Governing the suicide bomber: reading terrorism studies as governmentality

Abstract

This article engages with the suicide bomber as he or she appears in the terrorism studies literature. In contrast to sensationalised narratives of the suicide bomber as pathological or fanatical, terrorism studies has increasingly come to view suicide bombing as a rational phenomenon that follows an identifiable strategic logic. Following Foucault’s articulation of governmentality, I read this literature as a governmental practice that attempts to understand the latent rationality of suicide bombing so that the phenomenon may be effectively governed and managed. With this understanding, I look specifically at the terrorism studies accounts of female suicide bombers and argue that the concerns they articulate regarding the superior capacity of these women to go undetected, such as with the use of fake pregnancies as disguises, produces the female suicide bomber as a uniquely risky and ungovernable subject.

Keywords:

• suicide bombing
• governmentality
• terrorism studies
• gender

Notes

1. See, for example, the 2004 “Open Letter to the American People” signed by over by over 700 security studies scholars, including terrorism studies scholars such as Mia Bloom, Jessica Stern and David Rapoport. This letter is highly critical of American foreign policy concerning the war in Iraq, calling it the “most misguided one since the Vietnam period” (as quoted in Horgan and Boyle 2008, 54).

2. Sjoberg and Gentry’s (2008) article lists Pape as the most frequently cited scholar on suicide terrorism, according to the Social Science Citation Index (Sjoberg and Gentry 2008, 14, note 1). Further to this, he is featured in Miller and Mills’ list of the 100 terror experts who appear most frequently in the news media and on their list of the top-98 most cited terrorism scholars; he is one of only five scholars who feature on both lists (Miller and Mills 2009, 419).

3. For critiques of Pape from within mainstream terrorism studies, see Moghadam (2006) and Ashworth et al. (2008). For a specific critique of Pape’s argument from a feminist perspective, see Sjoberg and Gentry (2008). Others have critiqued his treatment of specific cases: with regard to the Second Intifada, see Brym and Araj (2006). Further to this, Cerwyn Moore, with reference to Pape’s treatment of the conflict in Chechnya and the North Caucasus in particular, argues that Pape’s methodological approach which “seeks to develop general trends in suicide attacks through statistical analysis”, tends to effectively “divorce attacks from the context in which they occurred” (Moore 2012, 1782). I am grateful for Cerwyn Moore for directing me to several of these articles.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claire Lyness

Claire Lyness is a PhD Candidate in Politics with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research interests include feminist and postcolonial theory, liberalism and the war on terror and women’s participation in political violence.