A Qualitative Study on the Interpretation and Application of the Legal Definition of Terrorism in Swedish Courts
(2020) SOLM02 20201Department of Sociology of Law
- Abstract
- When hearing the word ‘terrorism’ something will come to mind, whether it is images from 9/11, 7/7 or any other attack, pictures from terrorist camps in Syria, or something else related to terrorism. But what is terrorism, and can the word be defined sufficiently enough to be used by courts of law? This thesis examines the Swedish courts’ interpretation and application of the legal definition of terrorism contained in the terrorism legislation, through conducting an analysis on five court cases.
A background into terrorism and the issues with defining the concept gives some insights that together with the theoretical framework of risk society and culture of fear and previous relevant research provides for the basis in the textual analysis... (More) - When hearing the word ‘terrorism’ something will come to mind, whether it is images from 9/11, 7/7 or any other attack, pictures from terrorist camps in Syria, or something else related to terrorism. But what is terrorism, and can the word be defined sufficiently enough to be used by courts of law? This thesis examines the Swedish courts’ interpretation and application of the legal definition of terrorism contained in the terrorism legislation, through conducting an analysis on five court cases.
A background into terrorism and the issues with defining the concept gives some insights that together with the theoretical framework of risk society and culture of fear and previous relevant research provides for the basis in the textual analysis of the court cases. The five court cases are different in nature and includes two cases of terrorist offences, two cases of public exhortation and one case of conspiracy to commit terrorist offences. The cases discussed the definition of terrorism and the relating elements to different extents and some did not provide much to work with, but that could be seen as an indication that the courts struggled with how to apply the cases.
This thesis contends that the judgments of the court cases included indications of the mentality of the theory of risk society and the concept of culture of fear, but further research needs to be made to be able to say anything definite. The court cases regarding the law on sentence of terrorist offences provided deeper and more thorough discussions with regards to the legal definition of terrorism compared to the court cases regarding the remaining two laws related to terrorism. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9029696
- author
- Sjöberg, Johanna LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- SOLM02 20201
- year
- 2020
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- Sociology of law, terrorism, definition of terrorism, risk society, culture of fear
- language
- English
- id
- 9029696
- date added to LUP
- 2020-10-09 10:42:40
- date last changed
- 2020-10-09 10:42:40
@misc{9029696,
abstract = {{When hearing the word ‘terrorism’ something will come to mind, whether it is images from 9/11, 7/7 or any other attack, pictures from terrorist camps in Syria, or something else related to terrorism. But what is terrorism, and can the word be defined sufficiently enough to be used by courts of law? This thesis examines the Swedish courts’ interpretation and application of the legal definition of terrorism contained in the terrorism legislation, through conducting an analysis on five court cases.
A background into terrorism and the issues with defining the concept gives some insights that together with the theoretical framework of risk society and culture of fear and previous relevant research provides for the basis in the textual analysis of the court cases. The five court cases are different in nature and includes two cases of terrorist offences, two cases of public exhortation and one case of conspiracy to commit terrorist offences. The cases discussed the definition of terrorism and the relating elements to different extents and some did not provide much to work with, but that could be seen as an indication that the courts struggled with how to apply the cases.
This thesis contends that the judgments of the court cases included indications of the mentality of the theory of risk society and the concept of culture of fear, but further research needs to be made to be able to say anything definite. The court cases regarding the law on sentence of terrorist offences provided deeper and more thorough discussions with regards to the legal definition of terrorism compared to the court cases regarding the remaining two laws related to terrorism.}},
author = {{Sjöberg, Johanna}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{A Qualitative Study on the Interpretation and Application of the Legal Definition of Terrorism in Swedish Courts}},
year = {{2020}},
}