Same Game, Different Rules: Investigating the Origins of Counterterrorism.

摘要

This dissertation explores the origins of counterterrorism by seeking to explain variations in counterterrorism practices by states: Even relatively similar states, facing relatively similar uses of terrorism, at roughly the same time, may apply quite different coercive techniques. Most terrorism research tends to explain variations using implicit assumptions of rational choice - with obvious and problematic implications for both evaluation and prescription. This study develops three alternative hypothetical explanations for such variations, drawn from cognitive psychology, organizational theory, and institutional theory; these hypotheses are then tested against a set of case studies using a process tracing approach. The cases include six discrete practices across three states: In Canada, the use of exceptional powers of search and detention in October of 1970, followed by extra-legal disruptive tactics by police from 1971-1972; in the United Kingdom, the deployment of military personnel to active duty in Northern Ireland in 1969, and the subsequent introduction of internment without trial in the province in 1971; and in France, the police investigation of separatist bombing campaigns in Corsica in 1973-1974, followed by a massive police operation to end a politically-motivated occupation in 1975. Accounts of these events are developed from interviews with participants and extensive archival research, complemented where necessary by secondary sources. The dissertation finds that the rational choice and cognitive hypotheses are not borne out by the evidence, and that the organizational hypothesis offers only a partial explanation of some of the practices under study. Variations in counterterrorism practices are found to be the result of differences in the institutional rules that govern the exercise of coercive power within different states, and arise from negotiations that play out in the shadow of those rules. Organizational factors explain residual variation: Where there is ambiguity or silence in policy direction and institutional rules, bureaucracies tasked with implementing policy will resolve this ambiguity by applying and incrementally modifying existing capabilities - with unintended, though not always unexpected, results. This finding suggests that counterterrorism has political as well as instrumental dimensions, with implications for both evaluation and prescription.