Contemporary Debates on Terrorism

Richard Jackson, Daniela Pisoiu, Richard Jackson, Daniela Pisoiu

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317395218
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Terrorism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Contemporary Debates on Terrorism is an innovative textbook, addressing a number of key issues in terrorism studies from both traditional and 'critical' perspectives. This second edition has been revised and updated to cover contemporary issues such as the rise of ISIL and cyberterrorism.

In recent years, the terrorism studies field has grown in quantity and quality, with a growing number of scholars rooted in various professional disciplines beginning to debate the complex dynamics underlying this category of violence. Within the broader field, there are a number of identifiable controversies and questions which divide scholarly opinion and generate opposing arguments. These relate to theoretical issues, such as the definition of terrorism and state terrorism, substantive issues like the threat posed by al Qaeda/ISIL and the utility of different responses to terrorism, different pathways leading people to engage in terrorist tactics and ethical issues such as the use of drones.

This new edition brings together in one place many of the field's leading scholars to debate the key issues relating to a set of 16 important controversies and questions. The format of the volume involves a leading scholar taking a particular position on the controversy, followed by an opposing or alternative viewpoint written by another scholar. In addition to the pedagogic value of allowing students to read opposing arguments in one place, the volume will also be important for providing an overview of the state of the field and its key lines of debate.

This book will be essential reading for students of terrorism studies and political violence, critical terrorism studies, security studies and IR in general.

Part I
The definition and study of terrorism

1 Is terrorism still a useful analytical term, or should it be abandoned?

YES: an agreed concept is possible and useful

Anthony Richards

Introduction

The implication in the question for this chapter is that terrorism was once a useful analytical term but that this may now no longer be the case – that in the post-9/11 world and the burgeoning of various terrorism discourses, the term has become so widely used and has come to mean so many different things to so many different people, that any usefulness it might have had as an analytical concept might now have dissipated. I think it is fair to suggest, however, that the extent that ‘terrorism’ is valuable as an analytical concept has always been subject to debate and certainly has been within the academic, public and policy discourses of the past five decades. One could argue that the past 15 years have presented ever greater challenges for those who have tried to pin down what an agreed definition or conceptualisation of terrorism might look like in the contemporary world. But I would suggest that these are not new challenges but that, rather, the severe and enduring nature of the international terrorist threat (see Part III) and the increased policy focus on terrorism since 9/11 have simply magnified and brought greater exposure to the obstacles that have traditionally confronted endeavours to achieve an agreed conceptualisation, or at least some analytical progress, on the issue.

It would be useful to frame at the outset what potential level of analytical accomplishment is worth striving for and what is realistically achievable. The academic and policymaking emphasis of the past five decades has been on achieving the ultimate in analytical endeavour – that is, to agree on a definition of terrorism. A second level, and arguably less onerous than striving for a concrete definition, is to agree upon a conceptualisation of terrorism. Thus, rather than speaking ‘truth’ that being definitive implies, one can potentially generate an agreed conception of terrorism at a given time in a contemporary context. A third level of analytical endeavour does not necessarily entail compiling a definition or a conceptualisation of the term. It is the least ambitious level (though still challenging, nevertheless), and is the focus of this chapter: the extent that we can at least view terrorism as a useful and analytically distinctive concept.

The contention here is that terrorism can be a useful analytical concept and that it should, therefore, be retained. There are two broad strands of argument to sustain this. The first includes the conventionally understood benefits and desirability of an agreed understanding as to what terrorism is and, conversely, the negative consequences of failing to achieve such a consensus. The second, regardless of the perceived need for such an understanding, relates to the possibility of, and our actual capacity for, determining what it is that is analytically distinctive about terrorism.

Abandoning the term ‘terrorism’?

If one argues that ‘terrorism’ should be abandoned, then who is going to abandon it? Would they be academics, policymakers or the media? A further assumption in the chapter’s title is that someone (whoever that someone may be) has the ability to regulate the use of language and, in this particular case, control or restrain the use of the word ‘terrorism’ in public, policy and academic discourse. This is, of course, impossible. As such, it is not a question as to whether ‘terrorism’ should be abandoned but whether in any case it can be, particularly in the context of an enduring terrorist threat. Indeed, it would be ironic if, when terrorism has reached such global prominence and has become a central focus of domestic and international attention, that one should now contemplate abandoning the term. ‘Terrorism’ has become so deeply embedded in contemporary life that the idea that there can be some sort of wholesale agreement (and compliance) with the dispensing of the term seems unrealistic. As English has noted,

The fact is that this word is simply not going to disappear from the political vocabulary (it is far too useful to too many people for this to occur), and so we should probably retain our commitment to establishing precise, coherent definitions of the word, rather than merely jettisoning it.

(English 2009: 21)

Crenshaw, one of the most respected of terrorism scholars, also made the point that,

It is well to remember … that the users of political language are not entirely free to shape it; once concepts are constructed and endowed with meaning, they take on a certain autonomy, especially when they are adopted by the news media, disseminated to the public, and integrated into a general context of norms and values.

(in Whittaker 2001: 11)

The concept of ‘terrorism’, then, whether we wish it or not, is with us for the foreseeable future.

Finally, any academic resolve to abandon ‘terrorism’ would not lead to its diminished use but would simply leave the field devoid of the very domain that might best inform understandings of this controversial and often emotively used term, and of the academic input and scrutiny that is required in order to explore the prospects for analytical clarity. It would give even freer rein to those who readily employ the term as a subjective and polemical device and, as we know, meanings attributed to such concepts often have major ‘real-life’ consequences. How the ‘terrorist’ threat is characterised and ‘constructed’ can have dangerous implications for the remits of ‘counter-terrorism’. As the Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism cautioned:

The rubric of counter-terrorism can be used to justify acts in support of political agendas, such as the consolidation of political power, elimination of political opponents, inhibition of legitimate dissent and/or suppression of resistance to military occupation. Labelling opponents or adversaries as terrorists offers a time-tested technique to de-legitimize and demonize them.

(Quoted in Schmid 2011: 56)

As Schmid has argued, ‘Giving up on the scholarly debate would leave the field to those who simply hold that “[t]errorism is what the bad guys do” (B. M. Jenkins), or “one man’s terrorist is the other man’s freedom fighter” ’ (Schmid 2011: 42). And without ‘a set of theoretical frameworks to guide the field’, Wight has cautioned that terrorism research ‘will always tend to drift into a form of journalistic speculation’ (Wight 2009: 105).

Reasons for exploring the analytical potential of ‘terrorism’

The reasons for attempting to define terrorism have been outlined in the literature from both an academic and a policymaking perspective (see in particular, Schmid 2011, 2004, 1992). From the policymaking perspective, a powerful reason is that, if one accepts that terrorism is more international than it has ever been, and that international cooperation is, therefore, essential in countering it, then surely there needs to be agreement as to what it is that is being responded to.

Conversely, the failure to achieve this is perceived to have serious costs. Given its pejorative use in practice, the term is readily employed as a superficial and derogatory label to describe the activities of one’s adversaries (whether or not they have committed acts of ‘terrorism’). There can be no better example than in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict where either side has committed acts of terrorism, depending upon which side one sits. It is in the context of such polarised conflict environments where, for as long as there is analytical paucity on the meaning of terrorism, the facile freedom fighter/terrorist dichotomy will continue to endure. It is facile because, as Leonard Weinberg has argued, it confuses the goal with the activity (Weinberg 2005: 2). But, if we cannot adequately determine what is analytically distinctive about the activity, then the unfortunate tendency will always be to use ‘terrorism’ according to who the perpetrator of that activity is, or what their cause is.

‘Terrorism’, then, can be readily used to discredit opposition movements and draconian measures can be invoked accordingly. Saul draws our attention to the following examples:

Some States have deployed the international legitimacy conferred by [the UN Security] Council authorization to define terrorism to repress or de-legitimise political opponents, and to conflate them with al-Qaeda… . Thus China bluntly characterizes Uighur separatists in Xingjiang as terrorists; … and India seldom distinguishes militants from terrorists in Kashmir. In Indonesia, insurgencies in Aceh and West Papua have been described and combated as terrorism, as have a Maoist insurgency in Nepal and an Islamist movement in Morocco. Israel has compared Palestinians with al-Qaeda, with Ariel Sharon calling Arafat ‘our Bin Laden’… . In the Maldives, an opposition politician was convicted of terrorism offences and sentenced to ten years imprisonment for peacefully protesting against rights violations by the government… . Similarly, in Uzbekistan 15 men were convicted of vague terrorism offences for organizing public demonstrations, at which the government indiscriminately fired upon the crowd.

(Saul 2007: 201–2)

Saul has thus argued that ‘the more confused a concept, the more it lends itself to opportunistic appropriation’ (Saul 2006: 3).

From an academic perspective, arguments for pursuing this analytical quest are also compelling. If one is to research the activity of ‘terrorism’, then there is a need to try and determine what your subject matter is and what its parameters are. One must acknowledge, of course, that all social science concepts are essentially contested and that their conceptual parameters are often subject to intense debate. But ‘terrorism studies’ in particular has been accused of lacking theoretical development – that the subject is still in its ‘pre-theory stage’ and has not moved on from being ‘widely recognized as theoretically impoverished’ (Crenshaw 1992: 1), even in the contemporary context of what is otherwise a burgeoning literature on terrorism since 9/11. There is a real need to objectively measure an act of violence (or the threat of violence) against a carefully considered set of criteria to determine whether acts of violence or the threat of violence constitute terrorism. After all, all other terrorism theories are contingent upon what one means by terrorism in the first place. How can we, for example, theorise about the causes of terrorism, the motivations for terrorism, countering terrorism and disengagement from terrorism without an understanding as to what constitutes terrorism in the first place?

‘Terrorism’ – the search for analytical value

While there may be many good reasons why ‘terrorism’ cannot or should not be abandoned, this does not, of course, make it any easier to determine what it is that is analytically distinctive about the phenomenon. As noted earlier, in policymaking and academia, the most commonly pursued analytical level, and the most ambitious, has been to generate a universally agreed definition of terrorism. There is, however, something of a paradox in trying to be definitive or to ‘speak truth’ about the meaning of something that is, after all, a social construction. Yet what we call ‘terrorism studies’, and its enormous growth since 9/11, implies that there is something distinctive about terrorism that we can theorise about – and, arguably, most terrorism studies scholars (though certainly not all) see themselves as studying something that is analytically distinctive; that it is a specific form of political violence that is different to others.

Given the disputed meaning of terrorism and the failure to achieve a consensus on the issue, what, then, is the potential for ‘terrorism’ as an analytical concept as opposed to its use as a polemical or rhetorical label or, as Conor Gearty put it, as a ‘useful insult’ (Gearty 1991: 6), and where do we look for guidance on the issue? Perhaps a helpful starting point would be to review the academic literature on the definitional issue of the past 50 years. One core theme emerges around which a general consensus does appear to exist – that terrorism entails the intent to generate a wider psychological impact beyond the immediate victims. The idea that the intent or the purpose behind the act lies at the heart of what we mean by terrorism is captured in Schmid and Jongman’s observation:

There is, in our view, a solid conceptual core to terrorism, differentiating from ordinary violence. It consists in the calculated production of a state of extreme fear of injury and death and, secondarily, the exploitation of this emotional reaction to manipulate behaviour.

(Schmid and Jongman 2008: 20–1)

Central to terrorism, therefore, is the ‘ “organized and systematic attempt to create fear” … that aims at attaining specific political ends (motivation) through the creation of fear, and not through the mere act of violence’ (European Commission Sixth Framework Programme Project 2008: 57). As Jenkins also argued: ‘[f]ear is the intended effect, not the byproduct, of terrorism’ (in Schmid and Jongman 2008: 36). Terrorism is, therefore, primarily concerned with generating a psychological impact over and above any tangible or military gain.¹ It is this intent behind the act of violence that determines whether it is an act of terrorism. According to Gearty, ‘A pure terrorist act results in everyone recoiling in horror, with the words “it could have been me” etched on their mind’ (Gearty 1991: 9). It is the ‘shock value’ of terrorism that is used to transmit a message to the wider intended recipients.

Yet surely all acts of political violence are intended to have some degree of psychological impact, to send a message of sorts. What is so different about terrorism? While warfare in general or state terror may at times have a similar purpose, this is the sine qua non of terrorism. Primoratz makes the distinction clear: ‘all uses of political violence effect some degree of fear’, but in ‘terrorism proper, the causing of fear and coercion through fear is the objective’ (in English 2009: 5). With terrorism, the targets or victims are not the intended recipients of the ‘terrorist message’. The contention here, then, is that any attempt to view terrorism analytically must appreciate this core psychological dimension in keeping with the academic literature of the past 50 years.

Terrorism as a method

A further perspective that would arguably allow us to view the concept of terrorism more analytically is to understand it as a particular method of political violence,² rather than as something that is only intrinsically linked to particular types of belief system. When I refer to the ‘method’ of terrorism, I am not alluding to the various types of violence used (i.e. the physical manifestations of terrorism), but to the intent behind the act of violence. Whatever the mode of violence used or threatened,³ it is the purpose behind it that qualifies it as terrorism, namely, to generate a psychological impact beyond the immediate victims. There are, of course, belief systems that explicitly justify and endorse the use of violence and terrorism – examples of this include ISIS and al-Qaeda, and the notion of terrorism and political violence as a religious duty. But such ideologies cannot claim ownership of terrorism. There are, for example, many nationalist and single-issue (anti-abortion, animal rights, environmental) ideologies that are not inherently violent, although terrorism has often been employed as a method in their name. There is, therefore, no one doctrine, violent or otherwise, that can claim ownership of terrorism; it is a method of violence that has at some time or other been carried out in the cause of a wide variety of ideologies – whether religious, left-wing, right-wing, nationalist or single issue.

It has been the case, however, that ‘terrorism’ has all too often been applied according to who the perpetrator is or what the cause is. This clouds attempts to view the activity of terrorism objectively and analytically. Terrorism, then, should be understood as a method of political violence and conceptualised without reference to the perpetrator other than that the broader motive has to be a political one. As Crenshaw remarked:

The method, not the identity or ideology of the user, determines whether or not an action can be defined as terrorism. Terrorism involves the use or threat of physical harm in order to achieve a disproportionately large psychological effect.

(Crenshaw 2011: 207)

Once one is satisfied with one’s criteria as to what constitutes the method of terrorism, then one should measure an act of violence (or the threat of violence) against these, whether or note one has sympathy with the perpetrators or the cause. Such an approach lends itself to a more neutral and analytical consideration of the phenomenon. Conversely, the more one refrains from using the word ‘terrorism’ because of sympathy with the cause, or the more one is inclined to use it because of antipathy towards the goals, then the further away we are from enhancing terrorism as an analytical concept. Yasser Arafat was, therefore, wrong when he proclaimed that:

The difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist … lies in the reason for which each fights. For whoever stands by a just cause and fights for the freedom and liberation of his land from the invaders, the settlers and the colonialists, cannot possibly be called a terrorist.

(In Hoffman 1998: 26)

So too are those who pose such questions as ‘where to draw the line between the quest for nationalist identity and an act of terrorism …?’ (Acharya 2008–9: 656). It is the activity of terrorism...