Knowledge, Truth, and Interest: A Critique of the Political Ontology of ‘Terrorism’

Terrorism has increasingly drawn the attention of both the public and scholars since the events of 11 September 2001. While orthodox literature treats ‘terrorism’ as an objective phenomenon, more critical readings view it as an ideological-power construct that serves states’ interests. This study contributes to the critical deconstruction of the concept of terrorism by interrogating the relationship between knowledge and the operation of biopower, and the system of silence surrounding state terrorism. For this, the researcher employs two methodological approaches: a genealogical analysis of terrorism as a technology of power and a critical analysis of the discursive practices and ontological assumptions underpinning conventional scholarship on state terrorism. The study concludes that incidents of ‘terrorism’ are used by the modern state to justify its reconstitution of sovereign power on the basis of techniques such as prevention, exclusion, control and excision, deploying them against groups characterised as threats. At the same time, the state continues to rain down destruction on what it deems a source of evil, relying on a political ontology that allows it to exercise legitimate violence within or outside its national borders.