“No Such Thing as Political Violence”: A Poststructural Lens for Understanding State Responses to Terrorism
When heads of state, broadcast journalists, public intellectuals, and other figures who are lended authority write and speak on contemporary issues, their language works to construct an objective interpretation with distinct bounds of reason and a set of good and bad actors. These interpretations, which are presented as the objective reality of a situation, are cultivated and propagated in formats like televised speeches and news coverage, books and articles, academic studies, and are ultimately reflected in the policy a state pursues.
One of the key ways these interpretations are created is through the establishment of binary oppositions. Immediately post-9/11, US President George W Bush labeled that states of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil”, thereby constructing an evil “them” against which the United States and its allies could be contrasted (McMorrow); this contrast could then be accepted by the wider public and used to justify foreign policies which might otherwise have garnered more popular opposition.
In the context of 9/11, the interpretations which took on the role of objective truth in societies included ethnic and racial discourse in efforts to heighten fear and anxiety and promote simplistic and racist views; for example, the terrorists were said to have been “‘driven by ‘ethnic, superstitious and tribal madness’ (Toynbee 2001)” (McMorrow).
In academia, the study of these interpretations is the primary concern of a theory called Poststructuralism. Poststructuralists look at how what Michel Foucault called “regimes of truth” are produced through discourses propagated by powerful actors called elites (McMorrow). These discourses become dominant because elites are given credibility by being labeled as experts, and through their discourses they are able to eliminate certain possibilities and perspectives from the outset.
Queen’s University Belfast IR scholar Aishling McMorrow writes that “the strength of dominant discourses lies in their ability to shut out other options or opinions to the extent that thinking outside the realms set by the discourse is seen as irrational” (McMorrow). This is illustrated by the double standard in Western media coverage of violence–as McMorrow writes, “thousands of people are lost to conflict in countries such as Palestine and Afghanistan, often at the hands of Western powers, and yet those people are not mourned or memorialized or even heard of within Western reports of war”. This creates a “hierarchy of grief” in which Western, and usually white, victims are favored and violence against “othered” groups thus becomes more acceptable (McMorrow).
In the north of Ireland, a region long occupied by British forces, dominant discourses around terror are clear. In her 1981 Speech in Belfast, British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stated that “There is no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence. There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence. We will not compromise on this. There will be no political status” (Thatcher). In this statement, Thatcher established the British state’s stance that armed resistance to occupation was illegitimate and did not constitute a political action but, rather, that it should be disregarded as simply “criminal” and therefore objectively bad. While there is debate over whether political violence is ever justified, and if the Provisional IRA’s political means and ends should or should not be supported, the dominant discourse Thatcher articulated, by its very nature and from its outset, eliminates there ever being that debate. In doing so, a number of important critical questions are ignored: when facing an armed military occupation, is there ever room for armed non-state actor resistance? Does framing Irish republican violence as criminal and non-political help serve ends of solving the conflict? Are massacres by British forces, such as that on Bloody Sunday, to be considered criminal violence as well?
Israel’s 2021 decision to designate six Palestinian human rights organisations as terrorist groups is a clear example of how dominant discourses can open up legal paths that help states achieve oppressive policy goals. The designation allows Israel to “raid the group’s offices, seize assets, arrest employers and criminalize funding and expressions of support” (The Associated Press). This decision shows the materiality of dominant terror discourses consequences.
Poststructuralism is important because it promotes attention to some of the subtle ways the power of elites and the state is exercised. In scholarship and in the public the critical lens of Poststructuralism–especially when applied to terrorism, where nuance is often the first thing to be thrown aside–can be of use in exploring the wide range of explanations, possibilities, and solutions for contemporary issues in international relations.
McMorrow, Aishling. “Introducing Poststructuralism in International Relations Theory.” E, 5 Aug. 2018, https://www.e-ir.info/2018/02/13/introducing-poststructuralism-in-international-relations-theory/.
Thatcher, Margaret. “Speech in Belfast.” Margaret Thatcher Foundation, 1981, https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104589.
The Associated Press. “Israel Designates 6 Palestinian Human Right Groups as Terrorist Organizations.” NPR, NPR, 23 Oct. 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/10/23/1048690050/israel-palestinian-human-right-groups.
Image: “Thatcher Poses with SAS Operators.” Prospect Magazine, 2013, https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/sas-margaret-thatcher-iranian-embassy-siege. Accessed 2022.
