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in a war against terrorism could only be consensually constructed after the possibility for peace negotiations was confirmed as a ‘lost option’. This hegemonic articulation of the Colombian situation asserted that the call for in/security was the road to peace. Hence, paradoxically, peace was absorbed within the discursive framework of security. Security defined any understanding of peace and filled it with
Tracing the discursive origins of ‘(violent) extremism’: terrorism, radicalisation and extremism Recently, the terms terrorism , radicalisation and extremism have been utilised interchangeably by scholars, decision makers and policy practitioners to interpret the so-called ‘terrorist threat’. The tendency is to increasingly merge these terms into a sole discursive framework that is perceived to affect the modern epistemological understanding of terrorism and the subsequent practices of countering (violent) extremism in many Western countries ( Richards
political violence the state promises to eliminate. The state in/security discourse produces – it does not prevent – more violence. Since the launching of the US-led global war on terror, the prolonged violent conflict in Colombia, which now has persisted for over five decades, has gained global attention as an example of the pervasiveness of globalised terrorism as well as of the danger of
ONE OF THE MOST NOTICEABLE and ubiquitous features of the language of counter-terrorism is its invariable appeal to identity: terrorists are endlessly demonised and vilified as being evil, barbaric and inhuman, while America and its coalition partners are described as heroic, decent and peaceful – the defenders of freedom. The clear implication of this language is
Introduction Why should educators need to know about policies aimed at countering terrorism, radicalisation and (violent) extremism, and how do these policies shape educational practice? The UK’s ‘Four P’ (Protect, Prevent, Pursue, Prepare) conceptualisation of the work-strands of the counter-terrorist strategy (CONTEST), together with the Dutch Information House’s development of countering violent extremism (CVE) as ‘soft interventionism’ ( Kundnani and Hayes, 2018 , p. 6), have shaped wider European and global landscapes in respect of countering (violent
-profile assassinations, the restructuring of security bureaucracies, vast financial expenditure and much else besides have served similarly to keep the latter at the forefront of political debate. Within the UK, but beyond this as well, a concerted attempt to uprate and enhance existing anti-terrorism 1 powers has formed a major part of this dynamic, with four separate Acts of Parliament introduced between 2001 and
At the book’s outset, we identified four research questions underpinning our exploration of anti-terrorism powers, citizenship and security in the United Kingdom. First, how are contemporary anti-terrorism powers understood, assessed and discussed by different publics across the UK? Second, how do anti-terrorism powers affect the experience of citizenship within the UK
Introduction Countering extremism, as a ‘softer’ approach to countering terrorism, has received heightened attention in Nigeria following the failure of erstwhile ‘hard’ approaches to combating Boko Haram. Much of the initial effort to counter Boko Haram was based on a strict coercive counter-terrorism strategy, where the Nigerian military primarily focused on forcefully vanquishing militants. In response to the various criticisms which the state received for alleged human rights violations and abuse, there has been a shift towards a more comprehensive
assistance, many governments rapidly expanded their police and internal security forces and boosted the capacity of their intelligence services to monitor domestic and foreign threats. A number of governments also produced new national legislation which specified substantial criminal penalties for aiding and assisting terrorist activity. Counterterrorism – long a province of law enforcement and intelligence services – became militarized, with some governments folding their long-running secessionist conflicts into the fight against terrorism to draw more American aid. 4 At
Neutrality as a concept and practice has long been conceptualised in IR theory as problematic. Broadly seen as the tool of small and weak states with dubious moral credentials, a limited understanding of neutrality has persisted from the Peloponnesian War to the ‘war on terror’. Furthermore, as globalisation and non-traditional security problems animate international politics, neutrality is seen as a policy of the past. This book argues that neutrality has been a neglected and misunderstood subject, limited to realist understandings of war and viable statecraft, and in doing so aims to uncover the normative strands of neutrality that mesh with identity, security and alternatives to the anarchic international order. Using Sweden as a case study, it explores the domestic roots of neutrality via a constructivist analysis, examining how neutrality is embedded in ideas of self, and part of a wider Social Democratic vision of active internationalism. Identity, however, is malleable and subject to change, and this analysis also considers the impact of globalisation and European integration, the end of bipolarity, and new security threats such as global terrorism on neutrality as an idea and a practice.