International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2020 | Page 80

The Shining Path: An Important Resource for Terrorism Studies
Conclusion
Rather than attempting to undertake a general overview of the SP or the literature
dedicated it, this article has emphasized three main points.
Firstly, we have demonstrated the current state of specialist research into
the SP, whose importance for terrorism studies, and particularly for understanding
the role of terrorism within the sequential logic of an insurgency (Dory 2017b), is
underappreciated. This is unfortunate from a scientific point of view, and difficult
to understand—that is, until we recognize how dependent terrorism studies (and
its international influence) still is on a polemical dimension dictated by the global
geopolitical situation (which has shifted, principally, from the Cold War to the
post-2001 “War on Terror”), and especially that in the Middle East. In this context,
the SP never presented a “global” danger. While the SP has a heavy handicap in
terms of polemical, media, and scientific visibility, it is far from insignificant. On
the contrary, having been responsible for at least 35,000 deaths between 1980 and
2000—among the 70,000 who died during the insurgency it launched—, 14 the SP is
undoubtedly one of the deadliest groups to have used insurgent terrorism in history.
For almost two decades, its actions had a vast impact on the political, economic,
and social life of an entire country, and caused substantial concern among its
immediate neighbors, especially Bolivia. Lessons from this period should be taken
seriously by researchers, particularly those interested in a scientific reflection on
the uses and functions of terrorism. This leads us to the following point.
Secondly, as demonstrated above, the attentive analysis of the SP’s use of
terrorism—via different methods depending on the time and place—highlights an
insurgency that is certainly original but that can easily be integrated into a comparative
study, which should enable a deepening and a broadening of the general
framework of terrorism studies. The case of the SP offers researchers a vast body
of data on a) the conditions under which a heavily ideological political organization
turns to violence 15 ; b) the structure, organization, and leadership methods
of a group engaged in a “protracted people’s war”; c) the relationship between an
active terrorist core and a movement (in this case, Peruvian Maoism), a breeding
ground (the various parties, associations, and NGOs of the Peruvian left), and
a demographic potential (the general population viewed according to different
ethnic, geographical, economic, and other variables); d) the typology of terrorist
acts and their respective functions in variable contexts (particularly urban/rural);
14 These figures come from the final report (2003) of the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación
(Truth and Reconciliation Commission), established in 2001. Its methodology, ideological biases,
and conclusions were all bitterly debated. Our use of the figures is purely indicative, aiming to give
an idea of the scale of the impact of the SP’s actions. The organization was far more lethal than most
of the so-called terrorist organizations that currently draw all the attention among politicians and
in the media.
15 This theme was initially explored by Weinberg (1991) in particular, who made explicit reference to
the SP.
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