Social problems are considered as social situations that damage and disrupt society. Terrorism is a confounding social problem that results in many social and economic consequences. Ideally, terrorism relies on violence to create a wide-ranging climate of fear in a population (Mutagirov, 2018). Terrorism can be practiced by organizations with both leftist and rightist objectives, religious groups, and nationalists. Root causes may be one or more factors mainly because several factors influence individuals’ decisions to participate in terrorist activities. Some root causes include poverty, discrimination, social alienation, psychological problems, personal motivations and grievances, societal conditions, and availability of weapons and access to training facilities.
According to Mythen (2017), terrorism is a social problem that has existed over several centuries, leading to many human causalities. As a social problem, terrorism is caused by the interaction of both primary and secondary factors. Primary causes are factors that can be generally described as social-structural or political issues, whereas secondary factors are more individualistic. Ideally, terrorism is an act of social control, defiance, deviance, and coercion at a certain time and place. Terrorists will often use the threat of violence to advance their agenda or cause through many ways, such as kidnappings, bombings, or even general threats from radical groups (Wilk and Fibinger, 2020). Therefore, terrorism aims at creating a feeling of insecurity and terror that leaves the people stunned, affecting the cultural, social, and economic rights of many.
Terrorism is a social problem since it can have a major effect on society as a whole. The goal of most terrorist groups is to terrorize the public into changing or at least being more aware of their political goals and, by doing so, achieve their objectives from an alternate source than violence (Lauderdale and Oliverio, 2018). The general public often regards terrorism as a social problem since many aspects of terrorism are sociological and can be related to wider social issues such as poverty, unemployment, and disenfranchisement.
