How (not) to study terrorism

Abstract

This article disputes the premise dominant in moral philosophy and the social sciences that a strict definition of terrorism is needed in order to evaluate and confront contemporary political violence. It argues that a definition of terrorism is not only unhelpful, but also impossible if the historicity and flexibility of the concept are to be taken seriously. Failure to account for terrorism as a historical phenomenon produces serious analytical and epistemological problems that result in an anachronistic, ahistorical, and reductive understanding. Because there are no historically or contextually stable answers to the question what terrorism is, this article argues for a novel account of terrorism that replaces the attempt to define terrorism with an analysis of its meaning and function within a specific context.

Keywords:

• Terrorism
• definition
• history

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank William Scheuerman, Tarik Kochi, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable suggestions and constructive criticism.

Notes

1. For detailed yet rather schematic surveys of the field see (Ranstorp 2006; Gordon 2010).

2. For representatives of this problematic interpretation of historical cases of violence see Chaliand and Blin (2007), Clutterbuck (1986), Crenshaw (1993), Hoffman (1998), Juergensmeyer (2001), Rapoport (1984), and Rapoport (1990).

3. In this context, Zolo (2009a) mentions crimes against peace perpetrated by the United States and its allies in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Guatemala, Lebanon, Cuba, San Domingo, Grenada, Libya, Panama, Nicaragua, or, more recently, the NATO intervention in Kosovo and the wars waged against Afghanistan and Iraq.

4. Tarik Kochi aptly refers to such definitions as ‘partisan judgments’ (Kochi 2009, p. 250).

5. As early as 1979, Rasch argued that ‘no conclusive evidence has been found for the assumption that a significant number of them are disturbed or abnormal’ (Rasch 1979, p. 80). Andrew Silke argued that the weakness of psychological and socio-statistical research is its reliance on largely ‘anecdotal evidence’ and its lack of ‘detailed descriptions of the data […] gathered or of […] analysis procedures’ (Silke 1998, p. 61). Many more differentiated psychological studies also support the claim that there is little to no evidence suggesting a link between terrorism and mental illness (Ferracuti and Bruno 1981, Ferracuti 1983, Heskin 1980, Heskin 1994).

6. Some scholars have pointed out the similarities to strategies deployed in McCarthy America and suggested that terrorism has replaced Communism as a political smear word (e.g. Buzan 2006, Colás and Saull 2006, Widmaier 2007).

7. For examples of this claim see Blakeley (2007), Jackson (2007), Jackson et al. (2009), and Jackson (2009b). For a more extensive discussion of the misinterpretations and factual errors committed by representatives of CTS, see Horgan and Boyle (2008), and Weinberg and Eubank (2008). Horgan and Boyle in particular highlight the similarities and shared concerns of traditional and critical approaches in the field. For a slightly different line of argument, specifically with regard to the shortcomings of CTS resulting from an uncritical acceptance of certain traditions of critical theory, see Michel and Richards (2009).

8. Jeffrey Sluka seems to take this approach when he argues that there are many dozens of examples of the abuse of the epithet ‘terrorism’ by applying it to legitimate armed resistance movements, but just a few prominent contemporary examples include all the major hotspots of political violence in the world today – including the Colombian government’s claim that the FARC are ‘terrorists,’ the Israeli government’s claim that the PLO and Hamas are ‘terrorists,’ the Chinese government’s claim that Uigher and Tibetan activists are ‘terrorists,’ the Indonesian government’s claim that the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and Free Aceh Movement (GAM) are ‘terrorists,’ the Sri Lanka government’s claim that the Tamil Tigers (LTTE) are ‘terrorists,’ the Spanish and French governments’ claim that the Basque ETA are ‘terrorists,’ the Burmese junta’s claim that the ethnic rebels in the highlands are ‘terrorists,’ the Indian government’s claim that the indigenous rebels in Kashmir and other regions are ‘terrorists,’ and the US and UK governments’ claim that the insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan are ‘terrorists’ (Sluka 2009, p. 150).

9. On Schmittian readings of the War on Terror, see Aradau (2007), Huysmans (2006), Mouffe (1999), Neocleous (2006), Newman (2004), Rogers (2008), Slomp (2009), Van Munster (2004), and Zolo (2009a). On critical evaluations of Schmitt and neo-Schmittian approaches, see in particular Scheuerman (1999) and Teschke (2011).

10. For accounts of terrorism in terms of risk, security, and biopolitics, see Amoore and de Goede (2008), Bigo and Tsoukala (2008), Dillon and Neal (2008), Masters and Dauphinée (2006), Massumi (2005), Morton and Bygrave (2008), Neal (2006, 2009), and Reid (2009).

11. For analyses of practices such as torture and detention in the context of terrorism, see Butler (2004), Edkins and Pin-Fat (2005), Michaelsen and Shershow (2004), Minca (2005), Tagma (2009), Van Munster (2004), and Vaughan-Williams (2007).

12. While the following discussion focuses on examples from a Western context, a more comprehensive application of the approach outlined here ought to include an exploration of the use of the terrorism label in non-Western contexts. For insightful examples of such a perspective, see the analyses of the political usefulness of the rhetoric of terrorism in Sri Lanka and China in Becquelin (2004), Chung (2002), and Nadarajah and Sriskandarajah (2005).

13. This understanding of terrorism is what Charles de Montesquieu identifies as despotic government (Montesquieu 2002).

14. For insightful literature in this regard, see Barnard-Wills and Ashenden (2012), Helms et al. (2012), and Weimann (2005).