What does Critical Terrorism Studies contribute to the study of Terrorism?
regarding terrorists; and, as a theory it also endeavours to show that the
gap between:
those who hate terrorism and those who carry it out, those who seek
to delegitimise the acts of terrorists and those who incite them, and
those who abjure terror and those who glorify it – is not as great as
is implied or asserted by orthodox terrorism experts, the discourse of
governments, or the popular press
(Booth 2008: 66).
In essence, CTS seeks to dissolve the inherent stigma and bias that haunts
the study of terrorism; and, to lift the terrorist actor from an ‘exceptional’
construct and place it within a less sensationalised, ‘normalised’ narrative. This normalisation of the terrorist is quite a polemical contribution
from CTS and yet it is essential in order to confront the changed nature
of terrorism studies in the post 9/11 era. CTS therefore reminds the wider community that terrorists are rational actors with political goals and
motivations and restricting them to such binaries as the ‘evil’ to ‘our
good’ and the ‘fanatical terrorist’ to the ‘rational civilian’ erases the true
motivations of the terrorist and severely impedes any chance of transformation (Bhatia 2005; Toros 2008).
Criticisms from the Orthodox Tradition
Orthodox scholars are not rendered mute in the face of the contributions
of CTS and there exists a plethora of criticisms of this theory. One of the
most resounding disparities of CTS has been the tendency for the paradigm to overstate the novelty of its case. This argument stems largely
from the fact that traditional terrorism studies has long acknowledged
and sought to rectify the weaknesses and inconsistencies of its own research. CTS scholars are thus criticised for actively failing to acknowledge that orthodox academia has also debated the political implications
of naming terrorism and, perhaps most famous, are the implications
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