Translation Rights TQE / ETA against the State, the Strategies of Terrorism

When the Social Sciences lose touch with reality, their usefulness disappears. That is why we sorely missed an academic contribution to one of Spain’s major problems, Basque terrorism. This book analyses the different strategies that ETA has put to use throughout its history in order to reach the goal that it seeks, the secession of the Basque Country. It does this considering ETA to be a rational actor, that is to say, a subject that uses the mediums that it considers most adequate in order to achieve its political objective.

Throughout most of its existence, ETA has opted for a «war of attrition» against the State, with the intention of producing such suffering that the State would rather back out and surrender than maintain its struggle with the terrorists. When, during the 1990's, it became clear that ETA did not have enough strength to make the state give in, the terrorist organization turned to a new strategy, the creation of a nationalist front with the PNV (Basque Nationalist Party) in order to achieve independence through faits accomplis. Sánchez-Cuenca carries out a penetrating analysis of both strategies and extracts conclusions as timely as they are sound, parting from the conviction that only through the understanding of the «strategies of terrorism» can it finally be abolished.

Ignacio Sánchez Cuenca (Valencia, 1966) is professor of Political Sciences in the Centre for Advanced Studies of Political Science in the Juan March Institute (Madrid). He is a Doctor in Sociology and has a Philosophy degree, he has lectured at the University of Salamanca and the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He has also been a visiting professor of New York University.

He is the author of academic articles about various topics in the field of political science, such as democratic theory, electoral behaviour, and European integration, published both in Spain and abroad. He also collaborates in magazines and newspapers of wide diffusion. He is currently working on a study about cooperation problems in the collective action theory.