Political Science Unit Exercise: Terrorism's Impact on Democracy

This assignment, prepared for an Introduction to Social Sciences course, analyzes the multifaceted impact of terrorism on society. The student explores the reasons for selecting terrorism as a topic, its appealing aspects, and personal interest in the subject, drawing on sociological perspectives. The assignment examines the effects of terrorism on democracy, the role of protests, and the influence of media coverage. It also delves into the implications of terrorism on Canadian society, including the political stances of parties like the Liberal Party of Canada. The student discusses the impact of terrorism on the public, economic factors and the importance of understanding social sciences to address such issues. The paper incorporates references to academic sources to support its arguments and provides a comprehensive analysis of the chosen topic.

Running Head: INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCES
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL SCIENCES
1. Introduction about Terrorism:
This portion will briefly discuss about Terrorism and why it is introduced in the topic
related to Social Sciences. Terrorism, as in a broader sense of aspect can be described only as
a barbaric idea of creating violence by an individual, religious groups, extremists or political
groups in order to generate fear and violence among the civilians to gain the political
attention and seek power. Terrorism is nothing but committing crime by a group of people
who are misguided in the name of some issues to create violence in a country and affect the
systems of a government like democracy, freedom, intelligence system, economic growth and
jurisdiction as well.
1.1 Reason of Selecting Terrorism for this Topic:
Terrorism is a continuous emerging problem in every part of the world as it affected
more or less every country in the past. Some facts that are needed attention that the terrorist
organizations are continuously spreading all over the world and they also have access to
modernized weapons and humongous wealth. That points to the decision that the terrorism is
funded by the powerful people or organization.
1.2 Appealing Aspect to Choose Terrorism:
To describe about the sociological effect in a society, terrorism affects the society in a
broader way, terrorists generally find ways to humiliate the society to encourage fear, greed,
violence, killing, distress and envy among the people to success in spreading their ideology
(McCoy & Knight, 2015).
1.3 Reason of Interest in Terrorism:
The sociological problems like Terrorism, several studies suggest that pushes a
normal human being to be a terrorist and believe in revenge. Firstly, around 43 percent of the

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arrested terrorists have confessed that they have joined the terrorism forces in the name of
serving religious beliefs (Helly, 2004). Secondly, around 32 percent of the lone wolf terrorists
were found out having several mental disorders in their interrogation process (Gordon,
Sharan & Florescu, 2015). Thirdly, 14 percent of the arrested terrorists have been assaulted
verbally and physically in the past. In all the scenarios, most of the terrorists were found out
unemployed and may be that is also another reason to choose to do something for a people
full of revenge to earn money.
1.4 Reflection of Views:
It is counted as a major conflict related to the most sociological controversial topic to
deal with. Terrorism affects not only the government, their acts of violence have deep effect
on the public life to face social problems, divisional crisis between different religions,
increasing of scare, imbalance of daily life of people (Nesbitt, Oxoby & Potier, 2019).
1.4 Experiences:
As matter of social sciences, Terrorism affects the society and government and
impacts on the subject of political affairs in the sociological development of a country.
Reporting to the police personnel about suspicious behaviour of any people, suspicious
packages to eradicate this kind of motives related to terrorism activities (Monaghan &
Molnar, 2016).
2. The Political Party which best supports the point of view
The Liberal Party of Canada best suits for this subject as the political party is the oldest
political party in the history of Canada and offers their manifesto in lieu of the common
people. The Liberal Party was in the serving position in Canada for the longest period of
time, helping the country and countrymen to have fundamental rights and values regarding
equality, liberty and democracy to create a better future.

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3. Implication and Impact of Terrorism on the Society:
A terrorist attack on a Mosque in Quebec City marked as one of the highest place in
the history of terrorism in Canada. Terrorist activities cause unfruitful effects to the
government via economic fall by loss of tourism, increased claims of insurance and
xenophobia. The distress among people also rises in way that breaks the flow of working
culture and transportation of the society and misbalances the way of life of a healthy
sociological environment (Jacoby, 2016).
4. Terrorism Issue Relating to Democracy:
Terrorism affects more than killing of innocent human beings to the democtratic
government. It undermines the idea of political challenges, the fear it creates in the public
results to distort the public ideas and debates, helps to empower extremist ideologies in the
people, polarize different cultural societies divides the civilians by creating distress in
between different religion or group of people.
5. Are protests a symbol of democracy or a criminal act or not:
Protests are an idea of which generally evokes some images of people taking a stand
by gathering publicly, shouting and hurling with their slogans against the government
of their choice. Protests are a healthier way against the law and order which violates
the democracy. It is not against the democracy or considered as a criminal act.
5.1 Protests are effective or not:
Protests do happen for a reason, to change, to evolve and to improvise the old ways of
living in the same rule to serve the government in present days. Thus, protests do serve

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the people who works and effects the middle class in terms of having rules in favour of
them.
5.2 Explanation
Protests are made to change in the way of ruling over the people by the democratic
government if they impose a rule against the people and it gets actively practised without a
question. It is made to question the government, about its ways and to establish the rule of
people in a democratic government.
6. Impact of Media on the Terrorism issue:
Incidents related to Terrorism can be reduced by promoting awareness by the media
portals such as News channels, News Web Portals and of course Social Media handles in the
people about the safety measure to be taken if any suspicious activity took place.
6.1 Influence of the media over coverage of Terrorism:
The Media coverage of a terrorism incident helps to raise awareness in the people, the
police and security departments of the country, media and government needs to work hand in
hand if these kind of situations take place, in order to recover from that phase as early as
possible.
6.2 Inequality Presented in News Coverage:
Media portals can also report biased reports as to sell their news, therefore it is upon
people to choose not to panic everything they hear and government needs to take legitimate
actions in these cases.
7. Valuable Understanding of Social Sciences:

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Understanding the social sciences can make us observe, improve and interact with all
types of social issues that must be treated well with our knowledge. This subject can help us
in situations in need of those are helping people to improve their behavioural and
psychological changes. As a student, it must be dealt well in terms of knowledge and as well
as education.

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References:
Gordon, T., Sharan, Y., & Florescu, E. (2015). Prospects for Lone Wolf and SIMAD
terrorism. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 95, 234-251.
Helly, D. (2004). Are Muslims discriminated against in Canada since September 2001?.
Canadian Ethnic Studies Journal, 36(1), 24-48.
Jacoby, T. A. (2016). How the War Was ‘One’: Countering violent extremism and the social
dimensions of counter-terrorism in Canada. Journal for Deradicalization, (6), 272-
304.
McCoy, J., & Knight, W. A. (2015). Homegrown terrorism in Canada: Local patterns, global
trends. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 38(4), 253-274.
Monaghan, J., & Molnar, A. (2016). Radicalisation theories, policing practices, and “the
future of terrorism?”. Critical studies on terrorism, 9(3), 393-413.
Nesbitt, M., Oxoby, R. J., & Potier, M. (2019). An Empirical and Qualitative Assessment of
Terrorism Sentencing Decisions in Canada since 2001: Shifting Away from the
Fundamental Principle and Towards Cognitive Biases.
Schinke, R. J., McGannon, K. R., Busanich, R., & Ge, Y. (2016). A commentary on sport and
terrorism from the vantage of sport psychology. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(9),
1116-1131.
Scrivens, R., & Perry, B. (2017). Resisting the right: Countering right-wing extremism in
Canada. Canadian journal of criminology and criminal justice, 59(4), 534-558.