Ordering terror, terrorizing order: Governmentality, counterterrorism and the European Community/European Union, 1972-2016

This dissertation focuses on the counterterrorism efforts by the European Community (EC) and later the European Union (EU) between 1972 and 2016. For this purpose it draws on a poststructuralist perspective within the discipline of International Relations. The research specifically uses Michel Foucault’s notion of governmentality in order to investigate the ways in which responses to terrorism were and are enacted. This means that counterterrorism is not regarded as a self-evident and logical response to a phenomenon defined as terrorism. To the contrary, counterterrorism is regarded as a contingent category, a specific and historically situated (set of) response(s) that emerged in relation to the events it defined as problematic and in need of intervention. The analysis of the distinct forms of government associated with counterterrorism at the EC and later EU level translates into a focus on three interrelated aspects: the key problematizations around which the institutionalization of counterterrorism took place, the practices and devices through which counterterrorism was and is conducted, and the issue of who can legitimately speak and practice counterterrorism. This research is neither an inquiry into the effectiveness of counterterrorism nor into its normative directions, but into how counterterrorism has become and is being practiced as a category of government.