I very recently received a PM from a user, who'll remain anonymous unless they'd like to become un-so, who asked a series of very thoughtful and provocative questions on the history of terrorism, and how one goes about declaring themselves as such. I thought I would post my response as the first answer here, and hopefully others with different opinions and experiences can add their voices.
So I'll try to answer your questions as you asked them, and hopefully keep the answers short and succinct.
What exactly is a historian in Terrorism? Well, it is just as it sounds. I study, generally, the history of terrorism. The trickiness really comes in when you ask, what is terrorism, and how does one study it? If someone were to say, I study the American Revolution, that would obviously mean that they study, generally and specifically, one event in the course of history. But if they were to study, I study revolutionary theory, that would open them up to studying aspects of political philosophy, political history, social and economic history, maybe economic theory, possibly religious theory etc. So in general, I study theories of terrorism. I try to understand and help others understand what terrorism is, why it exists, who commits acts of terror, and why. Hopefully, this will result in a better understanding of terrorism (the 'ism' is important, I don't study an act, like an 'act of terror', I focus on the mindset, the belief) which will help to prevent these things from happening in the future.
Do you focus on any specific "area of terrorism (Geographic... or methodical, either one? I entered grad school hoping to focus on late 19th century Russian radicalism. Nihilism, anarcho terrorism, all that fun stuff. Eventually I somehow through a long process decided that terrorism is much to large to exist in a vacuum, and determined that I wanted to study it as a theory, not as it exists in one place or time. So, to try to sum this up quickly, I study or attempt to study terrorism as it exists in the mind, not in the hand. I believe that terrorists of today have an easier time than they did in 1877, but only because of the technological advances of the past century and a half. So if we can understand the whys and the whos of the 1877 question, perhaps that will help to understand the whys and the whos of the 2001. In general, I limit myself to Russia because that is where my background lies. But I've done work throughout Europe and European history and often use Latin American case studies. I don't speak Spanish or Chinese, so that obviously puts a limit on where my specialties can lie.
What do you exactly study? Impact of terrorism, reasons for it, (past and present), perpetrators, etc. The one thing that I find most intriguing is the question of why one would commit an act of terror, and/or why would one consciously become a 'terrorist'. There's tons of research on why people would be a terrorist - they're crazy, they're criminals, they're religious nuts, they believe in building a new world order, they see the futility of life under a repressive regime, they feel they have no political voice and the only way of expressing themselves is through violence, they just want to watch the world burn. All of these are true in different cases, and all need to be better understood, especially if we hope to prevent these people from turning to terrorism in the future. So I try to find why particular people turn to terrorism. In Chechnya, for instance, in particular the female suicide bombers, most research says they're religious radicals driven to grief by the deaths of their families. But my research indicates (strongly) that they are motivated almost purely by revenge, and that religion offers only the means, and is not their motive. If a religious group wants to give them money to exact revenge on their enemies, then they become religious terrorists. But that doesn't mean they were religous from the outset, or that they really cared about religion before detonating themselves.
would school shootings be academically/officially described as terrorism? This is another problem with the field. No one knows what the hell terrorism even is. The government essentially says terrorism is anything we don't like. According to the US Government definitions, states/nations cannot commit acts of terror. Which means, if a government is a terrorist government, it is no longer considered a government, it is just a 'group.' This is why the US doesn't know what to do with Hamas, they're labled a terrorist group, but they declare themselves to be a legitimate, democratically elected government. Or what about the US government in the Second World War? Does fire bombing Tokyo count as an act of terror? What about dropping nuclear bombs? Was Sadaam Hussein a terrorist because he gassed his own people? What's the difference between a terrorist and a criminal? Is the old adage 'One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist' really relevant? What if a person commits an act of terror? Is it the individual or the act that is 'terrorism'? Or how about a group which sometimes uses terror tactics to fight what they see as a noble cause? Is that group a terrorist organization? What about a group which does not espouse terrorism, but whose individual members sometimes engage in acts of terror? Can soldiers be terrorists? Are there differences between a military massacre and terrorism, what about between unconventional warfare and terrorism, or guerrilla warfare and terrorism? Was the bombing of the USS Cole an act of terror if all the targets were military? There are so many questions that need to be addressed that it's almost maddening.
That is what I study - I try to tease through these and decipher meaning through theory and through the careful selection of words. In short, I argue that 'terrorism' is not a thing, like murder, like war, but it is a phenomenon that exists across space and time, and which is unique to each space and time in which is exists. Terrorists from the 1870s and the 1990s need to be understood in their own time and culture to understand why they act the way they do. I also think that in order to understand this phenomenon, words need to be used more carefully, and less politically, in order to make sense of all this. The US government can't label the actions of their enemy 'terrorist' but their own actions 'justifiable.' We should avoid maximalist notions like 'that which terrifies, is terrorism' but also steer clear of minimalist niche descriptions which attempt to target certain individuals.
An example of this would be 'terrorism is defined as any act or threat of act by a non-governmental individual or group, intended to impact the decision-making process of states or nations, by inspiring terror through the violent actions or threats of actions against non-combatant citizens of said state, or through the destruction of property or structures, with intent to deliver a political, religious, social, economic or otherwise counter-established message.'
The language in use needs to be clarified and de-politicized in order to avoid the emotional judgments historians and political scientists are obligated to eschew. The Tsarnaev brothers, for instance, according to the US government's definition of terrorism, were not terrorists, because they didn't clearly deliver a political message, or advocate for a change in government policy. But the Nidal Hasan shooting on Ft Hood in Texas should have been labeled a terrorist attack, as he did deliver, intentionally and consciously, a message to the government. But one was called a terrorist act, and the other a workplace violence incident. One reason for this is because according to US law all families of those killed and wounded on Ft. Hood would receive far more money, and the US wouldn't be able to claim zero successful terror attacks on US soil since 9/11. Also it's embarrassing to admit they made so many mistakes in allowing him to stay in the Army while being radicalized by a known and wanted individual (also a US citizen, then living in Yemen).
Also it's important to note that terrorism is not new. There were more terrorist attacks in Germany in the 1970s-1980s than in all of the Muslim world. The difference is, 1. 9/11 was much more extravagent and large-scale, and 2. these are religious groups, with religious ends, not communist, like those operating in Germany (Red Army Faction and all them.)
Hopefully this helps, and this is at least somewhat useful to you. If you have anything else, hopefully I'll be able to comment much sooner.
I'll give my response by way of the same first two questions that /u/blindingpain was asked.
What exactly is a historian in Terrorism?
Like /u/blindingpain, I focus more on the "mindset" of terrorism, not specific "acts of terror." Before I go any further, I'd like to provide at least a bare bones definition of how I look at terrorism to hopefully clarify what a historian of terrorism does.
Typically, terrorism is viewed as a specific event made up of certain criteria. Terrorism in this case is something that can be recognized really just be checking certain criteria off from a list. Take, for example, Bruce Hoffman's definition of terrorism. He believes that terrorism is made up of these criteria:
I don't believe that definition gives an accurate representation of terrorism because it is far too limiting. Instead, I believe that terrorism is a dialectical process between state and non-state actors over political legitimacy. Thus, instead of terrorism being a specific act, it might be better to see those actors engaging in a dialogue of political violence and existing within a certain state of being--existing in terror.
Many terrorism scholars outside of the humanities don't like to see terrorism as a process and in doing so they also tend to imply that terrorism is a type of violence that exists outside the supposedly rational forms of other types of violence (particularly war and even rebellion). I completely reject this view and think that historians of terrorism need to look at their subject as a part of a wider program of collective violence, social movements, and contentious politics. In focusing on these three areas of study, historians of terrorism, besides being well-versed in the political science aspects of the topic, also need to be extremely well-versed in terrorism's sociological aspects. Sociologists of collective violence and contentious politics like Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow have drastically changed my understanding of how terrorism operates and why it arises.
Most terrorism scholars also tend to look at terrorism in two ways: internally and externally. Those who focus on terrorism internally look at how terrorist groups operate, why terrorist groups arise, and what the preconditions are for terrorism. Those who study terrorism externally look at how societies respond to terrorism. I am much more interested in the external aspects of terrorism, but at the same time I also believe that this dividing line between external and internal misrepresents the essence of terrorism. Terrorism, as I've already said several times, is a process involving several actors--in other words the "internal" feeds off of the "external," and vice versa. By compartmentalizing terrorism and saying that it can only be carried out by terrorist groups (almost always limited to non-state actors only), academics miss out on the vital role the state plays in the terrorism process.
Do you focus on any specific area of terrorism (Geographic... or methodical, either one)?
I touched on this question at the end of the previous question. I will say, though, that I am absolutely fascinated by any type of terrorism, and I love reading about how and why terrorism arises, how terrorist groups operate, etc. But from a research stand-point, I am a specialist in late Cold War and post-Cold War U.S. foreign relations. I look at how the American experience with international terrorism influenced how U.S. foreign policy analysts inside and outside the government used terrorism as a lens through which they could make sense of a rapidly changing international order, a time in which the Cold War bi-polar order was crumbling and a much more complex order was taking its place.
Because I specialize in one particular era of history, I tend to be of the view that we cannot divorce terrorism from the context in which it arises. In other words, my personal belief is that historians should perhaps spend more time focusing on the contemporary environment in which terrorism is being conducted rather than looking to find the "essence" of terrorism. As much as it pains me to say it because I believe that there is still a lot of value in looking at terrorist organizations "internally," I consider myself primarily a historian of U.S. foreign relations and a terrorism scholar only secondly. I've been debating over the last few years with whether it is perhaps even necessary to have a field on "the history of terrorism," at least when we are talking about the study of internal terrorism, just because the topic cannot be divorced from the constantly changing contemporary environment in which the various types of terrorism arise and operate. (I hope this makes sense).