Homeland insecurity: why anti-terrorism laws are here to stay

Gearty, Conor ORCID: 0000-0002-3885-2650 (2024) Homeland insecurity: why anti-terrorism laws are here to stay. Irish Studies in International Affairs, 34 (1). 147 - 157. ISSN 0332-1460

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Abstract

In this paper I argue that the self-evident sustainability of the changes wrought by anti-terrorism law since the 11 September 2001 attacks are rooted in our colonial past, a past that is littered with such laws. I further argue that in the post-colonial period those laws were then carried over into the Cold War era, where they were too useful in the struggle against radical dissent ever to be completely jettisoned—even by those newly liberated countries whose leaders had suffered under their coercive power. The paper ends with some brief reflections on how the ‘problem’ of ‘terrorism’ became globalised in the post-colonial period. My examination of its origins led me to believe that the ‘War on Terror’ was easy to entrench because liberal democracies had had decades of practice at it.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/423/journal/812
Additional Information:	© 2023 Royal Irish Academy
Divisions:	Law
Subjects:	K Law > K Law (General) J Political Science > JZ International relations
Date Deposited:	05 Mar 2024 11:12
Last Modified:	12 Dec 2024 04:05
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/122183

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