide differing and interesting perspectives on worldwide terrorism and probable background and reasons, the author concludes that none of these theories is able to present a reasonable theory-led explanation of the attacks, mainly due to the gap between abstract theorizing and neglected empirical facts.