Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented 'Terrorism'
Cambridge University Press, 4/18/2013
EAN 9781107026636, ISBN10: 1107026636
Hardcover, 246 pages, 23.1 x 15.7 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
Since 9/11 we have been told that terrorists are pathological evildoers, beyond our comprehension. Before the 1970s, however, hijackings, assassinations, and other acts we now call 'terrorism' were considered the work of rational strategic actors. Disciplining Terror examines how political violence became 'terrorism', and how this transformation ultimately led to the current 'war on terror'. Drawing upon archival research and interviews with terrorism experts, Lisa Stampnitzky traces the political and academic struggles through which experts made terrorism, and terrorism made experts. She argues that the expert discourse on terrorism operates at the boundary - itself increasingly contested - between science and politics, and between academic expertise and the state. Despite terrorism now being central to contemporary political discourse, there have been few empirical studies of terrorism experts. This book investigates how the concept of terrorism has been developed and used over recent decades.
1. Introduction
2. The invention of terrorism and the rise of the terrorism expert
3. From insurgents to terrorists
experts, rational knowledge, and irrational subjects
4. Disasters, diplomats, and databases
rationalization and its discontents
5. 'Terrorism fever'
the first war on terror and the politicization of expertise
6. Loose can(n)ons
from 'small wars' to the 'new terrorism'
7. The road to pre-emption
8. The politics of (anti)knowledge
disciplining terrorism after 9/11
9. Conclusion
the trouble with experts.
Advance praise: 'I do not know anyone who would have predicted some forty years ago that 'terrorism studies' would emerge as a field, much less that a talented sociologist would devote her attention to producing a fascinating critique of its erratic and contentious development. Lisa Stampnitzky's book is important not just as a disciplined examination of an undisciplined field but as a cautionary tale about the vexed relationship between experts and policy makers.' Martha Crenshaw, Senior Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), Stanford University