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constituents (especially Parliament and politicians). Taking these themes together, we contend that these debates help to (re)produce a relatively straightforward antagonistic relationship between, on the one hand, a liberal, open and responsible UK self which is mindful of cultural and religious difference, and both cautious and moderate in its actions. And, on the other, a series of illiberal, irrational and extremist terrorist others steadfast in their determination to wage immoral violences. Importantly, although there are examples of genuine dissent in these debates
Zimbardo, 2006 ). Moreover, liberal democracies also rely on citizens to limit state responses to threat and to hold governments accountable for the illiberal choices they may make in the name of protecting society as a whole from threats and so there is a fundamental political ambivalence surrounding the relationship between vigilance and threat perception (Chalk, 1998 ). This contemporary focus on
receptive to the enhancement of otherwise unpopular or illiberal policies, which in turn may lead to an entrenchment and normalisation of purportedly exceptional measures. Indeed, we need only look to Western responses to international terrorism since 9/11 – and episodes in that timeline such as the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in Stockwell Station, London on 22 July 2005 – in order to recognise that
or economic dynamism to peacefully manage what may be a whole host of different cleavages within a given polity. And whether one defines democracy in specific Dahlian terms as polyarchy, 5 or more loosely to accommodate liberal, electoral or illiberal democracies, 6 it is still difficult for the researcher to identify exactly when democracy’s supposedly peace-promoting characteristics start taking effect. To do so one must
(e.g., Burke et al., 2013 ; Motyl et al., 2010 ). A threatened public may also be more receptive to the enhancement of elite power to enact otherwise unpopular or illiberal policies (Bigo and Tsoukala, 2008 ; Chalk, 1998 ; Nacos et al., 2011 ). Indeed, the combination of threat and the belief that elites sanction punitive actions that combat threat is particularly dangerous to democracy. Instead of adapting levels of
. Just as violence is a significant component of national unification strategies, so too are decisions to utilise violence externally. In contemporary world politics, maintaining plausible deniability in the face of international criticism requires new strategies for states seeking to use violence. This is especially the case for new illiberal and authoritarian states utilising a combination of
more likely to be motivated to vote at the next national election. Chapter 3 has suggested that perceptions of more global threats, for example, may reflect a somewhat different orientation to the world than perceptions of more national threats and that we might therefore see less illiberal consequences. But only by looking at this empirically can we be more certain
externalizing the causes of Islamic extremism was also a standard response to international pressures to democratize. Besides explaining extremism away as a by-product of Western aggression, the Mubarak regime simultaneously capitalized on the growing threat of jihadism to US and Western interests to extract dispensation from the fulfilment of certain democratization indicators in return for guaranteeing cooperation and assistance in the US War on Terror. More importantly, the fact that the best-organized opposition in Egypt has always been of an (at best) illiberal and (at
the Irish parliament on 15 November 1945. This typically illiberal piece of Emergency legislation contained provisions for the confinement of infectious diseases, proposed isolating sufferers from the public sphere (streets, hotels, shops); established the right of the state to inspect citizens against their will; and imposed compulsory long-term hospitalisation. 47 Defeated
counterterrorism responses in countries where scholars will continually need to seek a visa. This authoritarian censoring of counterterrorism literature is obviously not uniformly present across the non-Western world – for example, academics in liberal democracies like India, Brazil and South Africa would not find writing about terrorism dangerous – but in authoritarian or illiberal democracies among the non-Western states the risks may be considerably higher. 17 What affects counterterrorism policies? The purpose of this volume is to offer the first