Lawrence Peter Ampofo
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ConclusionThis chapter has focused its analysis of Government responses to terrorism operating in contemporary Spain. Ethno-nationalism continues to drive certain groups to perpetrate acts of violence against state infrastructure and citizens. However, policymakers consider the most pressing issue relating to terrorism and counter-terrorism to both Spain and France today to be the threat of international terrorism from organisations emanating from North Africa and South Asia. As we have seen, during the 1980s the respective governments initially adopted very different tactics to counter-terrorism, one of sanctuary and the other, a hard-line, like-for-like exchange of killings. In the 1990s, however, both governments implemented similar strategies after becoming cognisant of the need to combine forces to counter domestic terrorism. Now, both states have come to appreciate the importance of countering international terrorism together as the increasingly borderless and globalised European Union (EU) leaves them potentially open to attacks from an enemy that is difficult to identify and even more difficult to stop. In addition, the War on Terror, like the Cold War before it, is an overarching political ideology which shaped the development and use of the internet and the Web in relation to terrorism and counter-terrorism in Spain. The official policy of the Zapatero Government to increase cultural flows between Europe and the Maghreb, while maintaining and even enhancing border controls, recognises that a small group of people are responsible and that to isolate Spain from its neighbours would do much to foster resentment and ill-feeling amongst people in Maghreb countries. France, on the other hand, has taken a different route and initially proposed to make Europe’s military forces more formidable should a more serious attack manifest in the future. France has also singled out the use of technology as a frontier in the fight against terrorism and, to this end, has created a database that monitors the online behaviour of the French people and underscores its renewed zeal to combat cyberterrorism over the next ten years when another security review is scheduled (Présidence de la République 2008). These strategies suggest that both Spain and France have perceived the answer to the threat of terrorism to come from two different sources. Spain principally sees the need to address what it perceives to be the root causes of international terrorism, by withdrawing its troops from the Middle East in 2004 and fostering better multilateral solutions using supranational institutions. It is not only a solution that treats the source of the problem before it becomes a tangible issue to the state and the people, but also one that aligns itself closely with Barnett’s theory that greater integration of states in the non-Integrating Gap will deter violence. France, on the other hand, is cognisant of the need to protect itself and its allies from international terrorism. It sees the threat of terrorism as already present in society and that it should be dealt with by expansion of military forces and better surveillance of the people within its borders. To this end, France closely examines the trend of terrorists using technology to perpetrate attacks and implementing technologically deterministic measures to counter it. Spain’s deployment of socio-technical responses to its terrorist threat is also encapsulated in its use of public diplomacy, particularly digital diplomacy, to influence domestic and foreign publics of the need to counter terrorism. This response is qualitatively different to that used by France, which has instead focused on technological solutions to decrease the threat of terrorism in the region. Two understandings of terrorism have become clear; the globalisation of high technology and the evolution of the market state have led to market state terror in Spain (Bobbitt, 2008). The second is that effective responses to market state terror in Spain using communications technologies such as the internet should incorporate the use of effective online communications and engagement strategies to influence the attitudes and behaviours of online users. This could have the effect of convincing the general public of the nature of government counter-terrorism strategy, as well as dissuading people from accepting Jihadist ideologies. The process of engagement with communities, and creation of compelling narratives as part of counter-terrorism strategy, is investigated further in Chapters Five and Seven. Chapter Three: The Ethics and Practices of Internet and Social Media ResearchIntroductionSpain has one of the highest internet penetration rates in Western Europe21 and, using social media, users comment frequently on events and issues such as terrorism. The increase in Web-based content makes the practice of internet research for terrorism more feasible as retrospective and real-time analyses can provide further insight on aspects of terrorism. However, the ability to aggregate and analyse such content raises questions about workable ethics guidelines, which, to date, have not been drafted. The complexity surrounding the continued development of the Web and the internet, influenced by a range of actors from governments, to civil society to terrorist organisations, was analysed in Chapter One. This confluence of actors led to the conclusion that rather than conceptualising the internet and the Web from a technological deterministic perspective, it is preferable that they be conceived as social and cultural spaces where meaningful social interactions occur, or from a social constructivist perspective in Latour’s sense (1998). This conclusion led to the hypothesis that the availability of new technologies increases the capacities of terrorist and counter-terrorist agencies to achieve their communication objectives. The overarching research question was developed in Chapter One, which would permit the testing of the hypothesis: what understandings exist concerning the relationship between technology, terrorism and counter-terrorism in Spain? The following questions were posed to provide the overall thesis with greater richness and depth:
In order to answer these questions, the context and the complexity of terrorist threats facing Spain were analysed in Chapter Two by comparing its official responses to terrorism with that of France. It concluded that, in spite of Spain and France’s close geographic proximity and shared terrorist threats, the two governments displayed very different understandings of terrorism, technology and counter-terrorism. France’s counter-terrorism strategy relies mainly on a technology-focused solution suggesting that the French Government adheres to the notion that the application of technology will have a direct effect on society and result in the reduction of terrorism in the region. Spain, however, has adopted a more socio-technical approach to counter-terrorism by entering into bilateral agreements, developing a domestic counter-terrorism system and, crucially, by employing public diplomacy strategies aimed at contributing to counter-terrorism. Whether this latter day form of terrorism faced by Spain should be designated as “fourth wave” (Rapoport, 2004) or “market state terrorism” (Bobbit, 2008) was discussed in the previous chapter. This chapter examines the numerous research methods used for the purpose of terrorism analysis and general social science research. It sets out an overarching methodological framework that will be used to comprehensively analyse the understandings of various actors and communities towards the internet, terrorism and counter-terrorism in Spain. This framework consists of semi-structured interviews of both counter-terrorism practitioners and other academic and commercial experts to provide insight on this issue. Secondly, the author created a methodology adapted from media analysis that systematically analyses the behaviour and commentary of online users and communities in relation to the research question. A more complete account of the chronological details concerning the semi-structured interviews can be found in Appendix Two of this thesis. 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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