Abstract
What counter-terrorism policies are made possibilities by this ‘new terrorism’? This is the central question this chapter wishes to address and again it does not want to establish whether these counter-measures are good or bad but demonstrate the contested nature of the dominant counter-terrorism discourse. And again words play an important role as authors and policy makers in the past distinguished between ‘antiterrorism’ and ‘counter-terrorism’. ‘Antiterrorist actions are designed as defensive measures to prevent the occurrence of terrorism as opposed to counterterrorist measures, which are offensive in nature and are designed to respond to a terrorist act’ (Celmer 1987: 13). Although the meaning of this distinction seems to have faded in the literature on terrorism (Townshend 2002: 115) a number of other labels and categories of counter-terrorism have established themselves in the discourse on terrorism. Although there may be no agreement which individual counter-terrorism option is most suitable or effective in combating ‘new terrorism’ there is rough agreement on the range of policies which could make sense. Within this range one comes across a number of mostly binary categories to classify and order the diversity of anti-terror measures.1 Here one can find categories on different ‘levels’ such as national and international measures (Townshend 2002; Bensahel 2006) and in different ‘time periods’ such as short- and long-term (Crelinsten and Schmid 1992) or backward or forward-looking (Heymann 2001/2002) counter-terrorism policies.
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‘Much counterterrorism experience is losing its relevance in light of the “new” terrorism’ (Lesser 1999)
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© 2010 Alexander Spencer
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Spencer, A. (2010). ‘New Counter-Terrorism’ Possibilities. In: The Tabloid Terrorist. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281301_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230281301_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-36569-2
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-28130-1
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