The European Union's fight against terrorism

Discourse, policies, identity

Christopher Baker-Beall

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781526133847
  9780719091063
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526100825
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the language of the European Union's response to the threat of terrorism. Since its re-emergence in the wake of the September 11 attacks, the 'fight against terrorism' has come to represent a priority area of action for the EU. Drawing on interpretive approaches to international relations, the book outlines a discourse theory of identity and counter-terrorism policy, showing how the 'fight against terrorism' structures the EU's response through the prism of identity, drawing our attention to the various 'others' that have come to form the target of counter-terrorism policy. Through an extensive analysis of the wider societal impact of the 'fight against terrorism' discourse, the various ways in which this policy is contributing to the 'securitisation' of social and political life within Europe are revealed.

1

Investigating the language of EU counter-terrorism: analytical techniques

Introduction

Research on counter-terrorism is united by a concern with the way in which various actors define, understand and respond to the threat of terrorism. However, beyond this broad commitment it is possible to identify a variety of approaches to the study of counter-terrorism that differ as a direct result of the implicit and explicit assumptions that each individual researcher makes about the social world. Traditional approaches to counter-terrorism predominantly begin from a position whereby the meaning of terrorism is understood to be fixed or predefined, thereby constricting the type of research questions that can be asked. In terms of research on counter-terrorism policy, these approaches are generally concerned with explaining why certain actors made decisions that resulted in the development of particular policies.¹ For example, when we consider research on European Union (EU) counter-terrorism policy, the key texts in this area have been concerned with explaining: why EU counter-terrorism policy has been relatively ineffective as a counter-terrorism device; why EU counter-terrorism policy has suffered from serious consistency weaknesses and other shortcomings; and why the EU sought to become a significant counter-terrorism actor during the formative period of EU counter-terrorism policy between 2001 and 2005.²

Depending on the approach adopted, explanations for these questions range from the lack of power of the EU and its institutions relative to its member states, the actual legitimacy of the EU as a counter-terrorism actor, the varying degrees of authority that the different institutions and agencies of the EU have in the field of security and, importantly, the perceptions of the decision-makers involved in the policy process. As Roxanne Lynn Doty explains, approaches based upon this type of why questions are incomplete in the sense that ‘they take as unproblematic the possibility that a particular course of action or decision could be taken’.³ They start from a position whereby the social actors, the practices that they adopt and the meaning that makes those practices possible, as well as the meaning of terrorism itself, constitute an objectively identifiable social reality that can be accessed independently and in an impartial manner. Instead, I aim not to offer explanations for why particular counter-terrorism policies have been developed at the EU level or why they have been ineffective but rather to consider how EU counter-terrorism policy, or EU security policy more generally, has been made possible through the social construction of the threat of terrorism. In doing this, I borrow from Doty to ask a series of what she calls how-possible questions, about how terrorism has been socially constructed and how certain counter-responses were made possible as a result of that process of threat construction.

In order to explore this topic, I adopt an approach that is situated within a broader body of interpretive work in International Relations and the social sciences which, as I will argue, can be used to link the study of counter-terrorism and security with the concept of identity.⁴ As Mark Bevir and Oliver Daddow explain, interpretive approaches can be used to offer explanation for political action in various policy areas, such as foreign and security policy, through a deeper contextual analysis of the social meanings that underpin that activity.⁵ The interpretive approach I advocate, therefore, adopts a more fluid understanding of terrorism as a concept, the meaning of which changes depending upon the historical, social and cultural context within which it is being used. To start from this position is to make a series of assumptions about the social world and the way that it functions, including how to go about accessing that world for research purposes.

I argue that language is significant when analysing counter-terrorism policy in that it is constitutive of a particular social reality through the simultaneous construction of identity and difference. Starting from a position whereby it is assumed that representations of identity and counter-terrorism policy are mutually or co-constitutive, that is to suggest that they cannot be understood in simple cause-and-effect terms, it is argued that counter-terrorism policies need an account or a story of the issues that they are trying to address. There can be no formulation of a counter-terrorism response without a description (or interpretation) of who the terrorists are, what the terrorists want and the ways in which the terrorists differ from the actor responding to them. Identity is crucial here, as James Der Derian suggests, in that a ‘terrorist’ can only be identified through differentiation from, say, a ‘state sanctioned soldier’, a ‘police-officer’ or other agent of the national security state.⁶ In essence, this is to propose that counter-terrorism responses are only made possible through a process of social construction and that both the public policy response to the threat of terrorism and the language that constructs terrorism as a threat are understood to be intimately linked.

This has implications for the analysis of EU counter-terrorism policy conducted in this book in the sense that, at the EU level, counter-terrorism policies are legitimised as in the ‘European’ interest through reference to identities. Yet, simultaneously, identities are produced and reproduced through the formulation of counter-terrorism policies. As Lene Hansen explains: ‘Policies require identities, but identities do not exist as objective accounts of what people and places “really are”, but as continuously restated, negotiated, and reshaped subjects and objects’.⁷ It is argued throughout that EU counter-terrorism policy privileges an accepted knowledge about what terrorism is, who the terrorists are and what type of threat they represent in the post-September 11 era, promoting certain counter-terrorism responses as a ‘natural’ or ‘common-sense’ approach through representations of identity, whilst simultaneously silencing other alternative perspectives. To theorise counter-terrorism in this way, as discourse, is to argue that identity and policy are characterised by a mutually constitutive relationship that can be accessed through an analysis of the language and discourse of counter-terrorism policy.

In order to give context to these assumptions, in this chapter I reflect on the theoretical commitments that underpin this research and consider the techniques of discourse analysis that I have employed in order to conduct this analysis of the EU’s counter-terrorism policy: the ‘fight against terrorism’. The first part of the chapter introduces three interrelated concepts that I draw upon for the purpose of this research: discourse, representation and securitisation. I begin by discussing what I mean by the concept of discourse and explaining its relationship to contemporary understandings of terrorism. I then move on to consider the concept of representation, which I argue plays a key role in the reproduction of knowledge about terrorism. The final concept I explore is the Copenhagen School’s notion of securitisation, making an argument that the securitisation framework needs to be reconceptualised in order to understand how securitisation processes work in the EU. For each concept I consider how it is understood for the purpose of this research, as well as its relationship with the concept of identity, which I argue is intrinsic to all three concepts. Having explored the interrelated and interlinked concepts of discourse, representation and securitisation, in the second part of the chapter I go on to consider how they can be operationalised through particular analytical techniques of discourse analysis. In particular, I introduce a three-step process of discourse analysis that I use to implement my analysis of the ‘fight against terrorism’ discourse. In this section I explain why various texts were selected for analysis, as well as how the analysis was itself completed. I conclude by offering some reflections on why this type of analysis of EU counter-terrorism policy is important and is necessary.

Discourse

I want to begin by outlining exactly what I mean by the notion of ‘discourse’, given that this concept is absolutely central to the analysis of EU counter-terrorism policy conducted in this book. Discourse generally refers to written or spoken communication, to processes of narration or discussion. It is, however, much more than this. Drawing on the works of Michel Foucault and other discourse scholars such as David Campbell, Roxanne Lynn Doty, Jennifer Milliken, Richard Jackson, Lene Hansen and Laura Shepherd, I understand discourse to refer to systems of thought composed of ideas, beliefs and practices, or ‘performative, meaning-making attempts to make sense of the world through words and language’, that structure how we think about a particular subject, topic or issue.⁸ As Doty explains, ‘A discourse delineates the terms of intelligibility whereby a particular “reality” can be known and acted upon. When we speak of a discourse we may be referring to a specific group of texts, but also importantly to the social practices to which those texts are inextricably linked.’⁹ What this means in the context of a discussion of counter-terrorism is that a focus on the discourse of terrorism allows us to locate and identify precisely how understandings of terrorism are constructed and how they condition counter-terrorism responses by creating a particular reality that can be known and acted upon. I understand discourses as systems of meaning production that are more than just statements or language about a particular subject, topic or issue.

Discourses can be viewed as structures of signification that construct social realities, providing what Doty has termed discursive spaces. By this she means the concepts, categories, metaphors, analogies and identities through which meaning is created.¹⁰ From this perspective meaning does not exist objectively but rather is created through a system of linguistic and/or non-linguistic signs. Within this sign system discourse scholars focus on the relationship between different things, including specifically the way one subject or object is distinguished from another. Critically, the relationship between the different signs is constructed in terms of binary oppositions, which positions the different elements of the system in relation to each other.¹¹ Furthermore, as Milliken suggests, ‘far from being neutral’ these systems ‘establish a relation of power such that one element in the binary is privileged’.¹² Some well-known examples of binaries include: good/evil, new/old and masculine/feminine. We can identify explicitly the way in which this system of signs operates through the language of counter-terrorism, including terms such as freedom/terror, moderate/extremist, state/non-state, peaceful/violent and civilisation/barbarian. For example, if we consider the first EU Strategy for Combating Radicalisation and Recruitment to Terrorism, from 2005, the document plays a key role in constructing two types of Muslim: the ‘moderate’ Muslim that needs to be engaged in order to prevent terrorism, the ‘good’ Muslim if you like; and the ‘extremist’ that needs to be challenged, the ‘bad’ Muslim then, who may potentially engage in acts of terrorism.¹³

Importantly, as the previous example suggests, discourse is understood to be productive of identity...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: the language of the European Union’s ‘fight against terrorism’
• 1 Investigating the language of EU counter-terrorism: analytical techniques
• 2 Constructing the threat of terrorism in Western Europe and the European Union: a genealogy
• 3 Constructing the ‘terrorist’ other: a ‘new’ and ‘evolving’ threat to the European Union
• 4 Constructing the ‘migrant’ other: globalisation, securitisation and control
• 5 Constructing the ‘Muslim’ other: preventing ‘radicalisation’, ‘violent extremism’ and ‘terrorism’
• Conclusion: the ‘fight against terrorism’ discourse and the EU’s emerging role as a holistic security actor
• Select bibliography
• Index