This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Learn more

Politics Notes Theories of International Relations Notes

Theorizing Terrorism Notes

Updated Theorizing Terrorism Notes

Theories of International Relations Notes

Theories of International Relations

Approximately 27 pages

Realism; egoism; human nature; international anarchy; self-help; classical realism vs. neorealism; E. H. Carr; Hans Morgenthau; Kenneth Waltz Alexander Wendt; cultures of anarchy; intersubjectivity; Alter & Ego Geopolitics; End of History; Clash of Civilizations; Clash of Ignorance; Edward Said; critical geopolitics; Orientalism; cartography; popular culture; imagined communities; globalization Postcolonialism; Orientalism; Edward Said; Frantz Fannon; Homi Bhabha; strategic essentialism; Gayatri ...

The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Theories of International Relations Notes. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:

THEORIZING TERRORISM

QUESTIONS

  1. ‘Terrorism is a continuation of politics by other means’. Discuss. [2013]

Why is there no commonly agreed definition for the term ‘terrorism’?

‘One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter’. Discuss. [2016]

  1. How does Critical Terrorism Studies shed new light on world politics in the aftermath of 9/11? [2015]

What challenges has the Global War on Terror posed to mainstream IR theory?

‘Rather than witnessing an ‘end of history’, the post-Cold War period has been characterized by a rise in terrorism from failed states and a clash of civilizations’. Discuss. [2017]

INTRODUCTION

The September 11 attacks and subsequent ‘War on Terror’ declared by the Bush Administration triggered an unprecedented internationalization of counter-terrorism in national agendas. Yet paradoxically, the conundrum of negotiating a precise and universal definition of terrorism, particularly one which accommodates its ‘new’ transnational character in the globalized era*, continues to vex the international community. Alex Schmid highlights this ‘definitional quagmire’ in a 1988 study which presented 109 official definitions deconstructed into 21 recurrent elements, each prioritized to varying degrees:

  1. Politically motivated

  2. Seeks publicity

  3. The threat or use of violence

  4. Targets noncombatant and/or infrastructures of symbolic significance, etc.

1A.

One of the foremost challenges of defining ‘terrorism’ relates to its highly pejorative connotations of barbarity, religious fanaticism and wickedness. As such, very few political actors willingly apply this label to their own actions but is typically imposed externally to condemn ‘illegitimate’ forms of violence; as Held observes, ‘what ‘they’ do is terrorism and what ‘we’ do is not’. It is not the case, however, that a particular individual or group is ever self-evidently ‘terroristic’ which begs the following questions: Who decides what constitutes terrorism? Who may be legitimately killed? Is terrorism absolute or relative? Are there any circumstances which justify the employment of terrorist methods as a ‘necessary evil’ in accordance with the doctrine of double effect? The central dilemma is to reach an impartial description of a method rather than a subjective moral characterization of the enemy, since its application is derivative of legitimacy and moral permissibility.

CTS is rooted in constructivist* and post-structuralist tradition*. It adopts a skeptical/critical* standpoint towards ‘essentializing’ logics/metanarratives of mainstream terrorism literature. CTS scholars recognize that knowledge claims about terrorism are produced intersubjectively by hegemonic ‘regimes of truth’ that eschew alternative and potentially emancipatory vocabularies of freedom fighters, revolutionaries or criminals. Foucauldian analysis on the ‘politics of labelling’ emphasizes the inseparable nexus between power and knowledge, understanding ‘terrorism’ as a ‘linguistic signifier’ [Derrida] that is arbitrary in isolation but powerfully charged through opportunistic appropriation by states. This leads critical theorists to problematize the pervasive resistance in drawing parallels between illiberal terror tactics perpetrated by nonstate dissenters without insignia and those implemented by uniformed officials to induce subservience. Although Weber outlines a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence as the defining feature of states, these coercive capacities have historically been abused by the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao and modern-day humanitarian interventions. On this basis, Noam Chomsky regards America as ‘the greatest of all rogue states’. These examples invite a reevaluation of the extent to which terrorist...

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Theories of International Relations Notes.