Terrorism is What We Make of It: Construction of Terrorism Designation

Abstract

This thesis seeks to refine our understanding of the social construction of terrorism designation. I examine formal terrorism designations made by the United States (U.S.) Department of State. Conceptualizing terrorism as marker of organizational illegitimacy and threat to national interests, I advance the premise that as the claims-maker, the State Department’s designation of terrorism is socially constructed and strategically driven by a combination of both interests and legitimacy. I draw a constructivist framework and revisit the contextual analysis of social reality while putting the terrorism construction to its center. Whilst a review of contextual constructionism contributes to the social problem literature, my framework invites the fields of Public Policy and International Relations (IR) into the analysis of how U.S. views the non-state actors as reflected in its patterns of terrorism designation. I intend to develop theoretical and analytic tools for understanding and furthering the social construction perspective that should be central in terrorism designation and definition. Drawing from institutionalist theories, I analyze the roles of collective legitimacy and national interest in the U.S designation of terrorism. I show that a constructivist analysis of terrorism designation is not sufficient based on the concept of legitimacy. State’s national interests play a role in this process. Yet, national interests need not solely be materialist. The social construction of national interest provides different insights on which non-state actors are more likely to be designated as terrorists. My findings indicate that the roles of legitimacy and interest should not be treated as opposition but as capturing two ends of a continuum of terrorism designation. My framework calls for a synthesis of literatures, theories and approaches, where social constructionism awaits. Given that terrorism is widely deemed to be one of the primary threats to U.S. security, how the United States designates non-state actors as terrorists also provides insights into our understanding of its overall foreign policy posture.