Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press.
Book Review |
M. Deflem, (ED) 2004.
Terrorism and counter-terrorism: criminological perspectives
Thames Valley Police, Kidlington, Oxford OXON OX5 2NX, UK
M. Deflem, (ED) 2004. Terrorism and counter-terrorism: criminological perspectives Elsevier ISBN: 0-7623-1040-5
This beautifully written collection of essays examines terrorism and counter-terrorism from several perspectives: theoretical; methodological; counter-terrorism and security; and the construction and reality of terrorism. Beginning to address the questions of what terrorism is, and how it can be addressed—or not—the book provides a useful and highly readable overview for practitioners and theoreticians alike.
The first essay by Donald Black contains a thoroughly conclusive definition of what terrorism is and how it can be recognized in practice: ‘Pure terrorism is unilateral self-help by organized civilians who covertly inflict mass violence on other civilians’ (p.10). This definition comprises characteristics such as self-help, subversive social control, recurrent mass violence, applying a standard of collective liability (indiscriminately attacking civilians rather than military targets), one-sided conflict, organization, and secrecy, which he considers to be fundamentally technology-enabled and thus a feature of modern civilized society. Black considers terrorism to be a form of interminable quasi-warfare which cannot be resolved through diplomacy or criminal justice (because it reaches beyond particular cases of deviant behaviour by individuals), and, because it is not conducive to social control by law, terrorism may provoke a similarly violent and war-like response from nation-states. The reciprocal nature of attacks may make the negotiation of peace an impossibility—especially where the demands of the terrorists can never be met, such as an objection to American culture. This cultural clash is, Black believes, the main catalyst of current terrorism: ‘Social geology shifts, and the ground trembles... Isomorphic with its social field, international terrorism is a prism flashing its origins, the fragmentation of bombs and shredding of bodies reflecting and recapitulating the disintegration of dying civilizations invaded by the present’ (p.16).
In the following essay Richard Rosenfield responds to Black's theme of terrorism as a form of self-help, and expands it to include the predatory characteristics of terrorism. Rosenfield suggests that intellectual responses that locate the root causes of terrorism in economic deprivation and oppression misunderstand the anti-modernist impulse that underlies terrorist violence: especially an institutionalized opposition to free markets, liberal democracy, and religious tolerance, and associated Western norms such as a formal and open education system, universalism, and flexible, thin family systems. ‘Contemporary terrorism represents a contrasting institutional balance of power dominated by family, ethnicity, and religion... in Benjamin Barber's (1996) provocative phrase, the contemporary terrorist is engaged in a "Jihad vs. McWorld" (p.25–26). In his analysis, Rosenfield rejects the notion that terrorism will come to a natural end through the convergence of modern cultures, suggesting that the reaction against modernism and the yearning for traditional ways of life will feed the root causes of terrorism, locating it firmly within the geography of modern multicultural society. This leaves the problem of how to respond to terrorism through a mixture of criminal justice and warlike strategies; with all the attendant problems of reconciling liberty and security. Drawing a parallel with the ‘moral crusade’ on drugs, Rosenfield suggests that many of the same criticisms apply to terrorism, suggesting that a myopic moralistic approach based on a stereotypical view of the criminal risks a response that is, at best, wasteful and ineffective and may, at worst, miss the greater threats.
Subsequent papers develop these themes in interesting and thought-provoking directions, such as Gregg Barak's analysis of terrorist behaviour—including suicidal terrorists - as a component of reciprocal violence motivated by, for example, issues of shame, esteem, and repressed or suppressed anger as one possible pathway to terrorism. This view has a lot in common with criminological studies of other types of street violence, gang culture and gun crime in the US and in the UK, predominantly linked with young adult males who are often excluded from or disaffected with economic and political participation. However, growing numbers of Islamist terrorists do not fit this mould, but are university-educated and often from close-knit families, where their radicalization could be fuelled instead by religious fundamentalism, social and political despair, xenophobia, and fantasies of a ‘righteous’ struggle against the enemy.
Several papers on the methodology of studying terrorism and its similarity to crime analysis are of interest mainly to criminologists and theorists, but offer a useful insight into the problems of data collection and sampling—where terrorism offers particular challenges. Studying spatial distribution, frequency, trends, causal analysis and the biographical approach to analysing particular terrorists and terrorist attacks can all provide useful insights, but the infrequency, unique nature, and lack of empirical data for each terrorist event makes it problematic to draw overall conclusions. There are formidable problems in classifying terrorist groups—which seem increasingly fragmented and fluid—and this need to be taken into account in organizing any response.
The third section of the book on counter-terrorism, ideology and security comprises two essays critiquing the US perspective, covering the neoconservative ‘endarkened policy’ of Guantanamo Bay and the classification of ‘unlawful combatants’ as outside the normal jurisdiction of US justice, and going on to discuss right-wing policy in promising to protect a frightened post-9/11 public as a false sense of security which has actually increased anti-US hatred.
The final section on the construction and reality of terrorism follows on from the earlier papers in the book, picking up the themes and going on to consider how the US and UK have rationalized their experiences of terrorist attacks by developing a particular political and ideological construction of terrorism, and fuelling a ‘moral panic’. Victor and Aaron Kappeler provide an interesting review of speeches made by political law enforcement figures, using dehumanizing metaphors and construing it as a fight between good and evil, especially in the days following 9/11, and in justifying intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq as freeing the people from oppressive regimes. Paul Leighton's paper shows clearly the subjectivity of this good and evil approach, quoting a survey of several Muslim countries showing that far more people trust Osama Bin Laden to ‘Do the right thing concerning World Affairs’ than have confidence in George Bush (p.211). His conclusion is understated: ‘Realizing that an unknown number of people harbor fantasies of mass nuclear annihilation is disturbing’ but likens a reluctance to engage with the reality as rearranging deckchairs (on the Titanic), and compares current criminological studies with those of German criminologists in the 1930s, asking ‘will future generations ask of criminology, "What were they thinking?" (p.215).
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