Make Hegel great again: on Hegel’s epistemological contribution to critical terrorism studies

ABSTRACT

Despite the contribution of Foucaultian inspired approaches to Critical Terrorism Studies, this article invites us to consider Hegel’s epistemological insights. Foucault’s power-knowledge nexus is an invaluable intellectual tool which reveals how terrorism can be a “social fact”, yet it rests on a genealogical account of history and a passive notion of subjectivity determined by power (regimes). Hegelian philosophy maintains some of the benefits met in Foucault’s approach (sociality and contingency of knowledge) while providing a richer epistemological account. This article introduces Hegel’s epistemological insights to: i) challenge the portrayal of terrorism as a major external threat against the western liberal democratic states in the vein of “New Terrorism” or the “Clash of Civilizations”; and ii) domestically explore how the concept of liberal democratic rights, equality, freedom affect the interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, the threat perception of terrorism and domestic polarisation. Hegel’s insights critically interrogate the notions of “liberal rights”, “equality” and “freedom”, revealing how their ambiguous definition accommodates inherent contradictions which can fuel a controversial interpretation of counter-terrorist bills, leading to domestic polarisation and (reciprocal) radicalisation. Therefore, Hegel’s epistemological insights reveal how the defective definition of human rights, equality and liberty can amplify the effects of Terrorism and radicalisation.

KEYWORDS:

• Hegel
• Foucault
• epistemology
• terrorism
• democracy
• human rights

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Alice Martini and Gordon Clubb for organizing a successful conference and particularly Alice for her patience and help. Furthermore, I also appreciate the help of Richard English, Andreas Gofas as well as Tarak Barkawi and Konstantinos Sakellariou Christololou for a thought provoking discussion. As always, I would like to thank Alex Callinicos, Kimberly Hutchings, Gary Browning, Bill Bowring, Ilias Papagianopoulos and Konstantinos Arvanitopoulos for their invaluable stimulation at an early stage. Finally, I would like to thank the editor and the anonymous reviewers for their insights.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Besides these philosophical traditions, Lindhal interestingly focuses on emanacipation while observing, as Heath-Kelly does, that the problem with Cox’s and Horkheimer’s critical theory is that “‘both fail to provide a sufficient normative force to sustain an emancipatory agenda’” (Lindhal 2017: 525). Lindhal instead constructs a CTS model of counter-terrorism which is normatively based on emancipation.

2. It is important to highlight that Owen has defended Foucault against the critiques of Fraser and Habermas, arguing that Foucault’s genealogy is an exemplary critique, since geneology “involves rendering the entrenched cultural judgments which constitute our form of life up for judgment by exposing their contingent character and reflecting their practical effects”. See David Owen, “Genealogy as Exemplary Critique: Reflections on Foucault and the Imagination of the Political”, Economy and Society, Vol 24, Nov 1995, 491. Connolly has defended Foucault against the critique of Taylor in “Taylor, Foucault and Otherness”, Vol. 13. Issue 3, 1985.

3. It should be noted that Laqueur is not consciously a geneologist, however his attempt to narrate (or construct) a history of terrorism in the form of seperate waves/breaks echoes a genealogical attempt.

4. Abraham Guillen was a Marxist militant and intellectual who wrote the Strategy of Urban Guerilla in 1966.

5. Antonio Navarro Wolff is currently a Colombian politician but in the past he served as the leader of the urban guerilla movement 19^th of April (M 19).

6. Carlos Marighella was a Brazilian Marxist intellectual and guerilla fighter who wrote the Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla in 1969.

7. Scholars such as Taylor adopt a “metaphysical” interpretation of Hegel which associates the realm of nature with the human historical world of Spirit according to which existence and truth derive from a cosmic substance, “‘for the inner truth of things is that they flow from thought, that they are structured by rational necessity’” (Taylor, 1975: 298). On the other hand, scholars such as Pippin and Pinkard adopt a “‘non-metaphysical’” interpretation. The former draws a distinction between Nature and Spirit which understates the metaphysical dimension of Hegel’s work, arguing that “‘contrary to the rationalist tradition, human reason can attain non-empirical knowledge about what has come to be called recently our conceptual scheme and the concepts required for a scheme to count as one at all’” (Pippin 1989, 8).

8. This approach is closer to Pinkard’s treatment of Spirit as a form of social space. Specifically Pinkard notes that “Spirit is a self-conscious form of life, it is a form of life which has developed various social practices for reflecting on what it takes to be authoritative for itself in terms of whether these practices live their own claims and achieve the aims that they set for themselves” (Pinkard 1996, 8–9).

9. Moreover, there is a controversial debate on the nature and range of causal explanation in the study of violence. See e.g.: van Ingen (2016).

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Athanasios Gkoutzioulis

Athanasios Gkoutzioulis, or Thanos, obtained his M.Phil. in politics and international relations from the University of Cambridge and a Ph.D. from King’s College of London. His is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Nottingham and previously acquired teaching and administrative experience from the London School of Economics, King’s College London, School of Oriental and African Studies and Birkbeck. He has taught extensively in the broader field of international relations, international political economy, security and war studies, cultivating an interdisciplinary teaching and research background.