Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

To Identify Terrorism — A Consequential Ambiguity

  • Chapter
Security, Identity, and British Counterterrorism Policy

Part of the book series: New Security Challenges ((NSECH))

  • 97 Accesses

Abstract

An essential question for studies and practices on counterterrorism is to ask how particular oppositional identity constructions come to be temporarily stabilized and accepted as bounded entities given the propensity of such configurations to frequently (mis)guide collective meaning and action.1 As explained by James Der Derian, “for one reason or many — or, as we seem forced to relearn in every generation, for no reason at all — they come to be recognized as the ‘other’: the barbarian, infidel, heretic, savage, revolutionary, traitor; the racist, sexist, lunatic, alien cyborg. In turn, our collective identity — citizens, patriots, believers — becomes dependent upon these differences”.2 Our task here is to interrogate such mutually reinforcing perceptions of difference so that any damaging dependencies through which they are formed and continually reproduced can be appropriately disrupted. As much as identities may seem to indicate timeless truths or essences and exert formidable power over outcomes, identity is not about “a false consciousness opposed to a true one”.3 Instead, what we understand as identities results from ongoing processes of meaning making influenced by social structures and agential decision making: it would be a mistake to privilege structure or agency; the key is to somehow analytically manage both in considering how different outcomes have come to be in the way that they have.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Notes

  1. James Der Derian, “Critical encounters in international relations,” International Social Science Journal 191 (28 January 2009): 72.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Ernesto Laclau, “Why Constructing a People Is the Main Task of Radical Politics,” Critical Inquiry 32 (2006): 651.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Ole Waever, “Politics, security, theory,” Security Dialogue 42, no. 4–5 (2011): 472.

    Google Scholar 

  4. For some debates over mechanisms see Mark Irving Lichbach, “Modeling Mechanisms of Contention: MTT’s Positivist Constructivism, Symposium on McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly’s “Measuring Mechanisms of Contention”,” Qualitative Sociology 31 (2008): 345–354;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Charles Tilly, “To Explain Political Processes,” The American Journal of Sociology 100, no. 6 (1995): 1594–1610;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Charles Tilly, “Mechanisms in Political Processes,” Annual Review of Political Science 4 (2001): 21–41.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Charles Tilly, Stories, Identity and Political Change (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc., 2002), p. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Mustafa Emirbayer, “Manifesto for a Relational Sociology”, The American Journal of Sociology 103: 2 (1997), pp. 281–317;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Andrew Abbott, “Things of boundaries”, Social Research 63: 1 (1995), pp. 857–882.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Jackson and Nexon. “Relations Before States”; Mathias Albert, David Jacobson and Yosef Lapid, Identities, Borders, Orders: Rethinking IR Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2001); Jackson, Civilizing the Enemy;

    Google Scholar 

  11. Stacie E. Goddard, “Brokering change: networks and entrepreneurs in international politics”, International Theory 1: 2 (2009), pp. 249–281; Nexon, The Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Sherrill Stroschein, ‘Microdynamics of Bilateral Ethnic Mobilization’, Ethnopolitics 10: 1 (2011), pp. 1–34;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Xavier Guillaume, International Relations and Identity: A dialogical approach. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2011); Lawson, Anatomies of Revolution.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Cf. Xavier Guillaume, “Unveiling the ‘International’: Process, Identity and Alteity”, Millennium Journal of International Studies 35 (2007): 741–758;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Margaret R. Somers, “The Narrative Constitution of Identity: A Relational and Network Approach” Theory and Society 23, no. 5 (1994): 605–649.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Including English, How to respond; Wilkinson, Terrorism versus Democracy, and Martha Crenshaw, The Consequences of Counterterrorism (New York: The Russell Sage Foundation, 2010).

    Google Scholar 

  17. For example, Richard Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-Terrorism (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005) and Croft, Culture, Crisis.

    Google Scholar 

  18. Waever, “Securitization and desecuritization”, in On Security, Ronnie D. Lipschutz (ed.) (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 46–86; Waever, “Politics, security, theory”; Thierry Balzacq, “The Three Faces of Securitization”;

    Google Scholar 

  19. Mark B. Salter, “Securitization and desecuritization: A dramaturgical analysis of the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority”, Journal of International Relations and Development 11 (2008), pp. 321–349; and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Holger Stritzel, “Towards a Theory of Securitization: Copenhagen and Beyond”, European Journal of International Relations 13: 3 (2007), pp. 357–384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Ole Waever, “Identity, Integration and Security: Solving the Sovereignty Puzzle in E.U. Studies”, Journal of International Affairs 48: 2 (1995), pp. 403–404;

    Google Scholar 

  22. Carsten Bagge Lausten and Ole Waever, “In Defence of Religion: Sacred Referent Objects for Securitization”, Millennium Journal of International Studies 29: 3 (2000), p. 706.

    Google Scholar 

  23. Thierry Balzacq (ed.), Securitization Theory: How security problems emerge and dissolve, (London: Routledge, 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  24. Lene Hansen, “Theorizing the image for Security Studies: Visual securitiza-tion and the Muhammad Cartoon Crisis”, European Journal of International Relations 17: 1 (2011), pp. 51–74, “The politics of securitization and the Muhammad cartoon crisis: A post-structuralist perspective’, Security Dialogue, 42: 4–5 (2011), pp. 357–369.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Lene Hansen, ‘The little Mermaid’s Silent Security Dilemma’, Millennium Journal of International Studies 29: 2 (2000), pp. 285–306.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Stefano Guzzini, “Securitization as a Causal Mechanism”, Security Dialogue 42: 4–5 (2011), pp. 329–341. Guzzini addresses the process of securitization as a causal mechanism but does not employ mechanisms to understand how that process of securitization comes about in terms threat/referent construction.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. See Daniela Pisoiu, “Pragmatic Persuasion in Counterterrorism”, Critical Studies on Terrorism, 5:3 (2012), pp. 297–317;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Frank Vultee, “Securitization As a Media Frame: What Happens when the Media ‘Speak Security’”, in T. Balzacq (ed.) Securitization theory: How security problems emerge and dissolve (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. 77–93, and

    Google Scholar 

  29. Scott Watson, “The ‘human’ as referent object?: Humanitarianism as securitization”, Security Dialogue 42: 3 (2011), pp. 3–20. See also research in social movement theory that draws upon frame analysis (Cf. Jeroen Gunning, “Social movement theory and the study of terrorism” in Critical Terrorism Studies (eds. Jackson et al.), 156–177) and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. David Snow and Robert Benford, 1992. “Master Frames and Cycles of Protest”. In A. D. Morris and C. M. Mueller (eds.), Frontiers in Social Movement theory. Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, pp. 133–155;

    Google Scholar 

  31. Scott Watson, “‘Framing’ the Copenhagen School: Integrating the Literature on Threat Construction”, Millennium: Journal of International Studies vol. 40, no. 2 (2012): 279–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Cf. Andrew Bennett, “The Mother of All Isms: Causal Mechanisms and Structured Pluralism in International Relations Theory”, European Journal of International Relations vol. 19, no. 3 (2013): 459–481. The focus relates largely to critical realist thought, a different perspective from the interpre-tivist perspective employed in CIS.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. See Guzzini, “The Ends of International Relations Theory: Stages of Reflexivity and Modes of Theorizing,” European Journal of International Relations vol. 19, no. 3 (2013): 521–541. Accounts such as that by Karin Fierke bring critical social constructivist sensibilities together with critical security studies to demonstrate the possibilities of dynamic synthesis. For the purpose of this book “constructivism” is not engaged as such to avoid compartmentalization along assumed “IR camps”, but further work engaging with critical construc-tivist literature is certainly warranted. For another constructivist angle see

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Balzacq, “Constructivism and Securitization Studies”, in Myriam Dunn Cavelty and Victor Mauer (eds.) The Routledge handbook of security studies (Routledge: Abingdon, 2010), pp. 56–72.

    Google Scholar 

  35. Robert Entman, “Framing: Toward Clarification of a Fractured Paradigm”, Journal of Communication 43: 4 (1993), p. 51.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. John Shotter, “Inside Our Lives Together: A Neo-Wittgensteinian Constructionism”, in Suzanne R. Kirschner and Jack Martin (eds.) The socio-cultural turn in psychology. The contextual emergence of mind and self (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), pp. 45–67; 55.

    Google Scholar 

  37. Jackson et al., Terrorism, 223, with reference to Harmonie Toros and Jeroen Gunning, “Exploring a Critical Theory Approach to Terrorism Studies”, in Jackson et al. (eds.) Critical Terrorism Studies, (Routledge: London 2011).

    Google Scholar 

  38. John Shotter, “Agentive Spaces, the “background”, and Other Not Well Articulated Influences in Shaping our Lives”, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour vol. 43, no. 2 (2012): 133–154; 136.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. John Shotter, “Wittgenstein and his Philosophy of First-Time Events”, History & Philosophy of Psychology vol. 9 No. 1 (2007): 1–11; 6.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations (Oxford: Blackwell, 1953), no. 110; cited in Shotter 2007, p. 6.

    Google Scholar 

  41. Iver B. Neumann, Uses of the Other: “The East” in European Identity Formation (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).

    Google Scholar 

  42. Stuart Croft, Securitizing Islam: Identity and the Search for Security (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  43. Friedrich Kratochwil, “Looking Back from Somewhere: Reflections on What Remains ‘Critical’ in Critical Theory,” Review of International Studies 33 (2007): 25–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Michael C. Williams, “Identity and the Politics of Security,” European Journal of International Relations 4, no. 2 (1998): 204–225;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. James Der Derian and Michael Shapiro eds., International/intertextual relations: postmodern readings of world politics (Lexington: Lexington Books Maxwell Macmillan International, 1989).

    Google Scholar 

  46. Barry Buzan and Richard Little, “Why International Relations has Failed as an Intellectual Project and What to do About it,” Millennium Journal of International Studies 30 (2001): 19–39;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. John M. Hobson and George Lawson, “What is History in International Relations?” Millennium Journal of International Studies 37 (2008): 415–435;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Friedrich Kratochwil, “History, Action and Identity: Revisiting the ‘Second’ Great Debate and Assessing its Importance for Social Theory,” European Journal of International Relations 12, no. 5 (2006): 5–29.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. cf. Richard Price and Christian Reus-Smit, “Dangerous Liaisons? Critical International Theory and Constructivism,” European Journal of International Relations 4, no. 3 (2008): 259–294. In the context of securitization see

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Bill McSweeney, ‘Identity and Security: Buzan and the Copenhagen School’, Review of International Studies, 22 (1996), pp. 81–93; ‘Durkheim and the Copenhagen School: A Response to Buzan andWæver’, Review of International Studies 24: 1 (1998), pp. 137–140;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Buzan and Wæver, ‘Slippery? Contradictory? Sociologically Untenable?The Copenhagen School Replies’, Review of International Studies 23: 2 (1997), pp. 241–250;

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Michael C. Williams, ‘Modernity, identity and security: a comment on the ‘Copenhagen controversy’, Review of International Studies 24 (1998), pp. 435–439). See also

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. C.A.S.E. Collective, ‘Critical Approaches to Security in Europe: A Networked Manifesto’, Security Dialogue 37: 4 (2006), p. 454.

    Google Scholar 

  54. Harmonie Toros, Terrorism, Talking, and Transformation: A critical approach (London: Routledge, 2012), p. 30.

    Google Scholar 

  55. Ibid., 395–396, with reference to Jennifer Milliken (“The Study of Discourse in IR: A Critique of Research and Methods,” European Journal of International Relations 5, no. 2 (1999): 225–254) and

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Roxanne Doty (“Foreign Policy as Social Construction: A Post-Positivist Analysis of U.S. Counterinsurgency Policy in the Philippines,” International Studies Quarterly 37 (1993): 297–320).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Charlotte Epstein, “Who Speaks? Discourse, the Subject and the Study of Identity in International Politics,” European Journal of International Relations 17, no. 2 (2011): 327–350.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Janice Bially Mattern, “The Power Politics of Identity,” European Journal of International Relations 7, no. 3 (2001): 364.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. M. J. Hickman, L. Thomas, H. Nickels and S. Silvestri, ‘Social cohesion and the notion of ‘suspect communities’: A study of the experiences and impacts of being ‘suspect’ for Irish communities and Muslim communities in Britain’, Critical Studies on Terrorism 5: 1 (2012), pp. 89–106.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Gabriel A. Almond with Stephen Guenca, ‘Clouds, Clocks, and the Study of Politics’, in A Discipline Divided: Schools and sects in political science (Newbury Park: Sage Publications, 1990), p. 35.

    Google Scholar 

  61. Kathryn Fisher, ‘Spatial and Temporal Imaginaries in the Securitization of Terrorism’, in Lee Jarvis and Michael Lister (eds), Critical Perspectives on Counterterrorism (London: Routledge, 2014).

    Google Scholar 

  62. Patrick Thaddeus Jackson and Ronald Krebs, ‘Twisting Tongues and Twisting Arms: The Power of Political Rhetoric’, European Journal of International Relations 13: 1 (2007), p. 36.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Defense University, USA

    Kathryn Marie Fisher

Authors
  1. Kathryn Marie Fisher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Copyright information

© 2015 Kathryn Marie Fisher

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Fisher, K.M. (2015). To Identify Terrorism — A Consequential Ambiguity. In: Security, Identity, and British Counterterrorism Policy. New Security Challenges. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-52422-5_3

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation