The epistemological crisis of counterterrorism

Abstract

This article describes the nature, origins and consequences of the epistemological crisis at the heart of contemporary counterterrorism. The epistemological crisis of counterterrorism is an identifiable epistemic posture towards knowledge about, as well as a way of acting towards, the terrorist threat. It manifests itself discursively in the manner in which officials, scholars, pundits and others speak about the threat of terrorism, and the way counterterrorism and security practitioners then act in pursuit of security against that threat. The article argues that many of the bizarre counterterrorist practices regularly observed in many Western countries, as well as costly and counterproductive counterterrorist practices such as preemptive war, targeted killings, mass surveillance, torture, control orders and de-radicalisation programmes, among others, are neither anomalous nor irrational in the context of the new paradigm. Rather, they flow logically and directly from the particular paranoid logic, which is constitutive of the epistemological crisis. The article concludes with a discussion about how and why critical scholars can and should attempt to resist and deconstruct it.

Keywords:

• counterterrorism
• epistemology
• crisis
• fantasy
• precaution
• risk
• resistance

Notes

1. Reprinted as a poem in Seely (2003).

2. Available at: http://nsi.ncirc.gov/documents/sar_indicators.pdf, accessed 28 August 2014.

3. It is a frequent assertion in the literature on “new terrorism” that while we can be certain about the rationality, politics and self-restraint of the “old terrorists”, we do not have the same certainties about the “new terrorists”. However, it is not clear that the old certainties have not simply been read into the past as a way of delineating the boundaries between the “old” and the “new” terrorisms.

4. Christina Hellmich (2012) assesses this largely as a failure of academic process by the terrorism expert community, an approach not incompatible with the notion of “knowledge subjugation”.

5. The language barrier and dependence on translation from Arabic plays a role in this condition, although it should not be overstated. A great many interviews, letters and statements by bin Laden have been produced in English and are available in magazines and newspapers, on the web and as published books.

6. In this regard, there is clearly room for more research into the semiotic “signs” of terrorism that have proliferated through counterterrorism practice in recent years.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Richard Jackson

Richard Jackson is professor of peace studies at the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. He is the author and editor of eight books on terrorism, political violence and conflict resolution, and more than 50 journal articles and book chapters. His latest book is a research-informed popular novel entitled Confessions of a Terrorist (Zed Books, 2014).