University of Central Florida STARS Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 2010 Understanding Terrorism: Religious & Political Dimensions Christopher Cusano University of Central Florida Part of the Political Science Commons Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Masters Thesis (Open Access) is brought to you for free and open access by STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019 by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. STARS Citation Cusano, Christopher, "Understanding Terrorism: Religious & Political Dimensions" (2010). Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2004-2019. 4424. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/etd/4424 UNDERSTANDING TERRORISM: RELIGIOUS & POLITICAL DIMENSIONS by CHRISTOPHER CUSANO B.A. University of Central Florida, 2004 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Department of Political Science in the College of Sciences at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Summer Term 2010 Houman A. Sadri © 2010 Christopher Cusano ii ABSTRACT Terrorism in the twenty-first century has had one of greatest effects on the status quo of international relations, peace and war. It has become the ―specter‖ of our era and in many instances, it has been referred to as the predominant threat of modern civilization. Furthermore, it has the potential to drastically change the world we live in. For these reasons it has rightfully earned our attention and focus. Many efforts to understand terrorism have fallen short of recognizing the underlying causes. In many cases, acts of terror have either been of purely political motivation or have had socioeconomic conditions cited as the primary factor contributing to its occurrence.