Terrorism, Democracy, and Human Security

A Communication Model

Ronald Crelinsten

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000351439
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Terrorismo

This book examines the relationship between terrorism and counterterrorism and how it operates within the broader context of communication, control, power, and democratic governance at the national, international, and transnational level.

A culmination of decades of research on the challenges that liberal democracies face in dealing with terrorism, this work provides an innovative framework that maps out the broader context in which terrorism and counterterrorism interact and co-evolve – the terrorism–counterterrorism nexus. In a series of models moving from local to global perspectives, the framework places this nexus within the broader context of social, cultural, political, and economic life. This framework provides a tool for maintaining situational awareness in a multi-tiered, networked world where geography and history are splintering into a rainbow of perspectives and locales, revealing the contested nature of space and time themselves.

This book will be of much interest to students of political violence, terrorism studies, communication studies, and international relations, as well as security professionals.

PART I

A conceptual framework for studying terrorism and counterterrorism: Communication between controller and controlled

1

The terrorism–counterterrorism nexus

The communicative nature of terrorism

Terrorism is a specific form of violence that is characterized by its communicative function.¹ The victims of terrorism function as signs in a propaganda war: Bomb attacks, hijackings, assassinations, torture, disappearances, massacres, all serve to convey messages to audiences beyond their immediate victims.

The selection of victims is both symbolic and instrumental. In the case of selective assassination, kidnappings, or bomb attacks, the victims are often representatives of the state or some power elite. In the case of disappearances or torture, they are often members of social or political movements that are dedicated to reforming the state or altering the power structure. In the case of international terrorism, they are often citizens of states that are power brokers within the world order or some smaller sphere of influence, or representatives of their governments. In all these cases, the victim is chosen because of whom s/he represents and because their victimization will resonate with specific audiences, either in generating fear or exhilaration, or in affecting allegiances and behaviour.²

Even in the case of the most indiscriminate violence, such as machine-gunning of tourists in airports, the car bomb in city streets, the suicide bomber in a mass transport system or a packed concert hall, the massacre of villagers, or the 9/11 attacks, the lack of discrimination between combatant and noncombatant, between involved and uninvolved, between active supporter and passive sympathizer, between innocent and guilty, has a symbolic function. This “politics of atrocity”³ is designed to attract widespread attention through the shock value of the attack. The gruesome beheadings of hostages by IS, video-recorded and disseminated over the Internet, is an example of this kind of shock terrorism.

Some have suggested that terrorism is most uniquely characterized by the inability of those witnessing the terrorism to avoid future victimization by changing their behaviour or their allegiances; victimization is in this sense unavoidable. “Targets of bombings and abductions are generally unable to influence their destiny by a change of attitude or behavior.”⁴ This is perhaps most true of the de-territorialized threat of small-scale, high-impact attacks in the West that are promoted by IS and most often conducted by self-radicalized, “lone-wolf” actors. The so-called “Third Intifada” conducted by Palestinian youth in Israel beginning around 2015, involving random attacks with knives and other rudimentary weapons, is another example.

This victimization of certain people, and particularly noncombatants or innocent civilians, for the purposes of gaining public recognition or support for specific causes, or imposing explicit demands on third parties, has been a feature of political life at various times and in various places for centuries, although it has not always been called “terrorism.”⁵ In its modern variant, “terrorism” became a common word in public discourse around 1970 when Palestinians turned to hijacking airplanes and Latin American guerrillas turned to kidnapping diplomats. In the ensuing decades, we have seen terrorism used by nationalists seeking new nations or wishing to secede from existing ones, by revolutionaries seeking to overthrow governments and to establish new regimes, by governments seeking to destabilize other governments or to control their own nationals either at home or abroad, and by fanatics and zealots pursuing a wide variety of social and religious causes, including global jihad.⁶

To the extent that this kind of violence conveys a more immediate and powerful message than the written word of ideological tracts, manifestoes, or decrees, then terrorism speaks its own unique language.

Karl von Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is an extension of diplomacy by other means suggests that war and diplomacy are not distinct phenomena but share common characteristics. When Martin Luther King said that the riot is the language of the unheard, he suggested that rioting is a form of communication that people adopt when other channels are blocked. Similarly, when we say that violence is the language of the inarticulate, what we mean is that violence is a form of communication that is used by those who cannot express what they feel in words or written tracts and publications, so they “act out” in violent ways what they cannot express verbally or in written form.… As such, violence and terrorism possess a logic and a grammar that must be understood if we are to prevent or control their occurrence.⁷

In communication theory, a distinction is made between digital and analogic communication.⁸ Language, with its syntax and grammar, is primarily digital, while nonverbal forms of communication like crying are analogic. In human communication, two things are usually going on at once. One transmits a message whose content is usually denoted digitally, via sequential ordering of information in grammatical and syntactic codes. This is most often conveyed verbally. At the same time, one also conveys something about one’s relationship with the world and, more particularly, with the person or audience to whom one is communicating. This relationship is most often conveyed analogically, through nonverbal cues such as tone of voice, intonation, gestures, posture, stance, facial expression, symbols, rituals, as well as via those cues inherent in the context in which the communication takes place.

It is possible to communicate digitally about relationships, e.g., through speech, or to signal specific messages nonverbally, e.g., through semaphore or sign language, but such forms of communication pose special problems. Analogic communication lacks the logical syntax of language, including such discontinuous, on/off elements as “if/then,” “either/or,” or “not.” Because of this, conveying precise information analogically or translating from digital to analogic entails considerable loss of information and is inherently ambiguous: “a clenched fist may communicate excitement, fear, anger, impending assault, frustration, … or revolutionary zeal.”⁹ On the other hand, speaking about relationships, i.e., translating from analogic to digital, is equally difficult. Since relationships are complex, interactive, dynamic processes, they are not readily amenable to digital representation: “It is almost impossible to translate the rich semantics of the analog into any digital form…. This is true both of the most trivial sensations (biting your tongue, for example) and of the most enviable situations (being in love).”¹⁰

Terrorism involves the combined use of threat and violence. The use of violence can be considered analogic, while the threat of violence can be considered primarily digital. This distinction is not as neat in practice. A shaking fist, coupled with an appropriately menacing facial grimace, can convey the threat of violence analogically. A bomb explosion or a kidnapping can convey the threat of future violence. Most threats, however, are conveyed in written or verbal form. For example, a study of 374 cases of interpersonal threat of violence in France in 1964 found that only 13% of the threats were communicated nonverbally.¹¹ When threats are conveyed in written or verbal form, the content becomes important to understand the nature of the threat, including any demands, and the ideology or goals that inform the threat and demands. The violence itself, however, communicates something about the actor’s relationship with others: a feeling of being excluded, revenge, intimidation, or bravado, for example.

Used as the sole strategy, terrorism is often considered the weapon of the weak: the insurgents or nation-builders who lack the material resources and the mass support necessary for sustained guerrilla warfare, armed insurrection, or a full-scale war of national liberation, or the government that lacks the necessary legitimacy to govern within the rule of law and the democratic forum of public debate and open dissent. Used as one tactic in a larger strategy of armed conflict or within a wider array of violent/nonviolent political action, terrorism is prized for its economy: kill one, frighten ten thousand; actions speak louder than words; propaganda by the deed.¹² Because its aim reaches beyond its immediate victim and because it is planned in secret and enacted without warning, terrorism commands attention while demanding few resources and manpower. Even what Edward Herman calls the “wholesale terrorism” of states¹³ requires less infrastructure, management, and resources than do police forces and military organizations.

Terrorism cannot be understood only in terms of violence. It has to be understood primarily in terms of propaganda. Violence and propaganda, however, have much in common. Violence aims at behaviour modification by coercion. Propaganda aims at the same by persuasion. Terrorism is a combination of the two.¹⁴

This statement captures an essential point about terrorism: It is a form of communication that combines coercion with persuasion. Once we recognize this, we must then ask who is coerced and who is persuaded. This leads us to the question of audiences. We have already seen that terrorists can address several audiences at once. While attempting to coerce some into compliance, terrorists can also persuade others to support their cause or to join their ranks.

How are these tasks accomplished? This leads to the question of tactics and targets. An indiscriminate bomb attack may capture a lot of attention and persuade people that the terrorists mean business. On the other hand, it may not be useful for coercing specific demands from the authorities. Such “contracted incidents,” that do not play out over time, can convey several different kinds of message. They can demonstrate the impunity of the terrorist, suggesting that they can strike freely, whenever they choose, without being caught. A corollary of this is that the terrorists are powerful actors who are doing something concrete. This message can be attractive to elements in the population who share their goals and feel frustrated or impatient about the slow pace of political reform or feel impotent due to the fruitlessness of other means of protest or resistance. In the case of vigilante or state terrorism, it can be attractive to those who feel that reform is too fast, out of control, or even dangerous. When linked together in a series of incidents, such as the wave of public bombings in Paris in 1985, the almost continuous suicide bombings and car bomb attacks in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, or a long campaign of killings or disappearances, or when linked together in multiple, simultaneous attacks, such as in Madrid in March 2004, in London in July 2005, in Mumbai in November 2008, in Paris in November 2015, or in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday 2019, the contracted incident can propagate widespread fear and suspicion and sharply polarize public opinion about what the authorities should do.

A third message that stems in part from the first two is that of government impotence. The frequency with which the Sendero Luminoso in Peru used to black out electricity in major urban centres in the ear...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• PART I: A conceptual framework for studying terrorism and counterterrorism: Communication between controller and controlled
• PART II: Mapping blurry boundaries: Grey zones and democratic governance
• PART III: Mapping complexity beyond the state: Grey zones and global governance
• Index