Jeroen Gunning A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies?1 SINCE 9/11, STUDIES ON THE PHENOMENON OF TERRORISM HAVE mushroomed.

2 On entering almost any bookshop, one is overwhelmed by the number of books discussing the war on terror, Islamic terrorism or terrorism more generally. Conference papers on terrorism abound and interest in issues related to terrorism has increased dramatically among scholars in cognate disciplines; degree programmes have been set up;3 funding opportunities have increased. And yet, as recent reviews of the eld have shown, 4 core epistemological, methodological and political-normative problems persist, ranging from lack of conceptual clarity and theoretical sterility to political bias and a continuing dearth of primary research data. A number of reasons have been cited for this state of affairs, which will shortly be detailed. But two reasons are often overlooked: the predominance of problem-solving approaches in the study of terrorism, which accounts for many of the observed methodological I would like to thank Ken Booth, Marie Breen Smyth, Stuart Croft, Frazer Egerton, John Horgan, Richard Jackson, Matt McDonald, Harmonie Toros and Michael Williams for their comments on earlier drafts of the paper and for many illuminating discussions on its subject matter. 2 The scare marks are intended to signal that terrorism is a deeply contested term, the analytical value of which has been undermined by the political use of the term, and to remind readers that the need to problematise the term and its political usages is central to any critical turn. 3 Cf. at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (2002) and the University of East London (2006). 4 Cf. Andrew Silke (ed.), Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures, London, Frank Cass, 2004; Brendan OLeary and Andrew Silke, Understanding and Ending Persistent
1

Conicts: Bridging Research and Policy, in Marianne Heiberg, Brendan OLeary and John Tirman (eds), Terror, Insurgency and the State: Ending Protracted Conicts, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007; Magnus Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research: Challenges and Priorities, in Magnus Ranstorp (ed.), Mapping Terrorism Research: State of the Art, Gaps and Future Direction, London, Routledge, 2006. The Author 2007. Journal compilation 2007 Government and Opposition Ltd Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

and conceptual shortcomings of terrorism research; and the dispersed nature of much of the more rigorous, critical and conceptually innovative research on terrorism that is published outside the core journals of terrorism studies and thus often fails either to reinvigorate, or to learn from, terrorism studies. It is the argument of this article that a critical turn 5 in the eld of terrorism studies6 is necessary to reverse these two trends, and that this turn must be Here too the scare marks are intended to signal that what such a critical turn entails is contested. For debates about what critical entails (or should entail) in the cognate eld of Critical Security Studies (on which I draw in making my argument), see e.g. Steve Smith, The Contested Concept of Security, in Ken Booth (ed.), Critical Security Studies and World Politics, Boulder, CO, Lynne Rienner, 2004; Ken Booth, Beyond Critical Security Studies, in Booth, Critical Security Studies; Michael Williams and Keith Krause, Preface, in Michael Krause and Keith Williams (eds), Critical Security Studies, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 1997; Kimberly Hutchings, The Nature of Critique in Critical International Relations Theory, in Richard Wyn Jones (ed.), Critical Theory and World Politics, London, Lynne Rienner, 2001. 6 There is some disagreement over whether a clearly delineated terrorism studies eld exists (hence the scare marks). Silke and Horgan use the more ambiguous term terrorism research, with Horgan actively arguing against the creation of a separate discipline on the grounds that this would limit the necessity for interdisciplinarity (e.g. Andrew Silke, An Introduction to Terrorism Research, in Silke, Research on Terrorism; John Horgan, Understanding Terrorism: Old Assumptions, New Assertions, and Challenges for Research, in J. Victoroff (ed.), Tangled Roots: Social and Psychological Factors in the Genesis of Terrorism , Nato Security through Science Series, Amsterdam, IOS Press/NATO Public Diplomacy Division, 2006, pp. 23). Ranstorp and Gordon talk explicitly about a terrorism studies eld, but Gordon laments that the eld is too fragmented and missed the opportunity to become a self-consciously established eld in the aftermath of 9/11 (Avishag Gordon, Terrorism as an Academic Subject after
5

9/11, Studies in Conict and Terrorism, 28: 1 (2005), pp. 4650, 558; Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research). One can, nevertheless, tentatively identify a core of authors who write regularly in the main terrorism journals and whose names typically appear on course reading lists (for a tentative list of these authors, see e.g. Andrew Silke, The Road Less Travelled: Recent Trends in Terrorism Research, in Silke, Research on Terrorism, p. 192). Around this core is a much wider, more uid eld of authors who see themselves as contributing to the debate on terrorism but who may not necessarily see themselves as belonging to a terrorism studies eld. Outside these two circles are those who, while writing on terrorism, explicitly remain aloof from such a eld because they do not identify with either the term terrorism or the ideological and methodological associations that are believed to come with belonging to a terrorism studies eld (which is the subject of the second half of this article). I will use the terms terrorism eld, terrorism studies and terrorism research interchangeably.

conceived in such a way as to maximize the elds inclusiveness and, importantly, its policy relevance.7 PROBLEM-SOLVING AND ITS EFFECT ON TERRORISM RESEARCH Reviews of terrorism studies or terrorism research for those who dispute that such a eld exists8 typically revolve around four sets of criticisms. One is the observed lack of primary research and the recycling of data. In their seminal review of the eld, Schmid and Jongman observed in 1988 that there are probably few areas in the social science literature on which so much is written on the basis of so little research, concluding that as much as 80 per cent of the literature is not research-based in any rigorous sense; instead, it is too often narrative, condemnatory, and prescriptive.9 In 2004, Silke noted, on the basis of an analysis of articles published between 1995 and 1999 in the two key journals Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conict and Terrorism that over 80 per cent of all research on terrorism is based either solely or primarily on data gathered from books, journals, the media or media-derived databases, or other published documents.10 In other words, it is predominantly based on secondary data analysis and includes few primary sources or new data (for example, only 13 per cent of the articles drew substantially on personal interviews). 11 Or, as Silke commented in 2006, much of the research is little more than a gloried literature review.12 Policy relevance should of course not be judged simply in terms of whether policy actually changes or whether the research is relevant to the ruling elite. The point is that this form of research is driven by a need to engage in issues of public policy. 8 See note 6. 9 Alex Schmid and Albert Jongman, Political Terrorism: A New Guide to Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories and Literature, Amsterdam, North-Holland Publishing, 1988, p. 179. 10 Silke, An Introduction to Terrorism Research, pp. 615. 11 Cf. also John Horgan, The Search for the Terrorist
7

Personality, in Andrew Silke (ed.), Terrorists, Victims and Society: Psychological Perspectives on Terrorism and its Consequences, Chichester, Wiley, 2003, p. 30ff. 12 Conference paper presented at Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies?, University of Manchester/University of Aberystwyth, October 2006. See also Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research, pp. 67; OLeary and Silke, Bridging Research and Policy, p. 394.

Although Silkes conclusion is somewhat undermined by his not differentiating between secondary documents and primary documents produced by insurgent groups (which appear to be used more frequently than personal interviews),13 his overall observation that terrorism research relies heavily on recycled data remains valid. Another critique is that research tends to focus on a shortterm, immediate assessment of current or imminent threats as dened by state elites, without placing them in their wider social and historical context or questioning to what extent the state or the status quo have contributed to these imminent threats.14 Local context and history are largely ignored and terrorism is too often treated, in Ranstorps words, generically and with a one-size-ts-all formula.15 Very few articles focus on historical cases of terrorism.16 Fieldwork, moreover, is rare. Or, quoting OLeary and Silke, much of what is written about terrorism...is written by people who have never met a terrorist, or have never actually spent signicant time on the ground in the areas most affected by conict (which is in part a reection of the crisis in area and language studies).17 Conceptual discussions are similarly observed to be largely decient. In the words of social movement theorist Sidney Tarrow, Cf. Bruce Hoffman, Al-Qaeda, Trends in Terrorism, and Future Potentialities: An Assessment, Washington, DC, RAND, 2003; Walter Laqueur, Voices of Terror: Manifestos, Writings, and Manuals of Al Qaeda, Hamas, and Other Terrorists from Around the World and Throughout the Ages, New York, Reed Press, 2004; Raphael Israeli, Hamas Charter, The 19881989 Annual on Terrorism, Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1990. 14 Silke, The Road Less Travelled pp. 2079. See also R. D. Crelinsten, Terrorism as Political Communication: The Relationship Between the Controller and the Controlled, in Paul Wilkinson and Alasdair Stewart (eds), Contemporary Research on Terrorism, Aberdeen, Aberdeen University Press, 1987, pp. 4 6. 15 Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research, p. 7; Donatella della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany, Cambridge,
13

Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 57. 16 Silke raised this at the October 2006 Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies? conference. 17 OLeary and Silke, Bridging Research and Policy, p. 393. Related to this are the issue of language skills, and the reported decline of language and area studies (cf. Francis Fukuyama, How Academia Failed the Nation: The Decline of Regional Studies, in SAISPHERE 2003; Anoush Ehteshami, Report Middle Eastern Studies in the United Kingdom: A Challenge for Government, Industry and the Academic Community, in BRISMES; Victor King, Dening Southeast Asia and the Crisis in Area Studies: Personal Reections on a Region, Working Paper No 13, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies, Lund University, Sweden, 2005).

terrorism studies has been largely innocent of theoretical apparatus.18 Silke observed in 2004 that less than 2 per cent of articles published during the 1990s in the two core terrorism journals dealt with conceptual issues, and most of these concerned the denition of terrorism.19 Compared to other elds, Silke considers terrorism studies to be extremely applied, and insufciently questioning of the theoretical or ideological assumptions informing its research (although as Horgan observes since conceptual discussions are more likely to occur in books than in articles, Silkes sample may not be wholly representative).20 Most articles do not explicitly draw on (cognate) theories to illuminate their data, although recent output has begun to be more theoretically developed.21 Few articles consider the political agenda behind the use of the word terrorism or whether eradication through coercive means without political transformation is the most effective way forward (although here too, recent output has been more critical).22 A related critique is that terrorism studies tends to accept uncritically the framing of the terrorism problem by the state. Herman and Sidney Tarrow, Foreword, in della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State, p. vii. Cf. also Silke, The Road Less Travelled, pp. 20710; della Porta implies this in Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State (pp. 5 7); Weinberg and Richardson remark that the study of terrorism has largely been an a-theoretical undertaking (Leonard Weinberg and Louise Richardson, Conict Theory and the Trajectory of Terrorist Campaigns in Western Europe, in Silke, Research on Terrorism, p. 138). 19 Silke, The Road Less Travelled, pp. 2079. 20 Horgan commenting on an earlier draft of this article. 21 Cf. Max Taylor and John Horgan, A Conceptual Framework for Addressing Psychological Process in the Development of the Terrorist, Terrorism and Political Violence 18: 4 (2006); Gerald Cromer, Analogies to Terror: The Construction of Social Problems in Israel During the Intifada Al Aqsa, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18: 3 (2006); some of the articles in Tore Bjrgo (ed.), Root Causes of Terrorism: Myths, Reality and Ways Forward , London, Routledge, 2005.
18

Cf. Donald Haider-Markel, Mark Joslyn and Mohammad Tarek Al-Baghal, Can We Frame the Terrorist Threat? Issue Frames, the Perception of Threat, and Opinions on Counterterrorism Policies, Terrorism and Political Violence 18: 4 (2006); Dipak Gupta and Kusum Mundra, Suicide Bombing as a Strategic Weapon: An Empirical Investigation of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Terrorism and Political Violence, 17: 4 (2005); some of the articles in the human rights special issue of Terrorism and Political Violence, 17: 12 (2005); the more critical contributions in Bjrgo, Root Causes. Both these issues were raised by the papers presented by Richard Jackson and Marie Breen Smyth at the October 2006 Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies? conference.

22

OSullivan observed this in their tirade against the terrorism industry, as did George, equally stridently, in his article The Discipline of Terrorology.23 But even engaged critics such as Silke, OLeary, Crelinsten and Schmid and Jongman argue that terrorism studies often suffers from state bias. Schmid and Jongman observed in exasperation that much of the elds output resembled counterinsurgency masquerading as political science.24 Crelinsten, Silke and OLeary were more forgiving, simply observing that, as a result of government-funding opportunities and afnities between state institutions and researchers, research often displayed an uncritical orientation towards state perspectives and concerns.25 The effect of this orientation can be seen in both methodology and in the types of questions that remain unasked. One of the reasons so few articles draw on personal interviews or attempt to understand those using terroristic methods subjectively, through empathy and placing oneself in their shoes,26 is arguably this predisposition towards the status quo. This same orientation makes it difcult to ask questions about the extent to which counter-terrorism policies perpetuate the terrorist threat or whether political transformation may be more effective than mere coercive force aimed at eradication. Researchers may be too embedded socially and culturally in an entity under attack from others to engage these others subjectively or contemplate radically different counterterrorism tactics. Existing research foci and practices may also prevent researchers from doing so by acting as disciplining agents.27 Edward Herman and Gerry OSullivan, The Terrorism Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror, New York, Pantheon, 1990; Alexander George, The Discipline of Terrorology, in Alexander George (ed.), Western State Terrorism, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1991. 24 Schmid and Jongman, Political Terrorism, p. 182. 25 Crelinsten, Terrorism as Political Communication, pp. 34; Silke, An Introduction to Terrorism Research, pp. 1519; OLeary and Silke, Bridging Research and Policy, pp. 3923. See also Jonny Burnett and Dave Whyte, Embedded Expertise and the New Terrorism, Journal for Crime, Conict and the Media, 1: 4 (2005).
23

Cf. Gaetano Ilardi, Redening the Issues: The Future of Terrorism Research and the Search for Empathy, in Silke, Research on Terrorism; Joseba Zulaika, Read My Terror: Towards a Critical Terrorism Studies, keynote address, Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies?, Universities of Manchester/Aberystwyth, October 2006. 27 For an example of the disciplinary power of research practices, cf. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, London, Tavistock Publications, 1967.

26

Most of those who critique terrorism studies trace the elds shortcomings back either to problems inherent in the study of clandestine violence, whether carried out by state actors or nonstate actors, or to ideological predispositions and issues related to funding (the apparent lack thereof or too close an association with government bodies).28 A third cause, identied by, among others, Silke, OLeary and Merari, is that few scholars stay in the eld of terrorism studies. Silke found that over 80 per cent of articles published in the two core terrorism journals during the 1990s were written by onetimers. It is this lack of commitment to the eld, and the transitory nature of many of its contributors, that Silke identies as one of the reasons that the eld has struggled to establish a solid conceptual framework.29 It is arguably also a reason for the relative lack of the kind of conceptual and critical debates that are necessary for a eld to become more rigorous, and methodologically and conceptually innovative. Each of these critiques goes some way to explain the shortcomings in terrorism research, although the argument that funding is not available for projects critical of the status quo is perhaps overstated.30 It will always be difcult to obtain reliable data on clandestine violence, so that scholars will inevitably be tempted to draw heavily on secondary sources or build elaborate theories on very little, and often dubious, information. 31 Equally, given prevailing power structures, the embeddednes of researchers within them, and the shock that terroristic tactics typically seek to induce, it will arguably always be tempting to demonize the terrorist other. However, what most of the critiques overlook is the crucial fact that, beyond these inherent difculties, many of the observed shortcomings can be traced back to the dominance in terrorism research of what Robert Cox famously called a problem-solving approach: one that takes the world as it Cf. Silke, An Introduction to Terrorism Research, pp. 15 19; Silke, The Road Less Travelled, pp. 18796, 20910; OLeary and Silke, Bridging Research and Policy, pp. 3905; Schmid and Jongman, Political Terrorism, pp. 17782. 29 Silke, The Road Less Travelled, p. 191. See also note 6 above. 30 Cf. the ESRCs New Security Challenges Programme
28

(www.newsecurity. bham.ac.uk/); or the Norwegian governments funding of a critical study of insurgent conicts involving terroristic tactics (Heiberg, OLeary and Tirman, Terror, Insurgency and the State). 31 See for example Horgans critique of much of what has been written on terrorist psychology (Horgan, The Search for the Terrorist Personality).

nds it, with the prevailing social and power relationships and the institutions into which they are organised, as the given framework for action.32 This is not to say that terrorism research has been devoid of critical voices, if critical is dened, with Cox, as not tak[ing] institutions and social and power relations for granted but call[ing] them into question by concerning itself with their origins and how and whether they might be in the process of changing, 33 and, signicantly, exploring the extent to which the status quo contributes to the problem of terrorism. Crelinsten, who takes an explicitly critical approach,34 is a long-standing member of the editorial board of the journal Terrorism and Political Violence, as are Weinberg and Crenshaw, who are critical in the (loose) sense of problematizing existing dichotomies, historicizing political violence and moving beyond a state-centric security approach.35 Silke, Horgan, Schmid and Jongman can also be considered critical in that they are explicitly self-reexive about assumptions, methodologies and the shortcomings of terrorism research.36 Crelinsten and Apter hint at this in their seminal articles but do not develop the point (Crelinsten, Terrorism as Political Communication; David Apter, Political Violence in Analytical Perspective, in David Apter (ed.), The Legitimization of Violence, London, Macmillan Press, 1997). 33 Robert Cox, Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 10: 2 (1981), p. 129. 34 By explicitly critical I mean that Crelinsten identies himself with the critical tradition in the social sciences, in this case interactionism which draws on Gramsci, Foucault and constructivism (Crelinsten, Terrorism as Political Communication, pp. 323). 35 E.g. Leonard Weinberg and Ami Pedahzur, Political Parties and Terrorist Groups, London, Routledge, 2003; Martha Crenshaw, Thoughts on Relating Terrorism to Historical Contexts, in Martha Crenshaw (ed.), Terrorism in Context, University Park, PN, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995. I here interpret critical loosely. 36 Schmid and Horgan are on the editorial board of Terrorism
32

and Political Violence and have recently moved to the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews, long considered one of the hubs of traditional terrorism studies. Silke is the Director of Terrorism Studies at the University of East London and has worked for the Home Ofce on terrorism. Some other critical voices include, in no particular order, Zulaika and Douglass ( Joseba Zulaika and William Douglass, Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables and Faces of Terrorism, London, Routledge, 1996); Ross and Gurr ( Jeffrey Ross and Ted Gurr, Why Terrorism Subsides, Comparative Politics, 21: 4 (1989)); Stohl (e.g. Raymond Duvall and Michael Stohl, Governance by Terror, in Michael Stohl (ed.), The Politics of Terrorism, New

However, if we consider the typical characteristics of a problem-solving or traditional approach,37 we nd that many of these both dominate terrorism research (including many of the contributions of Silkes one-timers)38 and can be directly linked to the shortcomings witnessed in this research. In its most uncritical manifestation and it must be emphasised that few scholars are wholly uncritical in a Coxian sense a problemsolving approach does not question its framework of reference, its categories, its origins or the power relations that enable the production of these categories.39 It is state-centric, takes security to mean the security of the state rather than that of human beings, on the assumption that the former implies the latter, and sees security in narrow military or law-and-order terms, as opposed to the wider conception of human security, as for instance developed by critical security studies.40 It is ahistorical and ignores social and historical contexts; if it did not, it would have to account for the historical trajectory of the state, which would undermine the states claim to being uniquely legitimate. The problem-solving approach is positivist and objectivist, and seeks to explain the terrorist other from within state-centric paradigms rather than to understand the other inter-subjectively using interpretative or ethnographic methods. It divides the world sharply into dichotomies (for instance, between the legitimate and good state, and the illegitimate and evil terrorists). It posits assumptions based on these York, Marcel Dekker, 1988); Apter (Apter, Political Violence in Analytical Perspective); Weinberg and Pedahzur (e.g. Weinberg and Pedahzur, Political Parties and Terrorist Groups). Some of these (e.g. Ross, Gurr, Stohl and Apter) never published in the two core terrorism journals identied by Silke. 37 Coxs problem-solvingcritical dichotomy can be traced back to Horkheimers distinction between traditional and critical theory (Mark Hoffman, Critical Theory and the InterParadigm Debate, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 16: 2 (1987), pp. 2378). 38 Even though they are not formally part of the terrorism eld and some are critical, the sum of their contributions has helped to create a terrorism discourse that is predominantly problemsolving.

The following is a summary of the points made about problem-solving approaches generally in Cox, Social Forces, pp. 12830; Hoffman, Critical Theory and the Inter-Paradigm Debate, pp. 2318; Krause and Williams, From Strategy to Security: Foundations of Critical Security Studies, in Krause and Williams, Critical Security Studies. 40 Cf. debates in Krause and Williams, Critical Security Studies; Booth, Critical Security Studies and World Politics; etc.

39

dichotomies, often without adequately exploring whether these assumptions are borne out in practice. It sees interests as xed, and it regards those opposed to the status quo as the problem, without considering whether the status quo is part of the problem and transformation of both sides is necessary for its solution. Not only can many of these characteristics be found in more or less diluted form in terrorism research41 a legacy of the elds origins as a sub-eld within traditional security and strategic studies but these problem-solving characteristics can also be shown to contribute directly to its observed shortcomings. The reported lack of primary data, the dearth of interviews with terrorists and the elds typical unwillingness to engage subjectively with [the terrorists] motives,42 is in part fuelled by the elds over-identication with the state, and by the adoption of dichotomies that depict terrorism as an unredeemable atrocity like no other, that can only be approached with a heavy dose of moral indignation, although other factors, such as security concerns, play a role too.43 Talking with terrorists thus becomes taboo, unless it is done in the context of interrogation.44 Scholars displaying a broadly traditional approach could be said to include, among others, Peter Chalk, Richard Clutterbuck, Rohan Gunaratna, Bruce Hoffman, Raphael Israeli, Brian Jenkins, Walter Laqueur, Robert Pape, Jerrold Post, Marc Sageman, Claire Sterling, Paul Wilkinson. Not all are equally traditional. Chalk, Pape and Sageman display a mixture of traditional and critical characteristics. While operating within a largely problemsolving framework, Chalk historicizes West European Terrorism, acknowledges that states have used political terror and discusses how immigration and terrorism have become discursively linked (Peter Chalk, West European Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism: The Evolving Dynamic, Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1996, pp. 1821, 2563, 14450). Pape discusses the role occupational practices of democracies have played in producing suicide terrorism but does not adopt an explicitly human security approach (Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism, New York, Random House, 2005). The critical vs. problem-solving dichotomy is thus better conceptualized as a continuum, with scholars such as Chalk, Pape and Sageman coming close to those I have
41

categorized as critical on the ground that they historicize and problematize dichotomies and consider human security, but who share some of the traditional approachs attitudes towards problem-solving and the state (e.g. Crenshaw and Weinberg). 42 Zulaika, Read My Terror, p. 51. 43 Ibid., p. 32. 44 Ilardi makes a similar point when he calls for more empathy in terrorism research (Ilardi, Redening the Issues, pp. 21820, 2235). The relative absence of interviews in terrorism research can obviously not solely be attributed to the preva

Such a framework also makes it difcult to enquire whether the state has used terroristic methods. If the state is the primary referent, securing its security the main focus and its hegemonic ideology the accepted framework of analysis, terrorism, particularly if dened in sharp dichotomies between legitimate and illegitimate, can only be logically perpetrated by insurgents against the state, not by state actors themselves. State actors are engaged in counterterrorism, which is logically depicted as legitimate, or at least, justiable given the terrorist threat and the elds focus on short-term problem-solving. Where traditional terrorism studies do focus on state terrorism, it is in the context of the other: the authoritarian or totalitarian state that is the nemesis if not the actual enemy of the liberal democratic state.45 The observed disregard for historical context and wider sociopolitical dynamics46 can similarly be traced to the ahistorical propensity of problem-solving approaches and their state-centric understanding of security. The typical focus is thus on violent acts lence of problem-solving approaches. Security and practical concerns (such as language skills) play an important role, as does the fact that not all theoretical perspectives give interviews a central methodological place. But a problem-solving perspective, with its emphasis on the state and its discourses, does facilitate the view, expressed to me without nuance by a terrorism expert at a St Andrews conference, that Israeli interrogations of Hamas prisoners were a much more reliable source than personal interviews with free Hamas leaders as in the latter case they were more likely to dissimulate. Short-termism similarly encourages the view that former terrorists are not worth talking to (which, Horgan observed in his comments on an earlier draft of this paper, is one of the reasons why terrorism experts so seldom use interviews). 45 Cf. the search for a Soviet connection behind European and Middle Eastern terrorism during the Cold War, and the focus on Iranian-sponsored terrorism since the 1980s (e.g. Claire Sterling, The Terror Network: The Secret War of International Terrorism, New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981; Edgar OBallance, Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorism, 197995: The Iranian Connection, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 1996); cf. also the

focus on the usual suspects such as Libya, Iran, etc. in traditional discussions of state terrorism (e.g. Walter Laqueur, The Age of Terrorism, Boston, Little, Brown, 1987, pp. 26697; Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, London, Indigo, 1999, pp. 18596). None of this is to deny that states sponsor terrorism. At issue here is the selective focus on states that are both considered (semi-)authoritarian and enemies of the West and/or liberal democracy (see also George, The Discipline of Terrorology). 46 Cf. Silke, The Road Less Travelled, p. 209; Crenshaw and della Porta similarly imply this (Crenshaw, Terrorism in Context, pp. ix, 1219; della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State, pp. 47).

against the state, and the immediate terrorist campaign, not on how these acts relate to a wider constituency and its perception of human security, history and the state, or what role the evolution of the state has played in creating the conditions for oppositional violence.47 The lack of critical and theoretical reection 48 can be linked to the problem-solving tendency to be short-termist and practical, and to deal in xed categories and dichotomies that privilege the state and its dominant ideological values. From such a standpoint, scholars would not readily explore how terrorism discourse is produced and how it is used to marginalize alternative conceptions, discredit oppositional groups, and legitimize counter-terrorism policies that transgress international law.49 Nor would they be particularly likely to consider how the development of the modern state or the international system might have contributed to the evolution of terrorism, or how theories of the state and the international system can help illuminate the terrorism phenomenon. Drawing on cognate theories more broadly is similarly discouraged since terrorism is framed as an exceptional threat, unique and in urgent need of a practical solution.50 The state-centricity, inexibility and dichotomous nature of such a framework also makes it easier to recycle unproven assumptions, such as the notion that religious terrorism is not concerned with constituencies and knows no tactical constraints against killing indels,51 without having to test these assumptions empirically across different samples. It thus becomes possible to argue, for instance, that negotiating with terrorists encourages further terrorism Epitomizing this approach, the ofcial 9/11 report reserved only three out of several hundred pages to discuss the Roots of al-Qaeda (National Comission, The 9/11 Commission Report, London, W. W. Norton, 2004). This point was brought to my attention by Harmonie Toros. 48 See note 18. 49 Cf. also Horgan, Understanding Terrorism, p. 77. 50 Crelinsten makes a similar point (Crelinsten, Terrorism as Political Communication, pp. 46). American political and academic discourse in the wake of 9/11 is an example of
47

exceptionalism that served to marginalize any previous experience of counter-terrorism and justify exceptional measures (cf. Richard Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism: Language, Politics and Counter-Terrorism, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005). More broadly, terrorism research has shown a tendency to depict its topic as somehow sui generis, different from other forms of political behaviour and thus rendering cognate theories useless. 51 Cf. Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, pp. 87130.

without need for empirical proof a point already observed by Martha Crenshaw in 198352 or to insist that terrorists inherently lack legitimacy without reection on whether the state lacks legitimacy in the experience of those who support the terrorists.53 The combined result of these tendencies is often a less than critical support (whether tacit or explicit) for coercive counterterrorism policy without adequate analysis of how this policy contributes to the reproduction of the very terrorist threat it seeks to eradicate. None of this is intended to downplay the achievements of traditional terrorism studies. At its best, a problem-solving approach can be more rigorous and precise than critical approaches because it does not constantly have to interrogate itself and works within xed, measurable parameters.54 It can offer very practical advice where critical perspectives often struggle to go beyond critique and Crenshaw, Terrorism, Legitimacy, and Power: The Consequences of Political Violence, Middletown, CT, Wesleyan University Press, 1983, pp. 1011; cf. also OLeary and Silkes observation that governments and insurgents generally negotiate even though they say they never will (OLeary and Silke, Bridging Research and Policy, pp. 41618). 53 Cf. Ideally, the objective of negotiations should be to move the parties from violence to pacic politics and bring the armed non-state actor into the political mainstream and under the rule of law. There tends to be an assumption that governments are already compliant with the rule of law and human rights at least compared with rebel groups. This assumption can distort dynamics if the reverse is true in the experience of the population, but the negotiations proceed on the basis of assumed government compliance with assumed regular rebel abuse as a norm (L. Philipson, Engaging Armed Groups: The Challenge of Asymmetries, in R. Ricigliano (ed.), Choosing to Engage: Armed Groups and Peace Processes, London, Conciliation Resources, 2005); see also B. I. Spector, Negotiating with Villains Revisited: Research Note, International Negotiation, 8 (2003), p. 616. I am indebted to Harmonie Toros for bringing these sources to my attention.
52

Cf. Coxs observation that problem-solving approaches are good in x[ing] limits...to a problem area and to reduce the statement of a particular problem to a limited number of variables which are amenable to relatively close and precise examination (Cox, Social Forces, p. 129). Examples of rigorous and informative traditional terrorism research are Chalk, West European Terrorism; Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004; and Pape, Dying to Win (although this is in part because these authors display some key critical attitudes, such as a readiness to historicize and consider the negative impact of state policies).

54

deconstruction.55 It acknowledges the centrality of the state as a locus...of effective political action and what this means for security issues where critical approaches may be tempted to exclude a focus on state action...on the grounds that it plays inevitably within the rules of existing conceptions.56 These are challenges that any critical perspective has to wrestle with. In addition, a number of scholars who have a broadly problemsolving approach, simultaneously display several critical characteristics by, for instance, going some way in historicizing terrorism or recognizing that state actions have helped to produce insurgent terrorism.57 The distinction between problem-solving and critical is thus not sharp but moves along a continuum. However, while traditional terrorism research has produced some solid exploratory and descriptive knowledge, and, within the limits of an un-problematized status quo, explanatory knowledge,58 the shortcomings of this research from overreliance on secondary data rather than eldwork, to uncritical adoption of state accounts, and lack of imagination regarding alternative solutions are unlikely to be adequately addressed from within a purely problem-solving paradigm. It is no coincidence that the more rigorous and informative traditional scholars are typically those who display some critical characteristics. An explicitly critical turn, therefore, is called for. A critically constituted terrorism studies would encourage scholars to move beyond the state as the sole legitimate referent, and beyond state-centric security notions, to the wider notion of human security and an analysis of how terrorism and counterterrorism affect the security of all, starting from the (gendered) individual, through the community to the state, and including such concerns as social justice, inequality, structural violence, culture and discrimination.59 It would enable research into the dynamic of violence Williams and Krause, Preface, pp. xiiixvi; Krause and Williams, From Strategy to Security, pp. 512. 56 Williams and Krause, Preface, p. xvi. 57 See notes 41 and 54. 58 See Silkes description of three levels of knowledge and his comment that traditional terrorism studies has not progressed beyond these levels to producing much explanatory or predictive
55

knowledge (Andrew Silke, The Devil You Know, in Silke, Research on Terrorism,p.58). 59 Cf. Marie Smyth and Marie-Therese Fay, Personal Accounts from Northern Irelands Troubles: Public Conict, Private Loss , London, Pluto Press, 2000; Paddy Hillyard, Suspect

between state and non-state actors, and particularly the extent to which state policies (re)produce oppositional political violence and vice versa, as well as what impact both oppositional and state violence have on individuals and society.60 It would encourage researchers to historicize and contextualize the conict by looking at the evolution of violence, broader processes of radicalization, the relationship between violent organizations and wider social movements, and the relationship between social movements and the state, by drawing, for instance, on social movement theory.61 A critical approach would enable scholars to analyse how terrorism discourse is used to discredit oppositional groups and justify state policies, and what structures underpin its production.62 It would encourage research into how discourse is used by oppositional groups to discredit state elites, and what structures make such discourse possible.63 It would facilitate research to move beyond paradigms that a priori seek the eradication of violent non-state actors through military action and contemplate the need for political solutions and in particular political transformation, for instance, by drawing on the insights from conict transformation studies.64 It would enable scholars to move from paradigms where the non-state actor is a priori considered to be the problem, to one Community: Peoples Experience of the Prevention of Terrorism Acts in Britain, London, Pluto Press, 1993. For a denition of structural violence see John Galtung, Violence, Peace and Peace Research, Journal of Peace Research, 6: 3 (1969). 60 Cf. Crenshaw, Terrorism in Context; della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State; Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research, pp. 1415. 61 Cf. Donatella della Porta, Social Movements and Violence: Participation in Underground Organizations,vol.4, International Social Movement Research, London, JAI Press, 1992); della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State; Glenn Robinson, Hamas as Social Movement, in Quintan Wiktorowicz (ed.), Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 2004; Jeroen Gunning, Hamas in Politics: Democracy, Religion, Violence , London, Hurst, 2007. 62 Cf. Stuart Croft, Culture, Crisis and Americas War on Terror,

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006; Jackson, Writing the War on Terrorism; Zulaika and Douglass, Terror and Taboo. 63 Cf. what makes it possible for groups such as the Lebanese Hizbollah to depict the Holocaust as a fabrication or an exaggeration without losing credibility with their constituency. 64 Cf. John Paul Lederach, Quo Vadis? Reframing Terror from the Perspective of Conict Resolution, in Townhall Meeting, University of California, Irvine, 2001). I am indebted to Harmonie Toros for this point.

where, a priori, all sides are assumed to be part of both the problem and the solution. Methodologically, it would encourage researchers to engage with their research subjects at a human level with the purpose of, in the words of Sara Roy (a scholar outside terrorism studies), humanizing the other.65 It would facilitate the adoption of ethnographic methodologies, of considering interviews as a pivotal source, and of living among the communities from where oppositional groups stem.66 It would encourage scholars to break down usthem dichotomies and wrestle with Richardsons observation that: When I consider a terrorist atrocity I do not think of the perpetrators as evil monsters but rather I think about the terrorists I have met, and the people I have known who have joined terrorist groups...I grapple with how a young idealist can believe that in murdering innocent people he or she is battling injustice and ghting for a fairer world. I think, as the Protestant martyr John Bradford said 500 years ago, There but for the grace of God, go I.67 Such an approach would enable a shift from a limited focus on terroristic violence (however dened) to one also encompassing both non-terroristic violence and non-violent behaviour, although the boundary between these two categories depends on the denition of violence and non-violent. This would mean taking into account non-terroristic violence such as guerrilla tactics,68 enforced recruitment of child soldiers, executions, torture, house demolitions, and collateral damage, as well as non-violent acts, such as structural violence, economic strangulation, imprisonment, charitable Sara Roy, Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conict, London, Pluto Press, 2006, p. viii. 66 Cf. Allen Feldman, Formations of Violence: The Narrative of the Body and Political Terror in Northern Ireland , Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1991; Smyth and Fay, Personal Accounts from Northern Irelands Troubles; Zulaika and Douglass, Terror and Taboo; Victoria Fontan, Polarization between Occupier and Occupied in Post-Saddam Iraq: Colonial Humiliation and the Formation of Political Violence, Terrorism
65

and Political Violence, 18: 2 (2006); Gunning, Hamas in Politics. Cf. also Jessica Stern, Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, New York, Ecco/HarperCollins, 2004. 67 Louise Richardson, What Terrorists Want: Understanding the Terrorist Threat, London, John Murray, 2006, p. 2. 68 A distinction between terrorist and guerrilla would work only within a denitional framework such as that proposed by Ganor, who distinguishes between terrorist and guerrilla (Boaz Ganor, Dening Terrorism: Is One Mans Terrorist Another Mans Freedom Fighter?, in ICT Research Report, Herzliya, International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 2001).

aid (and not just in relation to terrorist funding), education, limiting freedom of speech or marginalizing alternative lifestyles.69 Without such a widening of the agenda, key aspects of the conict would be missed. One cannot understand the Italian Red Brigades without analysing the wider left-wing movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and the behaviour of the Italian state towards it. Similarly, one cannot understand Hamas without analysing its relationship with its wider constituency, or the impact of Israeli occupation and settlement practices (including structural violence) on that constituency.70 Such a widening of the agenda, moreover, would deny terrorism the capacity to portray itself as somehow exceptional, and thus exceptionally frightening, rather than as one form of violence among many. It would also deny it the capacity to isolate itself from its wider social context, enabling researchers to engage cognate theories such as democratization theory, which concern themselves with broader trends, of which violence is but one aspect. The above shifts in perspective and methodology are more likely to occur within a critical framework. However, as we will see, such a critical framework is not without its own dangers. THE CRITICAL TURN AND RESEARCH OUTSIDE TERRORISM STUDIES Besides enabling a more self-reective and theoretically rigorous approach to the study of terrorism, a critical turn may also be necessary to provide an identiable alternative space where all those can converge whose research includes designated terrorist organizations but who for ideological, disciplinary or practical reasons, cannot identify with either the term terrorism or terrorism studies. It is vital to bring these fragmented voices together because much of what I have described as a critical agenda is already being carried out by area specialists, social anthropologists, social movement theorists, psychologists, conict or peace studies specialists and many
69 70

For denition of structural violence, see note 59. Cf. my analysis of the various reasons for Hamass decision

to declare a ceasere in 2003 and 2005 that would be incomplete without an understanding of the impact of changes in the views of Hamass constituency and Palestinian society more generally (Gunning, Hamas in Politics, ch. 6).

others.71 A striking illustration of this is Avishag Gordons nding that between 1988 and 2001 nearly 80 per cent of articles on terrorism were published outside the core terrorism studies journals.72 These statistics can only be taken as indicative since they are dependent on how one denes what constitutes core terrorism studies journals, and whether one includes articles that do not use the term terrorism at all. But, that much is published on the phenomenon of terrorism outside terrorism studies is clear, as is the fact that many of those who publish elsewhere do not wish to be identied with terrorism studies. It is, for instance, no coincidence that only one of the eight area specialists approached by the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) to produce a collection of case studies on long-standing conicts involving terrorism, had published in the two journals Silke regards as the core of terrorism studies.73 It is similarly no coincidence that many of those working on the Middle East, whether as area studies specialists, anthropologists or international relations theorists, often do not publish in these core journals.74 Cf. John Paul Lederach, Paul Rogers and William Zartman in conict resolution/transformation studies; Allen Feldman, Marianne Heiberg, Carolyn Nordstrom, John Sidel and Jonathan Spencer in social anthropology; social movement scholars in della Porta (ed.), Participation in Underground Organizations; area studies scholars in Heiberg, Tirman and OLeary, Terror, Insurgency and the State; psychologists and criminologists in Silke, Terrorists, Victims and Society. 72 Out of 3,648 articles discussing terrorism, 2,864 (79%) were published outside the core terrorism studies eld against 784 (21%) inside it. See Avishag Gordon, Terrorism and Knowledge Growth: A Databases and Internet Analysis, in Silke, Research on Terrorism, p. 109. 73 I refer here to the NUPI-SSRC study edited by Heiberg, OLeary and Tirman, Terror, Insurgency and the State. Kirsten Schulze is the only area specialist who has published in one of the two core terrorism journals (Silke, who has similarly published in one of these two journals was also involved in the project but not as an area specialist). Lack of identication with terrorism
71

studies as a eld may also be one of the reasons why so many of those publishing in terrorism studies journals are, in Silkes words, transients or one-timers (covering 83% of articles surveyed; Silke, The Road Less Travelled, pp. 191, 211). 74 More research needs to be carried out into the reasons behind this phenomenon. But, based on personal observation and anecdotal information, I would hazard that scholars such as Halliday, Dalacoura, (Sara) Roy, (Olivier) Roy, Burgat, Esposito, etc., have not sought to publish in the core terrorism journals because of the contested nature of the term terrorism, the political use it has been put to in the Middle

Not all those who have not published in the core terrorism journals are necessarily unwilling to do so. Some may not have thought to publish outside their own disciplines. In addition, the core terrorism journals can only publish a limited amount of material. But there are also a good number of scholars who appear to have refrained from publishing in the core terrorism journals because they believe the term terrorism to be too conceptually ambivalent or politically compromised, or because they have regarded terrorism studies as too biased, prescriptive, hostile or theoretically barren.75 A further problem is that, outside the power structures that facilitated the emergence of a dedicated terrorism studies, terrorism does not constitute an obvious central organizing concept on which to build a eld. Organizations and states move in and out of terrorism and often share little else. There is, for instance, little that the Unabomber, anti-abortionists, the US ofcers involved in training the Nicaraguan Contras and Hamas have in common beyond their use of a similar tactic.76 Similarly, yesterdays terrorists can become todays politicians (or even statesmen, Mandela being a case in point), which raises the question of when a terrorist phenomenon ceases to be a proper subject for terrorism studies. Those studying Hamas, for instance, from an area studies perspective may thus have found it less convincing, at least until recently, to consult the terrorism literature than, say, the literature on Islamism.77 This brings us to a paradox. On the one hand, there seems to be a greater willingness than before, both among terrorism experts and members of cognate elds, to consider engaging with each

East, and the belief widespread outside terrorism studies that terrorism studies is a theoretically barren, ideologically compromised eld. 75 See previous footnote. 76 Cf. also Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research, p. 8. 77 Much of the literature on Hamas pre-2001 does not engage with terrorism studies (e.g. Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad, Bloomington, IN, Indiana

University Press, 1994; Beverley Milton-Edwards, Islamic Politics in Palestine, London, Tauris Academic Studies, 1996; Andrea Nsse, Muslim Palestine: The Ideology of Hamas, Amsterdam, Harwood Academic, 1998; Khaled Hroub, Hamas: Political Thought and Practice, Washington, DC, Institute for Palestine Studies, 2000; Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, and Coexistence, New York, Columbia University Press, 2000).

others work.78 Whether as a result of the perceived crisis in the war on terror or of the failure of terrorism studies to predict and prevent 9/11, within traditional terrorism studies there seems to be a greater readiness to acknowledge the elds shortcomings and look for inspiration elsewhere.79 At the same time, the war on terror has made scholars outside terrorism studies more acutely aware of both terrorism and terrorism studies. Whether as a result of the increased prevalence of terrorism discourse, the effect of often controversial counter-terrorism policies, or the expansion of funding opportunities for the study of terrorism, scholars from cognate disciplines have recently shown a greater interest in studying this phenomenon and in engaging with terrorism studies.80 On the other hand, though, there is no widely agreed concept that can serve as a unifying umbrella. While more scholars have become willing to adopt the term terrorism, this term is still considered problematic by many, just as the state-centric, military orientation found in much of the terrorism literature prevents many from wishing to be identied with terrorism studies. For many, it is the unproblematic use of the term terrorism in traditional approaches, and the relative lack of critical reection on the elds pro-status quo bias that deters them from fruitfully engaging with terrorism studies. Usage of the term terrorism also poses serious practical and security difculties for those conducting eldwork among terrorists or what Hillyard aptly termed suspect communities.81 Because many of these scholars do not use the discourse of terrorism studies, their contributions often remain unnoticed by those who do. As a result, not only do traditional scholars remain Tentative evidence of this trend can be found in the inux of new scholars, already established in their own cognate elds, into the core terrorism journals (although it remains to be seen how many of these will, in Silkes words, be onetimers); the increase in papers on terrorism at the annual conferences of mainstream academic associations such as BISA, ISA, PSA; and the mixture of old-timers and newcomers (often well established in their cognate disciplines) at terrorism conferences such as the International Summit on Democracy, Terrorism and
78

Security organized by the Club de Madrid in March 2005 in Madrid. See also Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research, p. 12. 79 The various recent reviews of the terrorism literature are an illustration of this. 80 Within the eld of Middle Eastern studies, for instance, more scholars appear to be willing to engage terrorism studies than before. 81 Hillyard, Suspect Community.

unchallenged by these new contributions, but those making these fragmented contributions do not know of each others existence, or benet from the insights of traditional terrorism studies. It is this lack of interaction, and specically the lack of interaction with traditional terrorism studies, that has led scholars like Merari to observe that studies from outside the eld, however strong in other aspects, are often marred by a lack of familiarity with core insights from the traditional terrorism literature.82 Without a central concept like terrorism, many of these disparate voices are unlikely to converge. Yet without an explicit acknowledgement of the difculties of this concept, and of the effects of problem-solving approaches on the study of terrorism, many of those same voices are unlikely to converge under a traditional terrorism studies umbrella. It is for this reason that it is necessary to instigate an explicitly critical turn in terrorism studies since only a eld that explicitly problematizes some of the key aspects of traditional terrorism studies is likely to facilitate the coming together of all these disparate voices. It is for the same reason that any critically constituted eld may have to maintain the term terrorism as the central unifying concept, despite its many drawbacks and the lack of an agreed denition, since without it there would be little reason for these fragmented voices to converge. In my own work on Hamas and Hizbollah, most of what I want to understand or explain can be said without reference to the term terrorism (unless it concerns the way terrorism discourse is used to demonize Hamas and Hizbollah).83 The decision of these organizations to target civilians can be explained without the term terrorism, and this is only one aspect of a much larger picture. Where terrorism does come into its own is as a delineation of research dealing with similar issues. Without terrorism as a conceptual umbrella, it is unlikely that I would have been aware of the model Ross and Gurr developed to explain the demise of political violence in North America, or of the similarities between the dynamics between mass Quoted in Silke, The Devil You Know, p. 69. This is not to deny that certain practices of Hamas and Hizbollah are morally unjustiable (at least within a critical
83 82

perspective which is concerned with the human security of all concerned, whether Israeli or Palestinian). My focus here is on the political usage of the term to construct a reality in which Israel is depicted as wholly legitimate and good, against Hamas and Hizbollah as wholly illegitimate and evil.

movement, violent organization and state forces in 1970s Italy and 1990s Israel/Palestine.84 Thus, as a comparative conceptual category, terrorism and the research that has been carried out into it is useful. Besides offering a central, organizing concept under which these fragmented voices can converge, there are two further reasons for retaining the term terrorism. One of the key tasks of a critically constituted eld is to investigate the political usage of this term. For that reason alone, it should be retained as a central marker. But, even more compellingly, the term terrorism is currently so dominant that a critically constituted eld cannot afford to abandon it. Academia does not exist outside the power structures of its day. However problematic the term, it dominates public discourse and as such needs to be engaged with, deconstructed and challenged, rather than abandoned and left to those who use it without problematization or purely for political ends. Using the term also increases the currency and relevance of ones research in both funding and policy circles, as well as among the wider public. It is because of this particular constellation of power structures that a critical eld cannot afford, either morally or pragmatically, to abandon the term terrorism. EMANCIPATION, CULTURAL SENSITIVITY AND POLICY RELEVANCE This leads to the twin problems of policy relevance and cultural sensitivity. A critically conceived eld cannot afford to be policy irrelevant while remaining true to the emancipatory agenda implicit in the term critical, nor can it be uncritically universalist without betraying its critical commitment. A closer look at the relationship between emancipation and critique will help to illustrate this problem. The linkage between emancipatory and critical has been contested by those who regard emancipation as deeply problematic because of its normative implications. Or, as Alker summarized this point, the great, global, emancipatory, and cosmopolitan movements . . . have all been used to justify or obscure imperialistic or quasi

Ross and Gurr, Why Terrorism Subsides; della Porta, LeftWing Terrorism in Italy, in Crenshaw, Terrorism in Context, pp. 11014. See Gunning, Hamas in Politics.

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colonial practices as well as, one might add, male-centred practices.85 However, whether or not emancipation is problematic has little to do with the existence or non-existence of such a linkage. Historically, the critical project was explicitly framed within an emancipatory framework and implied a commitment to a different political or social order. While some branches of critical scholarship have since rejected the term, various reviews of the myriad of critical projects including those most critical of the notion of emancipation, such as poststructuralists and postmodernists, have concluded that, whether or not they subscribe to the term, all derive from an underlying conception of a different order and thus contain an emancipatory element.86 Similarly, key thinkers within the poststructuralist tradition, most notably Derrida, have come to (re)-embrace the notion of emancipation.87 To be critical, it seems, one has to have some normative notion of what is wrong and how things should be different. Even those who dismiss the notion of emancipation as hopelessly intertwined with grand theories of progress and argue that there are, in Hutchingss words, no stable criteria by which to judge something better or worse, operate within a normative framework that seeks a different political and social order. 88 Such a framework need not involve a xed or predetermined blueprint of utopia. In fact, such a blueprint is anathema to a critical perspective. For, quoting Wyn Jones, it is inherent in a dialectical approach that [it] regards each order or condition as the bearer of its own negation. Thus even if a more emancipated order is brought into existence, the process of emancipation remains incomplete. There is always room for improvement; there is always unnished business in the task of emancipation.89 Or, put more forcefully by Hutchings, while the emancipation-orientated among critical scholars should not be prevented from being specically prescriptive, they must, in response to the postmodernist Hayward Alker, Emancipation in the Critical Security Studies Project, in Booth, Critical Security Studies, p. 202. 86 Richard Wyn Jones, On Emancipation: Necessity, Capacity, and Concrete Utopias, in Booth, Critical Security Studies, pp. 21720; Alker, Emancipation, p. 192. Hutchings makes the
85

same point differently by arguing that all critical traditions are oriented towards freedom (Hutchings, The Nature of Critique, p. 89). 87 Alker, Emancipation, p. 202; Wyn Jones, On Emancipation, p. 219. 88 Hutchings, The Nature of Critique, p. 83. 89 Wyn Jones, On Emancipation, p. 230.

critique that the notion of emancipation...is itself authoritative and exclusionary, always acknowledge that no normative position is nonexclusive or unchallengeable. In other words, what cannot be revised is the assumption of the revisability of conditions itself .90 If emancipation is conceived in this critical way as, with Booth, a dynamic process with changing targets rather than in terms of any timeless endpoint,91 and as harbouring within itself its own negation which means a constant awareness of its hegemonic and exclusionary potential it highlights, more than any other concept, the need for policy-and real-world-relevance in any critically constituted project, and the need for terrorism research to consider issues of emancipation. Rather than compromising the critical project, it brings to the fore the dilemmas a critical terrorism studies will have to face in managing the tension between the universalist and hegemonic tendencies of social science research and the culturally specic exigencies of a particular conict. Most conicts revolve in part around different conceptions of emancipation (or around the refusal of one side to see the emancipatory needs of the other). By making the emancipatory framework of the research explicit and problematizing it, scholars are forced to recognize not only their own emancipatory agenda but also the emancipatory impetus behind much terrorism. Precisely because of the troubled history of emancipation, recognition of the link between emancipation and critique encourages researchers to problematize their own normative framework and engage, though not necessarily agree, with other perspectives, most notably those from what has variably been called the South or the Third World, 92 and in the context of the war on terror, Islamic thinkers as well as, signicantly, Islamist activists.93 Hutchings, The Nature of Critique, p. 90. 91 Booth, Introduction to Part 3 (Emancipation), in Booth, Critical Security Studies, p. 182. 92 Cf. also Alker, Emancipation, pp. 2001; Ayoobs critique of Booth, quoted in Smith, The Contested Concept of Security, p. 44. 93 Bob Lambert, head of the Metropolitan Police Muslim Contact Unit, similarly called for such engagement at the October
90

2006 Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies? conference. Two possible approaches to the tension between universalism and cultural particularity can be found in Butlers notion of a not-yet arrived universality and Walzers reiterative universalism ( Judith Butler, Universality in Culture, in Joshua Cohen (ed.), For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism Martha C. Nussbaum with Respondents, Boston, Beacon Press, 1996, pp. 469, 52; Michael Walzer,

The notion of emancipation also crystallizes the need for policy engagement. For, unless a critical eld seeks to be policy relevant, which, as Cox rightly observes, means combining critical and problem-solving approaches, it does not full its emancipatory potential.94 One of the temptations of critical approaches is to remain mired in critique and deconstruction without moving beyond this to reconstruction and policy relevance.95 Vital as such critiques are, the challenge of a critically constituted eld is also to engage with policy makers and terrorists and work towards the realization of new paradigms, new practices, and a transformation, however modestly, of political structures. That, after all, is the original meaning of the notion of immanent critique that has historically underpinned the critical project and which, in Booths words, involves the discovery of the latent potentials in situations on which to build political and social progress, as opposed to putting forward utopian arguments that are not realizable. Or, as Booth wryly observes, this means building with ones feet rmly on the ground, not constructing castles in the air and asking what it means for real people in real places.96 Rather than simply critiquing the status quo, or noting the problems that come from an un-problematized acceptance of the state, a critical approach must, in my view, also concern itself with offering concrete alternatives. Even while historicizing the state and oppositional violence, and challenging the states role in reproducing oppositional violence, it must wrestle with the fact that the concept of the modern state and sovereignty embodies a coherent response to many of the central problems of political life, and in particular to the place of violence in political life. Even while de-essentializing and deconstructing claims about security, it must concern itself with how Nation and Universe, in Grethe Peterson (ed.), The Tanner Lectures on Human Values Vol. XI, Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1990). 94 Cox, Social Forces, pp. 12930; Hoffman, Critical Theory, pp. 2378. 95 Cf. Booth, Beyond Critical Security Studies, p. 275, Williams and Krause, Preface, pp. xiiixvi. 96 Booth, Beyond Critical Security Studies, p. 263. Booth

similarly argues that any critical project (a critical security theory, in his case) should be policy relevant: it is essential to ask what it means for real people in real places. What, for example, does ones theorizing mean for the people(s) of the Balkans, women in east Africa, the prospects for the poorest classes in some region...? (pp. 2745). See also Cox, Social Forces, p. 130.

security is to be redened, and in particular on what theoretical basis.97 Whether because those critical of the status quo are wary of becoming co-opted by the structures of power (and their emphasis on instrumental rationality),98 or because policy makers have, for obvious reasons (including the failure of many critical scholars to offer policy relevant advice), a greater afnity with traditional scholars, the role of expert adviser is more often than not lled by traditional scholars.99 The result is that policy makers are insufciently challenged to question the basis of their policies and develop new policies based on immanent critiques. A notable exception is the readiness of European Union ofcials to enlist the services of both traditional and critical scholars to advise the EU on how better to understand processes of radicalization.100 But this would have been impossible if more critically oriented scholars such as Horgan and Silke had not been ready to cooperate with the EU. Striving to be policy relevant does not mean that one has to accept the validity of the term terrorism or stop investigating the political interests behind it. Nor does it mean that each piece of research must have policy relevance or that one has to limit ones research to what is relevant for the state, since the critical turn implies a move beyond state-centric perspectives. End-users could, and should, thus include both state and non-state actors such as the Foreign Ofce and the Muslim Council of Britain and Hizb ut-Tahrir; the Northern Ireland Ofce and the IRA and the Ulster Unionists; the Israeli government Williams and Krause, Preface, pp. xiiixvi. A potentially more intractable problem is the issue highlighted by Rengger that the demand that theory must have a praxial dimension itself runs the risk of collapsing critical theory back into traditional theory by making it dependent on instrumental conceptions of rationality (N.J. Rengger, Negative Dialectic? The Two Modes of Critical Theory in World Politics, in Wyn Jones, Critical Theory, pp. 1023). Rengger hints at the possibility of an alternative critical route that is not so hostile to instrumental rationality per se and therefore more able to put together strategy and tactics in both intellectually and politically
98 97

fertile ways (p. 107). 99 Cf. also Linklaters argument that critical scholars are as relevant as realists and that the claim of realists to be more representative of reality is false (Andrew Linklater, Political Community and Human Society, in Booth, Critical Security Studies, p. 123). 100 I am referring to the European Commission Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation (http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/detail.cfm? ref=1836&l=E).

and Hamas and Fatah (as long as the overarching principle is to reduce the political use of terror, whoever the perpetrator). It does mean, though, that a critically constituted eld must work hard to bring together all the fragmented voices from beyond the terrorism eld, to maximize both the elds rigour and its policy relevance. Whether a critically constituted terrorism studies will attract the fragmented voices from outside the eld depends largely on how broadly the term critical is dened. Those who assume critical to mean Critical Theory or poststructuralist may not feel comfortable identifying with it if they do not themselves subscribe to such a narrowly dened critical approach. Rather, to maximize its inclusiveness, I would follow Williams and Krauses approach to critical security studies, which they dene simply as bringing together many perspectives that have been considered outside of the mainstream of the discipline.101 This means refraining from establishing new criteria of inclusion/exclusion beyond the (normative) expectation that scholars self-reexively question their conceptual framework, the origins of this framework, their methodologies and dichotomies; and that they historicize both the state and terrorism, and consider the security and context of all, which implies among other things an attempt at empathy and crosscultural understanding.102 Anything more normative would limit the ability of such a eld to create a genuinely interdisciplinary, non-partisan and innovative framework, and exclude valuable insights borne of a broadly critical approach, such as those from conict resolution studies who, despite working within a traditional framework, offer important insights by moving beyond a narrow military understanding of security to a broader understanding of human security and placing violence in its wider social context. 103 Thus, a poststructuralist has no greater claim Williams and Krause, Preface, pp. xxi. Cf. Booth: Reexivity (strategic monitoring), which involves the application of a theory back on its own ideas and practices, is a basic feature of critical theory true to itself (Booth, Beyond Critical Security Studies, p. 259). Cf. also Ilardi, Redening the Issues; Zulaika, Read My Terror. 103 Cf. Harmonie Toros, Joining Forces: Bringing Peace
102 101

Research into Terrorism Studies, conference paper, BISA Annual Conference, Cork, 2006. See also my use of Stedmans spoiler model in helping to explain Hamas (Gunning, Peace with Hamas? The Transforming Potential of Political Participation, International Affairs, 80: 2 (2004); Gunning, Hamas in Politics).

to be part of this critical eld than a realist who looks beyond the state at the interaction between the violent group and their wider social constituency.104 CONCLUSIONS: MANAGING DEVELOPING THE CRITICAL TURN AND

There is, of course, a tension between the two functions of the proposed critical turn. As a means to bring together divergent voices, it demands the absence of a narrowing normative straitjacket. As a remedy for the shortcomings of traditional perspectives, it demands an explicitly critical approach with an emphasis on policy relevance, which I have sought to capture in the notion of emancipation. Because of this, a critically constituted eld may collapse from its own internal tensions. An overly inclusive eld may dissolve because it has too little in common or because it is too eclectic to constitute a eld. 105 An overly normative eld risks isolating itself by being too exclusionary. In either case, though, the critical turn is likely to render the denitional debate that has tormented terrorism studies for so long partially obsolete by refocusing the debate on the wider context, and the power structures behind discourse. The explicit pursuit of a critical turn may also exacerbate the tension between traditional and critical approaches. However, this is not a reason for rejecting a critical turn and could in fact be turned into a creative tension. Tensions between traditional terrorism studies and critical or cognate approaches already exist. A self-conscious critical turn does not have to exacerbate this situation if it is executed sensitively, by emphasizing the need for inclusion and cooperation rather than simply highlighting the shortcomings of traditional approaches. Traditional terrorism studies have produced a wealth of descriptive data and analysis, and not to acknowledge this would weaken the critical project which should Similarly, the notion of emancipation must be conceptualized in as inclusive a manner as possible (along the lines suggested above). A similar point was raised by Matt
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McDonald in the paper he presented at the October 2006 Is it Time for a Critical Terrorism Studies? conference. 105 Cf. Booths critique of the absence of an overarching theory in Critical Security Studies (Booth, Beyond Critical Security Studies).

complement rather than supplant traditional approaches.106 Critical approaches must in turn be challenged by traditional perspectives, to keep them focused on the need for policy relevance and to (re)-consider the benets of the status quo. At the same time, not considering the critical turn will be highly costly in terms of knowledge lost through fragmentation and lack of critical exposure. From both a conceptual and a policy-relevance perspective, the statist focus and ahistoricity of problem-solving approaches to the study of terrorism, as well as the methodological implications of these characteristics, must be overcome if the quality of research and policy recommendations is to improve. Similarly, for knowledge (and knowledge about the conditions of this knowledge) to be expanded, the many fragmented voices of those studying aspects of terrorism outside the traditional terrorism eld should be brought together under one umbrella to enable the conuence of disparate insights, and to facilitate the cross-fertilization between traditional terrorism studies, critical terrorism studies and cognate disciplines.107 Existing terrorism journals can facilitate such a critical turn by encouraging the submission of more critically constituted papers, identifying gaps in, and shortcomings of, research to date, and consciously seeking to ll them (a process that is already, tentatively, underway).108 Alone, however, that is unlikely to be sufcient. New outlets should be created with the specic aim of encouraging both critical perspectives, and critically conceived traditional approaches. The recently conceived Journal of Critical Studies on Terrorism is a case in point. Encouraging journals from cognate disciplines to issue special editions in partnership with scholars from within the terrorism eld is another way forward, as is the organization of explicitly interdisciplinary conferences that seek to engage scholars from beyond the terrorism eld. The creation of university courses that critically engage both traditional and critical
106

Cf. also Ranstorp, Mapping Terrorism Research, pp. 13

14. I use scare marks around knowledge to indicate the tension between traditional, critical theory and postmodernist perceptions of what constitutes knowledge (cf. Hutchings, The
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Nature of Critique; Rengger, Negative Dialectic?). 108 Cf. the more critically oriented articles in recent editions of Terrorism and Political Violence (Silke, The Role of Suicide in Politics, Conict, and Terrorism, Terrorism and Political Violence, 18: 1 (2006); Fontan, Polarization between Occupier and Occupied; Cromer, Analogies to Terror).

perspectives on terrorism is similarly essential, as is the establishment of research centres that facilitate both critical and critically conceived traditional research on terrorism.109 The creation of an explicitly differentiated critical terrorism studies eld offers the advantage of facilitating both an explicitly critical research on terrorism, and the in-gathering of all those cognate voices that are wary of being identied with traditional terrorism studies (although it remains to be seen whether they are willing to identify with a critical terrorism studies eld). However, the establishment of such a separate eld runs the risk of suggesting that only critical terrorism scholars must reect on their methodology and their assumptions. Each of the problems discussed above should concern all who study terrorism, regardless of whether they have adopted a problem-solving or a critical approach. The very fact that the need for a critical turn is discussed, accompanied by the establishment of journals and centres that encourage a more critical approach to terrorism, should contribute to making terrorism studies as a whole more selfreexive and critical. However, whether a critical turn will in fact materialize, and whether it will succeed in bringing on board both wary scholars from cognate disciplines and the more selfreexive traditional scholars, depends, not just on how the critical turn is managed, but on each scholar involved in terrorism research traditional, critical or cognate. The current state of affairs is untenable. Terrorism and counterterrorism measures kill and harm real people in real places. How we understand these phenomena, and how we address The creation of a masters course dedicated to exploring traditional and critical approaches to terrorism at the University of Aberystwyths Department of International Politics is a case in point, as is the establishment of the Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Contemporary Political Violence in Aberystwyth (see http://www.aber.ac.uk/interpol/research/CI.html). Another example is the appointment of more critical scholars such as Schmid and Horgan by the previously more traditional Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence in St Andrews,
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and the inclusion of projects with a more critical orientation in the Centres research portfolio (e.g. its research on processes of radicalization; on the TerrorismCounter-Terrorism Nexus and why governmental reactions often result in more terrorism rather than less; and on when rebels move to other tactics, or combine terrorism with less violent/more legal tactics; see http://www.standrews.ac.uk/intrel/research/ cstpv/pages/projects.html).

them, is too important to be left to chance. What is needed is a respectful but candid conversation both within terrorism studies and with cognate elds, policy makers and suspect communities about making terrorism research more self-reexive and critical while remaining policy relevant.