Unpacking ‘international terrorism’: discourse, the European Community and counter-terrorism, 1975–86

Abstract:

According to convention, the emergence of ‘international terrorism’ led the European Community (EC) member states to initiate co-operation from the mid-1970s onwards. A different story is told here by examining how ‘international terrorism’ appeared as threatening and co-operation in the context of the EC became regarded as a logical solution.

The article frames this as political events (‘international terrorism’) overflowing the space of politics (the state), whereby the latter felt it necessary to set up a series of arrangements to try to encapsulate the excesses of the former. It shows how the interpretation of terrorism as an illegitimate political provocation constituted an obligation for states to respond. Stressing the international character highlighted individual states' inability to tackle terrorism, which made it possible for co-operation to appear as obvious. Trevi and the Dublin Agreement are examined as manifestations seeking to work around, and thus reinventing, the limits of state sovereignty.