Lawrence Peter Ampofo
Challenges to Counter-terrorism Policies in France and Spain
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Challenges to Counter-terrorism Policies in France and SpainAnalyses of the current domestic security strategies for both nations show that international terrorism, in particular, constitutes a pressing threat against national and supranational security in the minds of policymakers. An investigation of France’s counter-terrorist strategy since 1980 has outlined its journey from providing sanctuary to terrorist organisations within its borders, to “suppression and prevention” (Starobin, 2003: 7), redistributing judicial and military power to counter threats through judiciary and law enforcement bodies. However, there are strong indications that France invests heavily in the use of technology as a central tenet of its future counter-terrorism strategy. The Government has invested a large amount of resources and funds into the development of surveillance technologies, in particular, to monitor conversations. In addition, the development of vast identity databases was undertaken, such as the identity card scheme (European Digital Rights, 2009). The implementation of identity cards significantly restricted the ability of those who, for example, attempted to enter the country illegally to open a bank account under a different alias for example. The 2008 French National Security Strategy also underscored the need to focus on the role of technology in the strategy to contain modern terrorism. To this end, France has constructed a national database named the Exploitation Documentaire et Valorisation de l’Information Générale (EDVIGE) which logs and makes available to the security services information on people it suspects of entering into nefarious activity from age 14 upwards (Tetu, 2008). The French White Paper on national security also highlights the new focus of the Government on monitoring nationwide internet behaviour to counter the threat of terrorism (Présidence de la République, 2008). This investment in technology shows that France understands the threat it faces in the age of globalisation and the need to employ a technology-based solution to fight it. It appears, therefore, that France is more supportive of Bobbitt’s argument that market states need to employ market-based strategies to defeat terrorism, such as the use of the private sector, because, as this perspective by Mary Kaldor attests, ‘new wars…[are] fought by networks of state and non-state actors, where battles are rare and violence is directed mainly against civilians’ (Kaldor, 2006: 9). A facet of France’s revised approach to terrorism is to advocate stronger bilateral transatlantic relationships with the US in particular. This emphasis on forging stronger counter-terrorism ties with the US suggests that it considers international terrorism to be a global problem and not simply a domestic or regional concern. The stance taken by France, however, in its prescriptive conceptions of counter-terrorism policy is wholly different to that taken by Spain. The first main difference is that Prime Minister Zapatero prioritised greater political cooperation between states as the cornerstone of his counter-terrorist policy, strongly promoting the idea that the general prevention of terrorism is something that should be undertaken by all states, and not singularly. To this end, Zapatero has gone to great lengths, since the Madrid terrorist attacks in 2004, to enhance bilateral and trilateral relationships with Morocco and other Maghreb States. As a result, Spain and Morocco, in particular, have agreed to enhance border security and closely monitor entry to Spain from North Africa. To this end, Spain is seeking to further strengthen its ties with Morocco by considering the construction of a transnational tunnel between the two continents to further develop positive cultural ties between the peoples of the two countries (BBC News, 2003). The potential project to construct a tunnel, in conjunction with the implementation of enhanced border control, is indicative that Spain views the cessation of terrorism, by the means of good governance and public diplomacy, as opposed to the French model which actively securitised its counter-terrorism policy. Since 2003, Zapatero has done much to emphasise the need for a multilateral solution to international terrorism, away from a strategy that pertains only to Spain or other European states. In the National Defence Strategy of 2003, (Revisión Estratégica de Defensa, RED), the case for a clearly defined UN counter-terrorism strategy was proposed in contrast to separate national security strategies. This is slightly different from the direction taken by the French Government, which specifically advocated a stronger alliance with the US to counteract the threat of international terrorism and foster a more coherent European response (Présidence de la République, 2008). As mentioned previously, the Spanish Government’s stance on counter-terrorism has demonstrated a preference for the use of public diplomacy as the cornerstone of its strategy. However, a more in-depth explanation of public diplomacy is required to provide greater context of the depth and complexity of its counter-terrorism policy. Public Diplomacy as Counter-Terrorism Strategy“[There] is more power in blue jeans and rock n’ roll than the entire Red Army” (Debray cited in Sullivan, 2006: 216) In his treatise on international politics and reputation, the scholar Jonathan Mercer highlighted the importance of cultivating a positive general perception of a country. He argued that national reputation ‘is unquestionably an instrument of power’ (Wang, 2005: 1) and an integral part of foreign policymaking. In his opinion, reputation should therefore be considered ‘a judgment of someone’s [or something’s] character (or disposition) that is then used to predict or explain future behaviour’ (Mercer, 1996: 6), which also applies in the context of states. Public diplomacy is one tool that some non-state actors use to ameliorate that reputation. It is defined as the practice of diplomatic communication incorporating government-to-people contact, different to the more traditional government-to-government and diplomat-to-diplomat communication (Manheim, 1982). It is referenced in diplomacy literature as the engagement of target populations by a state or other entity seeking to influence that audience of the legitimacy of its core messages and narratives. According to the public diplomacy scholar Stacy Hope, the discipline or practice ‘contributes to a country’s national security by building the sustainable influence of one nation on the citizens of another’ (Hope, 2009: 60). This form of engagement is different to other forms of diplomacy, such as bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. Bilateral diplomacy, which is predicated on ‘the conduct of relations between two or more states’ and multilateral diplomacy, ‘the conduct of relations between three or more states’, are characterised by the maintenance and amelioration of formal relationships between nation states. The presence of a third dimension to diplomacy has also been promulgated by Geoffrey Wiseman who contended that diplomatic relations between states and non-state entities exist and should be denoted as polylateralism. He contended that polylateralism is conceptualised as ‘the conduct of relations between official entities…and at least one unofficial, non-state entity in which there is a reasonable expectation of systematic relationships, involving some form of reporting, communication, negotiation, and representation, but not involving mutual recognition as sovereign, equivalent entities’ (Wiseman, 2004: 41). It is Wiseman’s definition of polylateralism that emphasises the importance of government-to-people diplomacy. Considering the nature of polylateralism in diplomatic literature, it can be conceived that other non-state actors, such as terrorist organisations, practise public diplomacy. The ability of contemporary terrorist organisations as well as nation and market states to forge and foster strong relationships with their target audiences will be analysed at length in subsequent chapters of this thesis. As the author has written elsewhere, ‘Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden (described by one observer as “the quintessential public diplomat”) are innovative communicators who have forged a single powerful narrative of oppression out of a range of grievances, taking advantage of modern forms of communication including the internet and satellite broadcasting. By contrast, traditional diplomacy has been poor at constructing coalitions based around a distinct set of values and ponderous in communicating effective branding’ (Ampofo, 2010: 4). Contemporary non-state actors, especially organisations such as terrorist groups, can therefore be as effective as States in constructing and propagating effective public diplomacy programmes that influence great numbers of foreign publics. Like traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy is observed by prominent international relations scholars such as Anne Marie Slaughter and Joseph Nye as an element of soft power. In his thesis on the nature of soft power, Nye claimed that the techniques encompassed within public diplomacy for influencing the general public are an altogether different form of power than that of other forms of state influence such as kinetic warfare or what he termed “hard power”. Hard power, which, according to Nye, refers to the ability to influence an actor to comply with your way of thinking by military force, becomes increasingly costly and, by implication, less attractive as a means of coercion to governments. The interconnectedness of the contemporary globalised world also means that a military attack on one state would likely impact upon the strategic interests of the attacker. The earlier quotation from Regis Debray neatly sums up Nye’s perception of the strength of US cultural influence and national reputation in relation to hard power. Nye supported Debray’s assertion that soft power tactics, such as public diplomacy, are as important to modern day politics and statecraft as traditional military power. Therefore, public diplomacy, which exists to influence foreign publics of the legitimacy of government policy, encapsulates all of the elements of a soft power technique, rendering it a core tactic of influence and power. Although soft power is an overarching framework for the implementation of public diplomacy programmes, there are numerous other explanations for their inclusion in the application of foreign policy. One of the principal reasons for exerting influence over the people of a particular state is to ameliorate its reputation. The motivations driving states’ desires to maintain and improve their reputation were proffered by the researcher and creator of the Nation Brands Index, Simon Anholt. Together with the German market research company Gesellschaft für Konsumforschung (GfK), the Nation Brands Index conducts annual survey research of a sample of the global population and ranks the popularity of more than 200 countries based on the responses. In appraising the efficacy of the Nation Brands Index, Anholt argued that individual states guard and maintain their national reputations to the extent that they can be perceived as brands, ‘as important…as any other corporate brand. Every country in the world has to compete with more than 200 other countries for positive reputations’ (Ampofo, 2010: 4). Positive national reputation is a critically important strategic objective for all states as without it, key narratives, and by implication policy objectives, become more difficult to convey to the general public. If the key to success in public diplomacy programmes is to ensure the delivery of core narratives in a way that enhances a state’s credibility and reputation, then it follows that emphasis has to be placed on the delivery of key narratives. Mark Leonard focused on this in his critique of post-September 11 public diplomacy, which he claimed ‘has failed to deliver information convincingly. The tone of many messages is declamatory, without any apparent intent to engage in dialogue or listen’ (Leonard, 2002: 53). It would be unwise to take Leonard’s comments as sacrosanct however, as the linkages between public opinion and official policies are not always in evidence. However, it is clear that public opinion creates a climate in which official policies can be pursued, making national reputation and credibility (and by implication public diplomacy as a tool to advance these perceptions) central to national strategic objectives (Burstein, 2003: 32). Public diplomacy can, therefore, be an effective way of influencing foreign publics in comparison to military action. Public diplomacy is also an extremely malleable tactic, able to dovetail with a range of programmes to achieve strategic objectives. Public diplomacy objectives and programmes can therefore be easily incorporated into the activities of a number of different sectors such as religion (International Center for Religion and Diplomacy, 2011), sport (World Paddle Sport Foundation, 2011), business (Watkins et al. 2000) and counter-terrorism (Alliance of Civilisations, 2011), thereby enhancing its reputation as an effective method of influencing large groups of people.
The Spanish Government has made extensive use of public diplomacy techniques to inform its broader counter-terrorism strategy since the 1800s. The use of public diplomacy techniques related to terrorism in the Zapatero administration are informed by the Prime Minister’s vision that terrorism should be defeated using the tools of soft power. Spain, as a result, employs the use of a wide variety of public diplomacy techniques as part of its national and international counter-terrorism strategy, in addition to its traditional military-backed strategy. One of the most important initiatives for this is the Government’s commitment to interfaith dialogue using civil society. The Spanish Government empowered civil society to play a key role in effectively delivering on this mandate. Organisations such as the UNESCO Centre of Catalonia (Unescocat) create and implement religious diversity programmes which seek to promote understanding and tolerance amongst the general Catalan population through inter-religious understanding. The use of Faith Diplomacy as part of a wider public diplomacy programme has been supported by prominent proponents such as Tim Livesey from the office of the Archbishop of Canterbury as an effective medium to achieve strategic objectives (Wilton Park, 2010). The Spanish Government also launched a number of online diplomacy initiatives that support their real-world counter-terrorism programmes using public diplomacy. An example of this is the creation of the Alliance of Civilisations (Alianza de Civilizaciones). The initiative, launched in close cooperation with the United Nations and the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, was designed as a subtle rebuke to Professor Samuel Huntington’s influential 1993 Clash of Civilisations thesis (Huntington 1993). It is a programme established with the United Nations designed to counter the spread of extremism and radicalisation through inter-cultural and inter-religious dialogue and cooperation. The organisation forms partnerships with other non-governmental organisations, corporations and governments on programmes that facilitate mutual understanding, and reconciliation amongst cultures; ‘and in particular, between “Muslim” and “Western” societies’ (Alianza de Civilizaciones, 2010). In addition, the Government afforded considerable support to civil society groups who sought to join the fight against terrorism. One such organisation that uses its online profile to campaign against terrorism is the Victims Association of Terrorism (Asociación de Victimas de Terrorismo). This organisation was created by the mother of a victim of the Madrid 2004 bombings, through which she could gather a community of like-minded people to conduct counter-radicalisation work. Similarly, the organisation Basta! was created following ETA’s kidnap and eventual assassination of the Spanish politician Miguel Ángel Blanco in 1997. The organisation continues to attract people to the task of preventing future terrorist activity in Spain. Spain has focused on public diplomacy strategies because it believes that effective counter-terrorism is not a technologically deterministic process. Rather, it is about identifying, establishing and maintaining good relationships with different actors using a variety of socio-technical means. As a result, Spain could better employ the use of the internet and the Web to fulfil its communication objectives as will be outlined in greater detail in Chapters Four, Five, Six and Seven. Directory: portal -> files -> 4733003 files -> Impact case study (ref3b) files -> Ethics and Factual Television: a short history files -> P. O. Box 27, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland tel. 358-9-191 58080 / 22216; fax 358-9-191 58096 / 23008 files -> The impact of a pledge campaign and the promise of publicity: a randomized controlled trial of charitable donations files -> Diversity and Voice: the Political Participation of Young People in the European Union files -> Chapter 15 a voice in Decision Making: young children in Denmark Stig Broström Introduction Download 1.29 Mb. Share with your friends:
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