Conceptualizing transnational terrorism and the emergence of the non-state security actor : Al Qaeda

This thesis analyzes the nature of transnational terrorism and the actorness of transnational terrorists in order to answer the question of whether it is possibility to give an effective international response to transnational terrorism. A dualistic approach of world politics has been developed in order to understand the ‘international’ nature of the response on the one hand, and the ‘transnational’ nature of the threat on the other hand. Accordingly, international nature of the response has been explained with the statecentric world image, while transnational nature of the threat has been explained with the multi-centric world image. Then, the term transnational terrorism has been conceptualized and the differences of the threat percerptions within the multi-centric world, of which transnational terrorism is a part, than those of the state-centric world have been analyzed. Thus, the rise of transnational terrorists as non-state security actors with the help of the multi-centric world and the actorness characteristics of these nonstate security actors have been mentioned. The evolution and the characteristics of Al Qaeda transnational terrorist organization, which fits the non-state actorness criteria the best, has been evaluated in order to demonstrate the arguments made. In conclusion, it has been found out that the existing international response mechanisms cannot meet the challange posed by transnational terrorism effectively. This is because while the response mechanisms are international and developed to meet the challanges posed by states, transnational terrorism is a transnational threat that is posed by non-state security actors, namely by transnational terrorists.