The Idea of Terror: Institutional Reproduction in Government Responses to Political Violence

Abstract

Despite the recent global uptick in white supremacist terrorism, governments continue to face accusations of not taking the threat seriously, either discursively or in terms of policy responses. Why do acts of white supremacist violence consistently fail to constitute turning points for policy change? Rather than considering acts of political violence as critical junctures for change, I argue that such acts instead reveal how persistent institutions of power actually are. I develop a theory of hegemonic components of national identity that links institutionalized white supremacy to the differential treatment of non-white perpetrators, even when they are deemed terrorists, through a process of institutional reproduction. Drawing on interviews with German national security elites, I show that even when white supremacist violence is treated as terrorism, both legally and discursively, it does not engender policy responses and attitudinal changes on par with those following other terrorist threats.

How Terrorism Does (and Does Not) Affect Citizens’ Political Attitudes: A Meta‐Analysis

“…This suggests that it might not be the threat of violence per se that is driving public reactions to terrorism, as is often assumed, but rather the threat of violence perpetrated by specific—often outgroup and low‐status—actors. Violent acts perpetrated by those outgroup actors are more likely to be labeled “terrorism” and politicized in public discourse (Hopkins 2010; Meier 2020; Powell 2011), thereby stimulating distinct sociopolitical responses.…”

“…Given the recent upsurge in far‐right terrorism (Institute for Economics and Peace 2020), it seems particularly pertinent to understand how citizens react to this type of violence and whether these responses meaningfully differ from responses to other types of violence. Certainly, as others have noted before (e.g., Meier 2020), unpacking the causes and consequences of far‐right violence has received extensive attention in the literature, yet these acts of political violence are rarely described as “terrorism” within scholarly work. This review shows how this semantic choice inhibits the exchange of knowledge between work on far‐right violence and work on other types of political violence more regularly called “terrorism” (such as Islamist violence), thereby reducing opportunities to detect whether theories and findings travel across ideological lines.…”

Terrorism as a conceptual site for power struggles: problematization of terrorism in Turkey in the 1970s

“…It should be accepted that these security professionals are crucial to understand the prevalence of a specific narrative on terrorism as they have the institutional, financial, political, and even normative sources of control over population (Meier, 2020). In this aspect, terrorism is a cogent discursive formation, given that an exceptionally specific type of political violence incited new reactions and raised discussion on how to analyze and resolve this new kind of problem.…”

“…In the critical analyses, the discourse of terrorism is highly related to power. Terrorism is regarded as a discursive formation of power/knowledge in this approach, and counterterrorism practices are formed by this discourse, resulting in the construction of the necessary instruments to combat it (Ditrych, 2014; Erlenbusch-Anderson, 2018; Jackson, 2005; Jarvis, 2009; McQuade, 2021; Martini, 2016; Meier, 2020; Puar and Rai, 2002; Raphael, 2009; Stampnitzky, 2013; Toros, 2012). This line of reasoning is essential for seeing terrorism as a contestable and contingent reality that is effective in managing a populace by rationalizing certain restrictive technologies.…”

What is terrorism (according to the news)? How the German press selectively labels political violence as “terrorism”

“…For example, Western governments do not necessarily designate those actors as terrorists that have the highest track record of violence against their citizens. Rather, geopolitical interests and contexts, for example Islam and Islamist extremism being perceived as particularly incompatible with Western societies, influence national perceptions of and responses to terrorism (Beck and Miner, 2013; Meier, 2020). Consequently, scholars stress that we should question whether terrorism can be defined objectively at all.…”