How to do things with the word ‘terrorist’

Abstract

Recently, some commentators have argued that the word ‘terrorist’ should be abandoned as it has become overloaded with undesirable ‘rhetorical’ connotations. This view is premised on the assumption that an adequate distinction may be drawn between principled, ‘logical’ usages and merely ‘rhetorical’ ones. This article argues that the use of the word ‘terrorist’ normally has a ‘rhetorical’ aspect and that theorists must therefore find ways to distinguish between principled and unprincipled rhetorical deployments. I distinguish three rhetorical possibilities for using the word ‘terrorist’: the first invokes interlocutors' established background commitments to moral and descriptive norms, seeking agreement on the application of the word to a particular case; the second seeks to innovate, challenging either moral norms, descriptive criteria or, less often, the illocutionary force of the term; the third resists innovation but deploys the term in metaphorical ways for moral-rhetorical emphasis. Based on this taxonomy, the article reviews both polemical and scholary debates about definition and then proposes pragmatic, rhetorical considerations for adjudicating between competing definitional arguments. Finally, I review the implications of these considerations for the contentious issue of whether or not the term ‘terrorist’ properly applies to states.

Human security benchmarks: Governing human wellbeing at a distance

“…This enables external policy interventions in countries' domestic affairs to be justified with reference to the human security agenda and the norms that are integral to it without a clear articulation of what the particular goals of such actions should be, or how they can be achieved through such interventions. 97 Contemporary political and academic debates on human security have thus far failed to closely examine the concept in light of global benchmarking practices and the normative assumptions about 'human-ness' upon which they rest. Such an examination helps to reveal that the 'human' at the centre of global humanitarian governance is not simply a biological fact.…”

In defence of ‘terrorism’: finding a way through a forest of misconceptions

“…My strategy for advancing a 'persuasive definition' of terrorism (Finlay, 2009) lies in the first instance in proposing a revisionary re-description of its central characteristics. In turn, this entails a critical engagement with some of the common misperceptions and troublesome inconsistencies regarding terrorism's defining characteristics which are present in much contemporary literature on terrorism (see Jackson, 2008aJackson, , 2009Raphael, 2009).…”

“…In the core journals and books of the terrorism field, there are many more published studies on FARC in Colombia than there are on the Contras in Nicaragua, for example, just as there are infinitely more studies on al Qaeda than there are on the LRA in Uganda. As a consequence, it is frequently argued that the term is now so ideologically laden and its conceptual and empirical issues so obscured by the fog of rhetoric that it lacks any analytical value (Finlay, 2009;Kapitan & Schulte, 2002;Scheffler, 2006). At the same time, it can be argued that rigorous research on political violence and social movements can be undertaken without employing the term at all (see for example, English, 2003;Gunning, 2007;Mahmood, 1996) and abandoning its academic usage would be no barrier to the advancement of knowledge in this area.…”

“…This is reflected in the by now clichéd observation that there are over 200 definitions of terrorism currently in use by scholars, governments and international organisations. Moreover, as a result of the lack of definitional agreement, a great many terrorism scholars adopt the default position that, like pornography, everyone intuitively recognises terrorism when they see it (Finlay, 2009) and there is therefore no need to engage in seemingly endless definitional debates. In other words, the definitional quagmire often provides a convenient excuse to opt out of any serious engagement with the challenges of analytical delineation of the term.…”

“…Others argue that because 'terrorism' is a socially constructed label, it is the language games and representational practices of the term which should be the proper focus of research, not necessarily the phenomenon itself (Hulsse & Spencer 2008;Zulaika & Douglass, 2008). Reformists, on the other hand, suggest that the term can be retained as a useful analytical concept, but only if a consensus is achieved on its definition, and if the term is applied consistently by scholars, particularly in terms of its applicability to the actions of states (see Blakeley 2007;Finlay, 2009;Jackson, 2008a, b;Raphael, 2009).…”