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The EU has been successful, and as the world's largest trading bloc in Western Europe, has the world's highest per capita income. Its international trade growth is due to globalization. However, in 2010 and 2011, a sovereign debt crisis due to deficits almost bankrupted three of the smaller “Eurozone” countries, Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, causing them to take out huge loans. The government of the third largest European economy, Italy, actually fell. The fourth largest economy, Spain, almost fell. Social inequality increased when governments, such as Poland, decreased spending on social programs, causing poverty levels to increase.

Globalization encouraged the emergence of many different political parties. By 1990 there were 51 political parties registered in Czechoslovakia, by 1991 there were 67 parties in Poland, and by 1992 there were 74 parties in Romania (Goldstein, 2007; Paxton, 2005).

With social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, terrorists can reach the masses, recruiting certain types of individuals who are susceptible to their message, and spreading fear to those who are not.

The terrorists we are most familiar with all believe violence is necessary to spread their ideology or achieve their goals. Their societies are held together by religious beliefs, cultural practices, and common ethnicities. They share the belief that they should terrorize those who at some point discriminated against or oppressed them.

Terrorists are motivated by feelings of self-defense, commitment to their religious beliefs and a deep conviction that violence is justified. Bruce Hoffman wrote, “All terrorists fundamentally see themselves as altruists: incontestably believing that they are serving a ‘good’ cause designed to achieve a greater good for a wider constituency—whether real or imagined—which the terrorist and his organization or cell purport to represent.”

Because of globalization, opportunities for terrorism have grown and intensified. Groups targeting civilian communities because of their actual or perceived oppression have caused many, including Europeans, to view certain nationalities as “outsiders.” Europeans have engaged in debates about the identity of Muslims as citizens of states, and even as fellow Europeans. As a result, new political parties were created with the sole purpose of preserving the national identity against these “outsiders.”

References:

Buell, John. (2002). Terrorism and Nationalism. Retrieved from http://www.populist.com/02.3.buell.html

Paganini, Pierluigi. (2016). The Role of Technology in Modern Terrorism. Retrieved from http://resources.infosecinstitute.com/the-role-of-...

Shubert, A., and Goldstein, R. (2012). Twentieth-century europe. [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/

Terrorism - Nationalistic Terrorism. Retrieved from http://law.jrank.org/pages/11972/Terrorism-Nationa...