Critical Perspectives on Counter-Terrorism - 9780415855471

This book offers an examination of the functions or ambitions – stated and otherwise – of the counter-terrorism policies of key Western states.

The chapters in this volume engage with a wide menu of counter-terrorism activities that exist in exploring this theme, including: proscription powers, counter-radicalisation and community-cohesion programmes, counter-radicalisation and peace-process mechanisms, and powers of preventative detention. The case studies explored include those of the UK, Spain, and international collaborations.

The volume also engages with the consequences or impacts of counter-terrorism powers. Here, the chapters explore the differential effects of contemporary measures on specific individuals and communities. The consequences of recent powers on the body politic itself, and political processes more broadly are also investigated, as are their implications for the relations between executives, legislatures, judiciaries and civil societies. Under this theme, the book also includes an explicit exploration of the methodological issues involved in attempting to measure the efficacy (and indeed legitimacy) of counter-terrorism policies, with chapters exploring the potential contributions of quantitative and qualitative research methods in this area. Finally, this book also reflects on the temporalities of counter-terrorism measures. Here it asks, for example, whether these signal permanent developments within the political and judicial systems of western states; and how and why changes occur within counter-terrorism apparatuses. Moreover, the book also explores how time is invoked or employed in the legitimisation of counter-terrorism powers, for example in claims to national emergency, exceptionality or the use of historical analogies.

This book will be of much interest to students of counter-terrorism, critical terrorism studies, criminology, security studies and IR in general.