Sociological Perspective of Terrorism
...o anti-war candidate Mark Latham. Another manifest function for the terrorists was to create fear among Australians. The latent functions that occurred from this attack were that it created a sense of patriotism among Australians as well as creating new jobs in security. The manifest dysfunction from this attack was the loss of lives for Australians. An example of a latent dysfunction from this attack was the damage done to a nearby Greek embassy and the loss of life for bystanders to the incident. The second sociological perspective is Conflict Theory. The main idea behind Conflict Theory is that there is a power struggle between two groups; the dominant group and the subordinate group. Conflict between these two groups is inevitable and it promotes social change. In this article, the Australian government is what would be considered the dominant group. The current government has supported the United States in the war with Iraq and they have control over those decisions. The terrorists would be considered the subordinate group. The actions in this article are an example of the conflict between the subordinate and the dominant group because the terrorists, as the subordinate group, attacked the dominant group so that they could sway the upcoming election and get troops out of Iraq. The terrorists were trying to gain more control from the dominant group over the situation in Iraq. A third sociological perspective that can explain this article is Symbolic Interactionism. This theory states that people’s behavior is based on what they see. While the attack on the Australian embassy was catastrophic, it also had many symbolic meanings. When people saw the aftermath of the attac...