Triggered by Terrorism: a critique on self-evident beliefs in the Dutch government’s reaction to terrorism

It seems to be common-sense to think that terrorism is a threat to our entire way of life, and that we need to counter terrorism because of its threat to our national security. This thesis questions this common-sense, because it has never been made explicit how terrorism can threaten to national security – as if the existential nature of the threat is self-evident. The main research question is: why is terrorism countered as a matter of national security in The Netherlands? To do so, this thesis focused on the Dutch social field of counterterrorism and national security, and interviewed 45 respondents from those domains. As to make sense of the empirical findings, the thesis analyses the results through the lens of critical theory. This means that it sees society and behaviour being structured by structures like language, power configurations, shared distinctions, and the rules on how to struggle over the legitimacy of all of the above. The thesis concludes that the reaction to terrorism in Dutch society is guided by constructs and practices of which actors are unconscious. This unconsciousness stems from a combination of self-evident beliefs of terrorism’s threat, and national security as a veiling concept that disguises the paradoxical nature of democratic self-defence. This unconsciousness triggers a reaction that this thesis explains as a social reflex. Improving consciousness in government of the self-evident nature of the reaction to terrorism, will improve the possibility of democratically evaluating the contemporary reaction to terrorism.