Over the past twenty years, the essential nature of global politics has been changing profoundly and becoming even more complex. As the international system evolves it of Behavioral Learning Theories and Cognitive Learning Theories ten renders traditional, materially-determined theoretical approaches to International Relations as ill-equipped to compellingly account for action. “Increasingly, ideational concerns play a vital role as mobilizing influences, causing actors to behave in an unprecedented manner”. Terr Behavioral Learning Theories and Cognitive Learning Theories orism is a key phenomenon most typical of this complex trend towards the rise of the power of ideas. The terrorism we have seen in the past twenty years is ideologically-motivated and seemingly irrational meaning mainstream traditional theoretical understandings of anticipated action and reaction are no longer useful. In this essay, I will be analysing Constructivism as a theoretical lens for studying terrorism. First, I will establish the main themes of constructivism and then discuss how terrorism is constructed within the media and by states. I will use this to explain why I believe terrorism fits into the constructivist framework more so than other traditional IR theories. Then, with a particular focus on the terrorist organisation Al Qaeda an Behavioral Learning Theories and Cognitive Learning Theories d their activities I will show that terrorism only exists within our subjective understandings proved by its various definitions in contrasting commu Behavioral Learning Theories and Cognitive Learning Theories nities. Ultimately then I will conclude that terrorism lends itself to constructivist understanding because it relies on our subjective reality. Constructivists believe the world is constituted socially through inter-subjective interaction. For a constructivist, agents and structures are mutually constituted and factors such as norms and identity are central to the establishment and dynamics of world politics. The central constructivist argument is that “states act on the basis of how they see themselves and others, and what types of behaviour they see as natural or desirable”[1]. Alexander Wendt a core social constructivism scholar insists that International Relations is ‘not a given, but constructed’[2]. Wendt placed importance in ‘the impact of ideas and identities, how they are created, how they evolve and shape the way states respond to a situation’[3]. Wendt’s central thought ‘anarchy is what states make of it’[4] is often used to identify constructivism. He believes that the anarchy that exists in global politics is socially constructed by states based on their conceptions of identity and how they create their own security dilemma. He argues that this construction of anarchy is based on how states perceive ‘the self and the  Behavioral Learning Theories and Cognitive Learning Theories other’ through shared cultural understandings which ‘arise out of interactions’. Although he speaks mostly about state interactions constructivist thought can also be used in the interactions between non-state and state actors too. Terrorism lends itself to Wendt’s understanding of the three cultures of anarchy which depend on how identities are defined becau Behavioral Learning Theories and Cognitive Learning Theories se terrorism is ‘what states make of it’. In 2012 Alexander Spencer carried out a metaphorical analysis[5] on terrorism which explains how terrorism lends itself to constructivist understanding, through a study o>