Download state-building and counterterrorism: securitization of islam in central

UNIVERSITY OF TRENTO
DOCTORAL SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
STATE-BUILDING AND COUNTERTERRORISM:
SECURITIZATION OF ISLAM IN CENTRAL ASIA
Viktoria Akchurina
[email protected]
Dissertation proposal
PhD Programme in International Studies
Supervisor: Prof. Roberto Belloni
Abstract:
Counterterrorism policies in Central Asia represent a process of securitization of transnational
Islamic movements that are embedded in Central Asian history and culture. The creation of an
existential threat out of a cultural phenomenon can be fraught with serious consequences for
the state, because it can change the relationships between the state and society by facilitating
creation of alternative forms of governance in the region. On the other hand, states also risk
infringing on the ‘social contract’ with their societies if they do not find the way to deal with the
problem of extremism. Hence, I propose to look at the relationship between counterterrorism
and state-building through the newly emerging understanding of actors as collective and hybrid
with multiple and often conflicting identities, due to which the security interests of actors are
not kept fixed. Taking into consideration the non-Westphalian architecture of Central Asian
states and the hybrid nature of the transnational Islamic movements, I will use the non-linear
approach to causality, investigating possible causal processes that arise from the contexts
within which counterterrorism, state, and transnational movements are located.
Table of contents:
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..…….2
Literature Review
Translating international into the local……………………………………………………………………….……3
‘War against terror’: international context……………………………………………………………….……..4
The Islamism-Terrorism nexus: social context………………………………………………………….………6
Key concepts
The state: what is in the name?...........................................................................................10
Securitization: threat is what states make of it………………………………………………….…………...14
Methodology:
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder” versus “Out of sight, out of mind”…………………...15
Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………………………………….………..19
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“Once again we find, very easily, a way to reduce the threat of terror: stop acting in ways that –
predictably – enhance the threat.”
Noam Chomsky
INTRODUCTION
In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Islamic Renaissance challenged
security perceptions of the newly independent states in Central Asia. During the last two
decades, Central Asian countries have been facing a number of terrorist attacks that aimed to
overthrow the officially secular governments. This situation pushed the ruling elites to adopt
strict counterterrorism policies. The broader context of the ‘global war on terror’ started after
9/11 has been reflected in the shift of the regional security interests of the Central Asian states.
This shift has been underpinned by the broader tendency of the changing perception of threat
from material- to “ideational factors” (Katzenstein, 1996:10-11).
As a result of these shifts, militant Islam has been increasingly characterized as one of
the main threats to security – and, indeed, existence of the Central Asian states. This situation
might appear as often touted dilemma of secularism versus religiousness or “Islam versus
Modern States” (Olimova and Tolipov 2011). However, this would be a serious misreading of
the striking complexity of this situation. Neither Islam, nor the state in this case represents
unitary actor with fixed interests. Both transnational Islamic movements and the regional states
are active agencies located within different and partly overlapping contexts that mitigate their
structural dependency on geopolitically stronger actors through the social processes developing
within those contexts. In order to grasp these ‘social springs of power’, one has to consider the
following characteristics of the two main agencies in focus.
First, it is the hybrid nature of the contemporary transnational Islamic movements in
Central Asia, which include both moderate Islam being embedded into the heart of Central
Asian culture, and radical Islam exporting ideas from the wider international Islamist network.
The distinction between Islam as cultural practice and Islamism as militant ideology is the
crucial issue for counterterrorism policies in the region, since this provides the basis for
understanding of securitization or the construction of threat. However, this distinction has been
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largely ignored by those who formulate and propagate counterterrorism policies. The
importance of this distinction is hard to overestimate, because incorporation of crucial part of
the culture under a single umbrella of terrorism and extremism can pose risks of identifying
culture as a threat. Consequently, this labeling can lead to exacerbation of the gap between
state and society. Furthermore, transnational Islamic movements, being represented as a
threat, are not passive ‘objects’. Due to the internal conditions in Central Asia, these
movements are increasingly becoming legitimate actors by fulfilling social, economic, and
ideological needs of a significant part of population. In other words, Islamic movements create
alternative centers of power and consequently alternative forms of governance in the region.
Secondly, the non-Westphalian architecture of the Central Asian states deconstructs the
conventional framework of fixed national interests and material threats. Specifically, the
internal fragmentation of the regional states, the struggles for political power among the
political elites, the political mobilization of the masses, and hybridization of state institutions
with criminal networks create space for counter-hegemonic responses to the counterterrorism
policies that states adopt.
In this context, counterterrorism policies are the means of securitization of Islam that
greatly influence the ongoing state-building processes in the region. How exactly securitization
of Islam influences state-building in Central Asia depends on the meaning behind the concepts
of threat, state, and culture, which implicitly underpin counterterrorism policies, but are
neglected due to the one-fits-all approach to the war on terror. Revision of the understanding
of these phenomena in a particular cultural context and finding the way of translating
international counterterrorism policies to the levels of state and society can reduce the risk of
the outbreak of violence and bring society back into the state.
TRANSLATING INTERNATIONAL INTO THE LOCAL
In order to investigate the relationships between counterterrorism and the state, I use two
important literatures. The first literature locates the issue into the global context of the ‘war
against terror’, the main assumption of which is that counterterrorism policies strengthen the
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state. The second literature touches upon social context and looks deeper into the concept of
Islam, Islamism, and its linkage to extremism and terrorism. This literature criticizes
conventional counterterrorism policies, arguing that the discourse of threat directed towards
Islam can lead to its radicalization, what can foster severe implications for social cohesion and
peace.
‘WAR AGAINST TERROR’: INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT
In the UN counterterrorism framework, Central Asia has been identified as a part of “the wider
region” that “is fast becoming the main front on the global war against terror” (Jenca 2010) as
well.
The linkage of state-building and counterterrorism is incorporated into the UN Global
Counter-Terrorism Strategy which identifies “building State capacity” as one of the four key
pillars of the Strategy. Other three pillars include “tackling the conditions conducive to the
spread of terrorism; preventing and combating terrorism; and ensuring respect for human
rights and the rule of law against the backdrop of the fight against terrorism.”(A/RES/60/288)
Among the conditions conducive to terrorism are the following: “dehumanization of victims of
terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, lack of rule of law and violations of human rights,
ethnic,
national
and
religious
discrimination,
political
exclusion,
socio-economic
marginalization, and lack of good governance” (A/RES/60/288).
Paradoxically, protecting states, counterterrorism policies seem marginalizing a crucial
part of culture that is an essence of society. This marginalization springs from the “discourse of
danger *…+ in Western policy, popular and even academic accounts on Central Asia”
(Heathershaw and Megoran 2010). Such attitude to transnational Islamic movements can
provoke state-society conflict that would ultimately work against the state. As Chandler (2010)
underlines, in the era of post-liberal state-building the neglected force to foster change is the
power of society, expressed in social movements.
In the aftermath of 9/11 with intensification of counterterrorism policies in the region,
political exclusion has become one of the consequences directed towards the Ferghana Valley
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of Central Asia, where most of the conditions conducive to violence are concentrated. Olcott’s
famous book “Central Asia’s second chance” starts with the assumption of the strategic
importance of the region in the war against terrorism, due to its vicinity to Afghanistan (Olcott
2005: 1) and calls the post-9/11 military presence of the United States “the second chance” to
uproot terrorism and strengthen Central Asian states. In other words, the fact that the region is
Islamic correlates with its conduciveness to terrorism.
The most intensively Islamic movements are concentrated in the Ferghana Valley that
includes Southeast Uzbekistan (Namangan, Ferghana and Andijan oblasts), Southern Kyrgyzstan
(Osh, Jalalabad, and Batken oblast), Northern Tajikistan (Sughd oblast). The Valley is in the
heart of transnational activism (drug trafficking, for instance) flowing from Afghanistan towards
Russia, Turkey, and Europe. It is divided both linguistically and politically and “the three
national zones have as much or more in common with each other than they do with the rest of
the states of which each is a part” (Starr 2011: ix). The 1/5 th of the total population of Central
Asia is located in the Valley and most religious and, hence social movements spring from here
(Starr 2011: xii).
Inherently, moderate branch of Islam – Sunni Islam is the prevailing ideology of the
population. However, there is a great inflow of Wahhabist (Salafist) Islam as well. In other
words, both moderate and radical branches of Islam peacefully co-exist in the Ferghana Valley,
but both of them are put under the same umbrella of Islamism and discursively linked to
extremism and terrorism. Thus, despite the fact that social marginalization is mentioned as a
condition conducive to terrorism by the UN counter-terrorism strategy (A/RES/60/288),
regional governments do marginalize Ferghana Valley by means of the discourse of threat
directed towards Islam.
To sum up, counterterrorism strategies, despite proclaiming the goal of strengthening
state’s capacity, in reality, can weaken states by exacerbating the disharmonic relationships
between states and their societies, because its inherent cultural component has been
presented as a threat.
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THE ISLAMISM – TERRORISM NEXUS: SOCIAL CONTEXT
The common denominator of this block of literature is that Islam is deeply rooted in the Central
Asian culture and “defines social and political processes” (Shozimov et. al. 2011: 278). However,
Islamic network does not represent a unitary actor, but rather a collective or hybrid actor, that
consists of both traditional Islamic movements and new dissident ones that started to get
attracted by the region after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Distinguishing between moderate
and radical Islam in the region, some authors warn against strict religious and counterterrorism
policies in Central Asia, because they lead to radicalization of Islam (Malikov 2010). Malikov
(2011) also draws attention to the geostrategies of the Grand Players in Central Asia, which can
exacerbate the radicalization of Islam. For example, the geostrategy of the “controllable chaos”
offered by Brzezinski (1997) if implemented would be dramatic for peace in Central Asia.
The rise of radical Islam roots back to the collapse of the Soviet Union. Some authors
explain this by “identity vacuum” and call this process a transformation of “homo soveticus”
into “homo islamicus” (Olimova 2011). During the Independence History, Central Asia faced a
range of terrorist attacks, the biggest of which are the ones appeared during the civil war in
Tajikistan (1992-1997); terrorists attacks on the Cabinet of Ministers and other buildings in
Uzbekistan (February 1999); the Batken events in Kyrgyzstan (July 1999); the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan (IMU) fighters’ incursion of Uzbekistan (2000); the Taliban threat to Central Asia
(from 1998 until 2001); the Andijan events of May 2005; small-scale incidents on the border
between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in May 2009, and the most recent terrorist attack in Taraz,
Southern Kazakhstan, 12 November 2011.
The complexity of Islam as a collective actor lies in the internal segregation of Islam.
Olimova and Tolipov (2011) emphasize the debates between traditional and revolutionary
branches of Islam. The authors demonstrate that “traditionalists are guided by a combination of
nationalist and Islamic ideas, and they consider national interests to be more important than
global Islamic integration” (Olimova 2011).
Hence, in my thesis I will make an attempt to distinguish between Islam and Islamism, as
well as demonstrate how fragile the edge between them can be if state loses legitimacy.
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Each of the Central Asian states exercises different religious policies.
Tajikistan pursues one of the most inclusive religious policies in the region. It separates
Islamic extremist movements from the moderate Islam. The moderate branches of Islam,
culturally inherited in Tajikistan, such as Hanafi Islam and Sufi Islam are called to support the
efforts of government to create order and prevent possible rise of military Islamism. Hence,
government tries to maintain partial inclusion of Islam into the political decision-making and to
rely on it as a counterbalance to the destructive transnational Islamist movements. Islamic
Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) is a member of the lower house of Parliament in
Tajikistan.
In the meantime, radical branches of transnational Islamist movements, such as Salafi
movement, Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) and Bayat (the Oath) have been outlawed by the Supreme Court
of Tajikistan since January 2009 (Nazarov 2011:356). The Bayat movement is accused for the
ties to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is one of the jihadist movements, whose goal is to
establish Islamic state (Olcott and Babadjanov 2004). Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan includes
not only adherents to the idea of jihad, but also political opposition to the regime of President
Karimov.
On March 17, 2010 Kyrgyz Defense Ministry disseminated the press-releasing, indicating
the construction of the anti-terrorist training center in the Batken Oblast with the financial
support of the United States. This explains by the fact that Batken is the most vulnerable zone
for transnational activism. The weakest border and therefore the main drug trafficking route
goes from this part of Kyrgyzstan to Kazakhstan, Russia, and ultimately Europe. However, it is
worth noting that Batken has attracted both Russia and the United States as a place for
dislocation of their second military bases. The negotiations about establishing military bases
have been led for several years, during the President Bakiyev’s regime. However, Bakiyev’s
government was not inclined to open strategically important region of the country to any
foreign forces. It seems that anti-terrorist framework is a more diplomatic way to establish this
military presence today.
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As argued by some authors (Allison 2001; Omelicheva 2011), the threat of “Islamic
fundamentalism” and “international terrorism” is a drive for security cooperation between the
Central Asian states. The common threat, common Soviet legacies, common historical and
cultural heritage are supposed to make a security complex out of the set of states of Central
Asia. According to the classical security complex theory, states’ “major security problems
cannot reasonably be analyzed or resolved apart from one another” (Buzan 1998: 12).
However, we have seen that the common threat can become a reason for conflict rather than
cooperation, due to the fact that weak states make it serve their material interests at some
point of time. Hence, what we really have to investigate is the interaction between different
processes intervening into the securitization process.
According to the security complex theory, cultural and economic interactions among the
regional states would lead to security cooperation as well (Allison 2001:9). Moreover, “the
threat of ‘Islamic fundamentalism’ and ‘international terrorism’ has brought states of the
region into cooperation not only between themselves but also with Russia” (Allison 2001: 14).
The problem, however, is that Ferghana Valley inherits a great variety of structural conditions
conducive to violence, such as drug trafficking, border issues, the so-called water wars.
Exploiting these conditions, states may use ideas of- or against Islamic movements in order to
reach strategic material goals. Hence, the presence of a ‘common Islamic threat’ cannot alone
bring countries to closer cooperation, especially because this threat seems, to a great extent,
be created by political discourse.
Similar explanation is offered by Omelicheva (2011) who demonstrates how rationalist
and constructivist theories explain counterterrorism policies’ choices in Kazakhstan and
Kyrgyzstan. Omelicheva uses the framework of the reference group theory, treating
governments as “social actors” and arguing that “social environment in which states operate
influence their understanding of security threats and affect their policy choices” (Omelicheva
2011: 3). In other words, she argues that the regional policies of Commonwealth of
Independent States (CIS) and the widespread perception of Islam as a threat by the key (and
more powerful) regional actors gets incorporated into the governmental policies of these
states.
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Both of these blocks of theories are legitimate if one looks at the security framework
within which states operate. Indeed, Central Asian states depend on the multilateral structures
of regional and international organizations, accepting international counterterrorism policies.
This framework is constituted by counterterrorism units of Collective Security Treaty
Organization (CSTO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the OSCE, and Partnership for
Peace of NATO (PfP); as well as bilateral agreements on military cooperation with the United
States and Russia.
While regional states marginalize Ferghana Valley and approach Islamic factor with
coercive means, Islamists continue their ideological work with the population. Even such radical
movement as Hizb-ut-Tahrir changed their strategy. Nowadays they implement rather soft
methods of ideological propaganda, support social projects, establish legal charitable NGOs,
and introduce their activists into state agencies, including law enforcement (Malikov 2011:
347). Their pamphlets do not include anything what they can be legally sued for. Hence, their
current goal is to find its niche in the institutional structure of the state. In other words, Islamic
movements start building the “alternative form of governance” (Biro 2007; Giustozzi 2005) in
the Ferghana Valley and the counterterrorism policies paradoxically just facilitate this process.
To sum up, there are two different processes of securitization or threat construction
going on. The first is the construction of threat out of transnational Islamic movements. The
second one is the counter-process: threat rhetoric from the side of the Islamic movements
addressing ruling elites. Both of the two strive to win the hearts and minds of the population.
However, the ruling elites appeal to material means, to exclusionary legislation and the use of
force, while the counter-securitizers appeal to information or propaganda and education.
Furthermore, the former operate by means of bilateral and multilateral agreements, while the
latter look for niches in the social and institutional structures of the states. The crucial
difference is also that the counter-securitizers target the very heart of Central Asia – the
Ferghana Valley, where the majority of people are Muslim and the most favorable socioeconomic conditions for Islamic movements to gain legitimacy concentrate. The governments,
on the other hand, marginalize this area and try to restrict the access to political and economic
resources at different levels for the representatives of this sub-region.
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Thus, the existing analysis of the counterterrorism policies in Central Asia reflects two
contradictory understandings: first one assumes Central Asia’s pivotal position in the global war
against terror and aims at strengthening regional states by means of restrictive
counterterrorism policies. Second understanding looks into the societal dimension of
counterterrorism and argues that the discourse of threat towards Islamic movements can
provoke their radicalization. What is a real threat to the state then: transnational Islamic
movements or their securitization in historically Islamic social context? In other words: how do
counterterrorism policies influence state-building in Central Asia?
KEY CONCEPTS
THE STATE: WHAT IS IN THE NAME?
Endless universe of indicators of state’s weakness has been offered. Criteria of capacity,
efficiency, and legitimacy could be highlighted as the guiding threads through this universe.
Rooted back in the Weberian maxima of the “monopoly over the legitimate use of
violence”, capacity-focused approaches define weak states as being incapable to protect its
population on a well-defined territory from the external and internal threats (Tilly 2003;
Zartman 1995: 275). Ethnic violence, banditry, high degree of criminality in the society leads to
chaos, which characterizes a state as weak (Andersen 2005, 11; Debiel 2005, 2). While this
approach strengthens the importance of the control over violence, it still implies that this
control cannot be exercised under the conditions of the breakdown of law and order and
collapse of governance (Thürer 1999: 731).
Hence, efficiency as the next key indicator of state’s weakness has been measured
through the institutionalist or functionalist perspective on state’s performance.
Efficiency refers to well-functioning state’s institutions that have to be free from
corruption and tyranny. Traced back to the Lockean worldview, this approach drafts the type of
social contract that would provide both security and freedom, connect not only the state and a
citizen, but also the market. State is supposed to provide at least minimal institutional functions
in order to be considered as such (Poggi 1978; Milliken and Krause 2003; Rice and Stewart
10
2008). Understanding of security stretches from the control of violence to the economic
determinants of prosperity and opportunity. Provision of the market economic ties is one of the
main functions of the state is in the 21st century (Ghani, Lockart 2008). Well-functioning state’s
institutions can prevent chaos that breeds terrorism, narcotics trade, weapons proliferation,
and other forms of organized crime (Krasner 2005). Institutional incapacity to optimally
implement and enforce policies, public order, and macroeconomic management characterizes
states as weak (Fukuyama 2004:11). However, not only institutional weakness, but also too
strong institutional structures can lead to illegitimacy of state. Some authors define strong, but
illegitimate states as “hard states” (Zartman 1995; Hameiri 2007:135). The ‘hard states’ do not
meet the criterion of legitimacy and fail the normative test of the next approach.
Normative approach based on the notion of legitimacy that follows Kantian “starry sky
above and the moral law within”, is vividly reflected in the main international documents and
security strategies of the grand players of the international system – the United States (2002,
2010) and the European Union (2003). The main assumption of this approach is the assumption
of threat that the weak states pose to the international order. This discourse of threat roots
back to the 9/11 when the ‘war against terror’ has been proclaimed firstly by the Bush Doctrine
(2001) that maintains that weak and failing states “pose as great a danger to our national
interest as strong states.”
Former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed this new approach in his
2005 report In Larger Freedom, which declares: “If states are fragile, the peoples of the world
will not enjoy the security, development, and justice that are their right.”
The common denominator of all these approaches is the issue of security and threat.
Importantly, however, is that understanding of security, as well as threat differs. For instance,
Human Security Report 2003 introduces rather wide conceptualization of security, stretching
from survival to culture and freedom, while conceptualization of the state has been reversed
from the state being considered as the “main purveyor of security to a source of threat to its
own people” (Ogata, Sen 2003: 2). Or in the words of Amartya Sen in his “Development as
Freedom”: “People’s horizons extend far beyond survival, to matters of love, culture, and faith”
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(Sen 1999: 4). Obviously, weak states are incapable of providing opportunities for their citizens
for reach those horizons.
What seems to be missing in the existing conceptualizations of weak states is more
rigorous analysis of the nature of new challenges that modern states face. Living in the time of
changes, it is difficult for states in transition to meet all the high standards set by more
advanced actors of the international system. Following the conventional wisdom, incapacity to
meet the new challenges could be shouldered on the weak state’s institutions and bad
governance. However, in today’s “transnational world”, the system of governance, especially in
such a transnational field as counterterrorism policies, is not locked in the weak states’
embrace. It is a multilayered system, based on the international counterterrorism regulations
and monitored through the military and political presence of the grand players in the region.
Therefore, I would hypothesize that the measurement of state’s weakness and state’s
strength should depend on how well state manages the new challenges to it. The paradox of
these challenges is that they are genuinely double-nature phenomena. They are both internal
and external. When the threat is external, it is easier to apply coercive means justified by the
Weberian maxima of the legitimate use of force and the national security interests of a state.
When the threat is to a great extent internally generated (even though greatly externally
influenced) and is an element of a broader cultural fabric of a society, the issue is much more
complex and requires balanced use of material and ideational means of managing them.
Keohane and Nye (1973, 1989) anticipated intensification of transnational movements
in the international system, but the complexity of this ‘transnationalism’ which is both external
and internal, has not yet found adequate understanding. Instead, international response to
“transnational threats” mirrors rather material solutions to the less complex external threats.
My research suggests deeper investigation of the ambiguity of the transnational phenomena in
order to find the way of dealing with its ‘internal’ component in a more inclusive and diplomatic
manner, without provoking further social tensions.
In the case of Central Asia, states deal with transnational Islamic movements that are
both externally and internally generated. Marginalization of these movements may equal
marginalization of society, what may cause an extreme gap between state and society. Discord
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between state and society inevitably leads to state’s failure, especially in the states in transition
or initially weak states. The gap between state and society could be vividly seen almost in all
cases of the collapsed states: former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and even such a giant as the
former Soviet Union.
The importance of the relationships between state and society is highlighted in
sociological approaches, which perceive the state’s strengths by its ability to be cohesive with
its own society (Migdal 1988; Skocpol 1989; Rotberg 2003). Nevertheless, these approaches
continue to emphasize the importance of the coercive mechanisms in establishing such
relations; while I hypothesize that there should be a way to improve the ‘social contract’
through inclusive discourses and policies.
Backed by this rationale, in my research I will use cohesion between society and state as
the key criterion of state’s weakness or strength. This will be measured through the following
three indicators:
1. Interaction between the center and peripheral regions of a state (in my three cases:
central part of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan and the Ferghana Valley). The
aim is to test how inclusive counterterrorism policies towards the communities of
these areas are.
2. Emergence of the new centers of power or “alternative forms of governance” (Biro
2007; Giustozzi 2005) and states’ capacity to peacefully manage them. The goal is to
find out the perception of the population towards alternative forms of governance
vis-à-vis state.
3. Intensification and control over transnational criminal activity. It is important to see
how states deal with this issue, since it can be the source of financing for radical
activity, directed against the state, as well as the source of power maintenance of
rival political elites.
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SECURITIZATION: THREAT IS WHAT STATES MAKE OF IT
Securitization of transnational movements is one of the most vivid characteristics of
contemporary international relations. The discourse of threat has so deeply permeated social
life, both at the domestic and at the international level, that it became difficult to distinguish a
real existential threat from a social construction of it. Changing nature of war in the post-Cold
War era shifted attention from external to internal threats, from material to “ideational
factors” (Katzenstein, 1996: 10-11), and to the new understanding of security in its dynamic as
“a behavior to be explained” (Der Derian 1995; Waever 1995). In the aftermath of the tragic
events of 9/11, the focus of security shifted to transnational phenomena, such as terrorism.
However, the main problem remained: transnational phenomena have been treated simply as
an external threat. In my research I will place transnational phenomena in at least two possible
contexts, which generate it, and trace the interactions within and between these contexts.
Based on this rationale, I find theory of securitization the most open to finding new
meanings of the established terms. Paraphrasing the Wendt’s maxim - threat is what states
make of it. I plan to find out what the nature of this threat might be in reality.
According to the founders of the Copenhagen School Buzan and Waever (2009),
securitization theory has three roots: speech act theory, Schmittian understanding of security
as exceptional politics, and traditionalist security debates. The scholars of the Copenhagen
School argue that security itself is a speech act (Wæver 1995; McSweeney 1996; Buzan, Wæver
and de Wilde 1998; Huysmans 1998; Buzan and Wæver 2003). In other words,
methodologically, this School appeals mostly to the textual analysis in Derridean terms, i.e.
excluding silence, gesture, and images (Hansen 2000; Williams 2003).
Pragmatic or sociological approach towards securitization finds exclusively textual
methodology unfruitful since it hinders one of the aims of securitization research that is “to
address complex processes (causal and constitutive) which give rise to security problems”
(Balzacq: forthcoming). Similar view is expressed by Wilkinson (2007), who argues that
securitization theory is not applicable to the non-Westphalian types of state, such as
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Kyrgyzstan, for instance, since some dramatic events can happen without speech acts being
involved.
Balzacq explains that securitization can happen without speech acts, due to the
“unarticulated assumptions about security’s symbolic power” (Balzacq: forthcoming). This view
on securitization presenting security as pragmatic act can be broken down to three levels:
agency, act, and context. (Mey 2001: 214; Epstein 2008).
Hence, the sociological approach to securitization is interested in both constitutive and
causal effects of discourse, making it three-dimensional by looking at discourse (speech acts),
practice (actions), and social field (context).
Reconciliation of these debates could be found in the definition of securitization,
provided by Guzzini (2011) who underlines that securitization is a causal mechanism, based on
the four main pillars: process, facilitating conditions, cultural context, and historical
development (Guzzini 2011: 335).
This approach allows providing a different understanding of the process of securitization
of Islam as a dubious transnational phenomenon, going beyond ‘external-internal’ framework
of analysis, and treating ‘speech act’ as a process. Specifically, it would allow understanding of
how has Islam been turned into threat, what structural premises are there for spreading
military Islamism, what consequences this process might have on weakening or strengthening
states, and finally and most importantly – how do counterterrorism policies influence statebuilding in Central Asia?
METHODOLOGY:
“ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER” versus “OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND”
“As so much of the social world is non-linear, fifty plus years of behavioral research and theory
building have not led to any noticeable improvement in our ability to predict events. This is most
evident in transformative events like social-political revolutions of 1960s, the end of the Cold
War, and the rise and growing political influence of fundamental religious groups.”
Richard Ned Lebow
15
The complexity of the relationships between counterterrorism and state-building, in the
context of the regions that are historically and culturally predisposed for Islamic Renaissance,
invites a step back from the positivist line of reasoning and from the search for the law-like
regulations. Instead, it requires a dive into complexity of the interaction of possible causal
chains or mechanisms that spring from the social contexts within which agencies are located.
Recalling La Rouchefoucauld’s maxim - “Absence lessens moderate passions and
intensifies great ones, as the wind blows out a candle and blows up a fire” - Jon Elster (1998:
66) demonstrates that the same ‘input’ can foster contradicting ‘outputs’ if one remembers
that ‘absence’ can also mitigate the passions. In other words, the maxima - “Out of sight, out of
mind” – equally holds true. Hence, in order to account for all possible ‘outputs’, it is important
to account for context (Adcock and Collier 2001; Locke and Thelen 1995; Goertz 1994) within
which the units and mechanisms interact.
In other words, the non-linear approach to causation which “resides in the interaction
between the mechanism and the context” (Falleti and Lynch 2008: 4) will help to provide a
better understanding of unintended consequences and contingency, and control for
countervailing causal processes and social contexts, within which the problem of securitization
in Central Asia is located.
There are two main reasons of perceiving the relationships between counterterrorism
and state-building in Central Asia as non-linear:
Firstly, securitization consists of at least two opposing processes: securitization and
counter-securitization, both aiming at the same audience – the population.
Secondly, there are two types of actors: non-Westphalian states and transnational
Islamic movements. The former could be seen as a unitary actor in the sector of security, but
fragmented socially and politically. The latter is a collective actor, with multiple and often
conflicting identities. Both of these actors find themselves in different social contexts, which
influence their behavior and have to be carefully described and investigated. Drawing on the
literature, the main contexts are:
1. For the regional states: international counterterrorism framework
16
2. For the transnational Islamic movements: broader Islamic network and the culture
of pan-Islamism
Following the advice of George and Bennett (2005: 212), I identify the following potential causal
chains:
Hypothesized causal chain 1:
Securitization of Islamic movements in Central Asia can weaken states, because it marginalizes
a crucial part of its culture and consequently weakens the link between state and society. The
gap between state and society can be identified, using three indicators described above:
1. Interaction between the center and peripheral regions of a state
2. Emergence of the new centers of power or “alternative forms of
governance”
3. Intensification and control over transnational criminal activity.
However, Islamic movements are grounded not only within the cultural context of
Central Asia, but also within a broader transnational Islamic network. Therefore, the
movements might be influenced by jihadist ideas of Islamism and radicalized also through the
support of the worldwide Islamist network. In this case, counterterrorism policies might
represent a certain protection for regional states.
This leads to the second potential chain which can be the following.
Hypothesized causal process 2:
Securitization of Islamic movements can strengthen states by enhancing enforcement
mechanisms and the rule of law. This can be tested by investigating whether counterterrorism
policies in reality enhance the rule of law and develop the law-enforcing mechanisms in the
target states. If so, how inclusive are they for the religious communities of the region?
In order to test these contradictory hypotheses, I plan to look at two interdependent,
but distinguishable contexts.
The first one is the security complex of Central Asian states placed within a broader
context of the war on terror. Here I will depict regional and international counterterrorism
regimes and find out what role regional states play in these regimes, how adaptable these
17
regimes are to the specific region. The main goal here is to find out the perceptions of threat by
the parties. I plan to gather data for this by interviewing the main officials working in the field
of counterterrorism.
The second step will be to investigate the context within which Islamic movements are
located. The goal is to trace what ideas play more a crucial role in shaping behavior of these
movements – the ones rooted in the moderate Sunni Islam of the region or in the more radical
Salafist jihadist ideology. In order to do that, I will conduct semi-structured interviews with the
leaders of religious communities in the Ferghana Valley.
The third task is to place these accounts within the historical context of the region,
structural conditions conducive to violence, identities, and power-constellations. Here I will rely
on the historical studies on Central Asia. Positioning of the first two hypothesized processes
with the third rather contextual mapping will allow me to identify the decisive points of clashes
or conflation, compare them and demonstrate the more powerful processes between the
Counterterrorism and the State.
In my research I focus on three regional states in Ferghana Valley: Tajikistan,
Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. These are the most illustrative cases for tracing transnational
processes in Central Asia, from drug trafficking through flows of ideas. There are the weakest
borders of the region, despite the immediate vicinity with Afghanistan. The Ferghana Valley is
the most densely populated and ethnically diverse areas of Central Asia. Outbreaks of violence
that the authors criticized by Heathershaw (2010) ground their analysis on occur particularly in
the Ferghana Valley. At the same time, this multiculturalism could be the main connecting force
for the people of the region if not the political manipulations of these differences by the ruling
elites. As Starr (2011) wisely noticed, people in Ferghana have perhaps much more in common
with each other, rather than with the people in the central parts of their countries of
citizenship. Hence, this is a kind of imagined community, social movements of which could
challenge states’ policies if there is a will and financial support. On the other hand, there are
enough structural conditions conducive to radicalization of Islam. This unique constellation of
factors requires closer attention to its destiny, because it will allow us to improve our
understanding of new threats to security and state.
18
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