The Lure of Novelty: “Targeted Killing” and Its Older Terminological Siblings

Author:

Schweiger Elisabeth1

Affiliation:

1. University of York

Abstract

Abstract The concept “targeted killing” has been increasingly adopted in scholarship, policy, and media discourses, particularly in the context of US armed drone attacks. While “targeted killing” is often understood as something new, there are strong historical continuities with more traditional concepts such as “assassination” and “extra-judicial execution,” as well as with the colonial concept “police bombing.” This paper builds on an analysis of over nine hundred Security Council debates, Human Rights Council reports, legal papers, and policy documents. Tracing the conceptual continuities, I argue that the peculiar novelty of “targeted killing” does not mainly stem from the novelty of the practices and claims it describes but from the contradictory modes in which the term has been used, which has problematic repercussions for recent counterterrorism discourses. Posed as a new category that reacts to a new situation, the adoption of the concept “targeted killing” has, I argue, played an important role in the promotion of claims that were long considered unlawful and illegitimate. Demonstrating the importance of language in setting political struggles up in a particular way, the paper contributes to a growing body of critical work on counterterrorism use of force.

Publisher

Oxford University Press (OUP)

Subject

Sociology and Political Science

Reference127 articles.

1. Constructing Sovereignty between Politics and Law

2. “A History of Drones: Moral(e) Bombing and State Terrorism.”;Afxentiou;Critical Studies on Terrorism,2018

3. “Defending Weak States Against the ‘Unwilling or Unable’ Doctrine of Self-Defense.”;Ahmed,2013

4. “The Necropolitics of Drones.”;Allinson;International Political Sociology,2015

5. “Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, Philip Alston.”;Alston,2010

Cited by 2 articles. 订阅此论文施引文献 订阅此论文施引文献,注册后可以免费订阅5篇论文的施引文献,订阅后可以查看论文全部施引文献

1. The Humanisation of Global Politics;STUD INT COURT TRIB;2022-08-25

2. Fighting silence covert warfare and the uphill battle against the unsaid;European Journal of International Relations;2021-10-24

同舟云学术

1.学者识别学者识别

2.学术分析学术分析

3.人才评估人才评估

"同舟云学术"是以全球学者为主线,采集、加工和组织学术论文而形成的新型学术文献查询和分析系统,可以对全球学者进行文献检索和人才价值评估。用户可以通过关注某些学科领域的顶尖人物而持续追踪该领域的学科进展和研究前沿。经过近期的数据扩容,当前同舟云学术共收录了国内外主流学术期刊6万余种,收集的期刊论文及会议论文总量共计约1.5亿篇,并以每天添加12000余篇中外论文的速度递增。我们也可以为用户提供个性化、定制化的学者数据。欢迎来电咨询!咨询电话:010-8811{复制后删除}0370

www.globalauthorid.com

TOP

Copyright © 2019-2024 北京同舟云网络信息技术有限公司
京公网安备11010802033243号  京ICP备18003416号-3