Conflict can be healthy for a team when it is used to foster positive change and growth. Healthy conflict encourages members to share their perspectives, challenge ideas, and take risks in search of solutions that benefit the team as a whole. It provides an opportunity to develop problem-solving skills, create innovative ideas, and build mutual understanding and respect among team members.
While, Silke (2004) had warned that the war-weariness exhibited by researchers regarding the terrorism definition challenge, needed to be surmounted (p. 208), others like Grob-Frizgibbon (2005) had indicated that arriving at a generally acceptable definition remained critical, especially in the post 9/11 environment. In addition, resolving the debate holds great benefits across the different layers of society. For instance, it would amount to a significant breakthrough in the theoretical advancement of the field of terrorism studies, and by extension positive outcomes for policy formation and legislation (Richards, 2014); aid in the understanding of the various shades and expressions of terrorism (Schmid, 2004a); curb terrorism (Schmid; 2004b); rein in the excesses of state apparatus in counterterrorism campaigns (Golder & William, 2004); and assist in the litigation process by delineating what counts as terrorism and who a terrorist is (Hodgson & Tadros, 2013). Resolving this debacle is also critical for addressing some of the challenges encountered by terrorism databases as well as their sources. Although most of the criticisms against the data sources are traceable to their methodologies, at the core lies the issue of definition. The question, then is, why has it been near impossible to arrive at a consensual definition of terrorism?
One of the principal challenges of the terrorism definition debacle is linked to the nature of the word itself. Terrorism as will be discussed on the next of section, has had varied implications, meaning and expressions overtime. The flexibility in the use of the word is akin to most socially constructed concepts, which are subject to bias and multiple interpretations by powerful social actors. Jackson, Jarvis, Gunning and Smyth (2011) have also noted that arriving at a fixed definition of terrorism would be paradoxical, and would rid it of its “ontologically unstable” feature (p. 119). Yet, Richard (2014) had argued that the adoption of a generally acceptable definition remains crucial, especially one that would represent the current expressions of terrorism. However, his claim that terrorism-based literature in the past 40 years had signified “that terrorism entails the intent to generate a wider psychological impact beyond the immediate victims” (p. 219) is in direct conflict with Weinberg, Pedahzur and Hirsch-Hoefler’s (2004) findings, where the pundits observed that lesser emphasis was placed on the psychological component of terrorism, due to the non-observable nature of the phenomenon.
Another challenge confronting the definition of terrorism is proba
