Professor Allen Weiner

Stanford Law School

Terrorism, notes Stanford Law School Professor Allen S. Weiner, is a surprisingly unexamined phenomenon given the gravity of the problem. So when the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford announced new grants for interdisciplinary research and teaching on critically important global issues, Weiner teamed up with his colleague Amir Eshel, professor of German Studies and Comparative Literature, to seize the opportunity to create a new course to examine modern terrorism.

Their findings? “Terrorism is complex and multi-dimensional,” said Weiner, the Warren Christopher Professor of the Practice of International Law and Diplomacy. “We examined conditions, motivations, conceptual theories behind terrorism, and then many case studies—from the Russian Empire to Northern Ireland to Algeria to 1970s utopian terrorist movements. How do you identify and then isolate the right variables common to terrorist behavior? Why do some groups and individuals with grievances resort to political terrorism while others don’t? Our conclusion was that one should greet with skepticism any unified theory on terrorism or any approach that offers a single policy response to the problem of terrorism. Terrorism is so multifaceted that it requires a unique response to each situation.”

Weiner and the Israeli-born Eshel were joined by Josef Joffe, editor of Germany’s Die Zeit, adjunct professor of Political Science at the Hoover Institution, and distinguished FSI fellow, to teach the class to students from graduate programs across Stanford University.

“It’s a wonderful reflection of how having resources can encourage people to do what they wouldn’t otherwise do,” said Weiner. The course encompassed historical, philosophical, social, cultural, political, legal, and religious factors in understanding terrorism today. Law school students comprised slightly more than half the class, with other students coming from English literature, education, and other areas of study.

“We started out approaching this issue from the perspectives of our own disciplines,” said Weiner. “It was uncomfortable at first for literature students to comment on United Nations Security Resolutions and for law students to analyze Chomsky, Updike, and McEwan in front of each other. It was surprising how quickly the edges of these separate disciplinary boundaries became blurred and then just went away. By the end of the semester, a guest lecturer remarked that he could not distinguish in our discussions who was a law student and who was a literature student.”

Weiner, who has written on terrorism and the law, engaged students on the challenge of developing a comprehensive and acceptable definition of “terrorism.” The class explored whether the contemporary fight against terrorism is, indeed, “war” in the legal sense, and the legality of modern responses to terrorism such as extraordinary renditions, torture, and targeted killings.

The class also examined the art of Gerhard Richter, films such as The Battle of Algiers, V for Vendetta, and Paradise Now, a story of two Palestinian childhood friends undertaking a suicide bombing in Israel, and literature, including the early 19th century German novella Michael Kohlhaas, the story of an honest horse trader driven to large-scale murder and, ultimately, self destruction by his outraged sense of justice.

“There is a lot of work to be done in better understanding terrorism. Our work in this class has helped us to realize why facile answers aren’t right and motivates us to learn more,” said Weiner.