From the initial assertion that recent and renewed social scientists' interest in the issue of terrorism has not been translated into greater interdisciplinary understanding, we suggest that the problem may be due to the insufficient questioning on the part of researchers as to the ideological and political character of their studies. Assuming that terrorism is a social and political construction leads us to question the different conceptions of emancipation and social regulation that guide research on this phenomenon. Our article seeks to explore this issue with a critical look at the way terrorism is conceptualized, through analysis of four core themes: classical political conceptions of terrorism and the viewpoint of revolutionary Marxist leaders; diverse conceptions held by political and social scientists on the new transnational terrorism; the relationship between democracy and Law in the struggle against terrorism and the conception of terrorism as socially constructed. The conceptual analysis that we have carried out has enabled us to arrive at three fundamental issues for a critical social science that seeks to create and stimulate alternatives for social emancipation. The first deals with the impossibility of scientific neutrality and a consensual definition of terrorism; the second suggests an analysis of terrorism that takes the voices of its victims as key and the third deals with the relationship between terrorism, Law and democracy.
terrorism; violence; social regulation; multiculturalism; social emancipation; conceptual analysis