Ch.9 - Chriss, Social Control

1
Chapter 9

• Terrorism and Social Control

2
Deception and Ontological Security

1. Goffman on fabricated frames
2. Gibbs terrorism always has secretive, furtive,
   and/or clandestine features
3. Hollowing out of civil society
4. Erosion of ontological security everyday trust
   of the other

3
World Risk Society

1. Ulrich Beck side effect of the Enlightenment
   quest for certainty, predictability, and control
   through science
2. The more we know the more worried we get about
   what is not yet tamed.
3. Global terrorism plays on this.

4
Changes in Law since 9/11

• USA PATRIOT Act, Oct. 26, 2001
• Establishment of Department of Homeland Security
• Section 215 greater access to personal records
• Section 802 definition of domestic terrorism
• Sections 411 and 412 guilt by association
• These are sunset provisions

5
From Bush to Obama

• Pres. Obama signed extension of Patriot Act on
  May 26, 2011
• Section 6001 Lone Wolf provision
• Obama pledged major changes from Bush policies
  change and continuity
• Guantanamo Bay remains open
• Shifting focus from Iraq to Afghanistan
• Concerns over torture policies (waterboarding)

6
Bin Laden and al-Qaeda

• Greater jihad versus lesser jihad
• Russian invasion of Afghanistan in 1979
• Osama bin Laden, from Saudi Arabia, and his
  mujahideen repelled these forces with help of US
  (1988).
• Establishment of a base (al-qaeda) to carry out a
  worldwide jihad.
• Iraqs invasion of Kuwait in 1990 brings bin
  Laden back into the picture.
• bin Laden expelled from Saudi Arabia and becomes
  a nomad.

7
Martyrdom and Suicide Attacks

• Bin Laden stresses martyrdom operations
• Suicide terrorism is typically
• Carried out by young males, although number of
  females is increasing
• An act of altruistic suicide (Durkheim)
• Strategic logic of suicide terrorism
• Not idiosyncratic or random, but conducted by
  organized groups
• To achieve specific goals, typically the
  withdrawal of forces from perceived national
  homeland
• Highly lethal strategy
• Diminishing returns
• Forces proliferation of target-hardening
  strategies to achieve public safety (e.g., border
  crackdowns, wiretaps, homeland security)

8
The Death of bin Laden

• Between 1998 and 2008 al-Qaeda responsible for
  the deaths of over 4300 individuals
• Bush policy not crucial to kill bin Laden
• Others will take over in his absence
• Obama made finding bin Laden a top priority
• The long hunt was back in earnest
• May 2011 elite Navy Seals team found and killed
  bin Laden at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan
• No photographic confirmation of the kill

9
Conceptualizing Terrorism

• Donald Black American sociologist (University
  of Virginia)
• Eliminating the person from sociological analysis
  (five dimensions of social space)
• The behavior of terrorism
• Terrorism is a form of social control
• Self-help by organized civilians who covertly
  inflict mass violence on other civilians
• Terrorism is a parasitic strategy
• Eroding ontological security from the inside
• Hollowing out of the civil sphere
• Trick is to make less visible the cultural and
  social distance between native citizens and
  perpetrators
• Terrorism and power are perpetrators relatively
  powerless?
• Social control from below