ABSTRACT
Over the last decade, Western capitalist nations have been bound up in a process of unprecedented securitization, formally designed to reduce and manage the terrorist threat (see Amoore and de Goede, 2007; Ould Mohamedou, 2007). Following on from the attacks attributed to followers of Al Qaeda in the United States, the UK, Spain and Turkey, issues of national security have assumed political prescience, with terrorism being cast as a pressing social problem. In the realm of formal politics, intelligence communities, and the mass media, the terrorist risk has been described as both historically exceptional and potentially cataclysmic (Aradau and van Munster, 2007; Mythen and Walklate, 2008). The events of 11 September 2001 have been commonly described as both a watershed and a catalyst for an intense phase of violence, legal regulation, surveillance and military expansion (Kellner, 2002; Welch, 2006). The process of counter-terrorism securitization over the last decade has been wide-ranging, impacting upon policing, law, immigration and the economy. With regards to the latter, the estimated amount spent by the American government during the course of the ‘war on terror’ presently exceeds a trillion dollars (Belasco, 2009). In the UK – running contra to a far-reaching programme of state cost-cutting in the public sector – the amount allocated by government to fund counter-terrorism measures for 2010–11 totals over £38 million (Travis, 2010). Both the unprecedented nature and the profound effects of policies and processes of securitization have led to terrorism being cast by some thinkers as the motif of a dangerous and volatile age. Beck (2002), for instance, has alluded to the modern world as a ‘terroristic world risk society’, while Borradori (2003) recounts the unsettling experience of living in ‘a time of terror’. Insofar as the problem of terrorism should not be belittled, we would point out that it is but one of a range of harms that bring injury and death in the world today. Although media, political and academic attention has gravitated toward terrorism, global social problems such as drought, poverty, malnutrition and disease continue to take lives by the thousand each and every day. So we might justifiably ask why terrorism in particular has become such a fundamental concern, and why, in a time of ‘austerity’ during which we are all, apparently, ‘in it together’ – national security continues to command such a large slice of the state budget comparative to other areas of expenditure.
