This is an excerpt from Critical Terrorism Studies: A Dictionary by Lee Jarvis and Alice Martini. Available in all good book stores, and via free download from E-International Relations.
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Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic and political system organised around private ownership of the means of production and the perceived autonomy of markets as the primary mechanisms for allocating resources. With its origins in the industrial revolution, capitalism is today usually coupled with (neo) liberal discourses of individualism, free markets, and liberal state interventions. For Marxist and other scholars, capitalism is primarily organised around the accumulation of capital. It is critiqued, amongst other reasons, for generating significant economic inequalities, for concentrating power and wealth in the hands of particular social classes, and for commodifying social relations.
In relation to terrorism, capitalism has been linked to the creation of the socio-economic conditions that contribute to the emergence of political violence. While the causal link between economic inequality or impoverishment and terrorism is debated within CTS, some scholars argue that structural inequalities and economic exploitation inherent in capitalist systems exacerbate grievances, particularly in regions marginalised by global economic dynamics. Despite this, dominant understandings of terrorism often obscure the economic dimensions of political violence, diverting attention from the structural violence perpetuated by capitalist systems around the world.
At the same time, CTS has been criticised by some for focusing too heavily on political discourse and for therefore neglecting the structural violence that capitalism entails (Joseph 2011). Other scholars have gone further and argued that CTS needs to scrutinise ‘the ways in which capitalist development, capitalist imperialism and international class dynamics intersect not just to enable state terrorism but to actively produce it’ (McKeown 2011, 75). Related to this is capitalism’s role in shaping the global counterterrorism industry, which has become a lucrative sector in its own right. Surveillance technologies, private military contractors, and security apparatuses are deeply embedded in capitalist markets, creating financial incentives for the perpetuation of counterterrorist violences and practices such as those associated with the war on terror. Work in CTS and related fields highlights how industries such as these benefit from securitisation processes that justify increased surveillance and militarisation, often targeting marginalised communities.
Work within CTS has also emphasised how counterterrorism as a state policy may have differential effects on social classes (Boukalas 2014). For dominant classes with significant capital, it signifies appropriation of public money; for others, counterterrorism may imply material dispossession and political exclusion (Boukalas 2014). Despite disagreements around the importance of capitalism for political violence, many critical terrorism scholars agree that there is a need to focus on macro rather than micro dynamics and to understand the economic systems in which acts of violence and their responses are situated.
Marxism
Marxism is a theoretical framework for understanding economic, political, and social life that emerged from the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism argues that society is structured by relations of production which produce hierarchies between groups of people, and that it is economic power – for instance, relationships to capital and the means of production – that determines social and political opportunities and resources. At its core, Marxism offers an analysis of how the socio-economic model of capitalism works and is reproduced. Along these lines, capitalism is understood as a system based on class exploitation, where the bourgeoisie (owners of capital) accumulate wealth by extracting surplus value from the proletariat (working class).
CTS has been criticised by some scholars who take inspiration from Marxist and related work because of a perceived over-emphasis on discourse and language. This emphasis, for critics, means CTS has in turn neglected the role of material power structures in the politics of terrorism (e.g. Joseph 2013). Marxism, here, may therefore provide a framework for examining the economic and structural dimensions of terrorism and counterterrorism – such as the foreign policy interests of Western states. CTS works influenced by Marxism interrogate how capitalist states use counterterrorism powers and professionals as a tool for maintaining social control, suppressing dissent, and legitimising imperialist interventions overseas (McKeown 2011). They also explore how global inequalities, economic dispossession, and neo-colonial exploitation contribute to the embracing of political violence by organisations trying to resist dynamics of dispossession: organisations that, like all social groups, are embedded within the wider structures of global capitalism.
Class
Class typically refers to the hierarchical positioning of individuals and groups within society based on their economic resources, access to opportunities, and place within – or relationship to – modes of production. Class is also sometimes used in a cultural sense to refer to the social norms, tastes, and behaviours appropriate to, or expected of, particular groups of people. Cultural uses are often deeply prejudicial, as with reference to ‘chavs’ to depict a dangerous and uncivilised social underclass. Intersectional approaches to social class acknowledge that economic positions are deeply intertwined with other axes of identity and oppression, such as race, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality/heteronormativity. Such approaches challenge traditional, singular understandings of class by highlighting how experiences of economic privilege or disadvantage are shaped by overlapping social structures – such as structural racism or gendered hierarchies – which result in gendered or racialised wage gaps and similar disparities. This means that people doing the same work are often compensated unequally: a situation recognised in initiatives such as ‘Equal Pay Day’ which, every year, marks the date on which women stop being paid relative to men.
Although there is a growing literature reflecting on class within critical terrorism research, more detailed and sustained analysis remains needed (Martini and da Silva 2022). This echoes wider silences within terrorism studies more broadly: as Caron Gentry emphasises, ‘there are few works that actually provide an intersectional critique of how class functions within Terrorism Studies’ (Gentry 2020, 94). Understandings of class are embedded, for example, in calculations of risk associated with the radicalisation of particular individuals or groups in the same way that such calculations rely upon gendered and racialised assumptions (Martini and da Silva 2022). In this sense, class hierarchies shape how counterterrorism is understood and implemented.
Some authors associated with CTS have highlighted how terrorism and counterterrorism are linked to economic structures of capitalism and the class dynamics they produce and upon which they rely (Boukalas 2014; McKeown 2011; Joseph 2011). Such arguments link to critical work on state terrorism which situates these violences in the efforts of powerful states and their corporations to exploit markets, resources, and labour, typically in the Global South. The United States’ involvement in Latin America during the Cold War era, for instance, included support for repressive violences against left-wing or progressive actors such as student groups, trade unions, churches, and political parties (Blakeley 2009).
While class may not be the only or even the primary explanation for political violence, it may also be an important factor in contemporary support for far- right, racist, and white supremacist ideologies. As Gentry puts it (2022), there is a certain kind of ‘flirtation’ by far-right parties ‘with misogynist and racist driven neo-fascism’. And, overall, the far-right’s defence and maintenance of white (male) privilege is also an issue of the maintenance of the privilege of certain classes and of some (economic) issues that these groups see as challenged (Martini and da Silva 2022).
As a final reflection, there is also scope for further intersectional reflection on academia itself and the importance that class might play in perpetuating hierarchies and forms of privilege amongst researchers, teachers, and students. Keeping in mind that ‘academics often come from middle or upper- class backgrounds’ (Gentry 2020, 94), we might paraphrase Sjoberg (2024) to ask how class shapes academia, including CTS scholars, and the knowledge produced.
Racial capitalism
First theorised by Cedric J. Robinson (1983), the concept of racial capitalism is prominent within contemporary postcolonial and decolonial Marxist readings of global politics. The concept addresses the neglect or absence of race within other Marxian readings of capitalism, and is used to highlight the extent to which this economic system has always involved and relied upon the extraction of value from people of marginalised racial groups. The concept’s value is therefore in highlighting the inherently racist – and inherently violent – nature of capitalist accumulation (Ralph and Singhal 2019, 854). Although critics have argued that the term is often used imprecisely (Ralph and Singhal 2019), racial capitalism has proved an influential and productive framework for historians, sociologists, and others (Go 2021, 38).
CTS engagement with the concept of racial capitalism has been scattered. Nonetheless, scrutinising capitalism from the perspective of race has important potentialities for CTS. Doing so would help unpack how racism and economic exploitation mutually reinforce violent movements, global security structures and counterterrorism policies. Understanding capitalism as a racialised economic system may also allow for an unpacking of why terrorism is racialised and why counterterrorism takes specific forms. Moreover, it could help explain why economic oppression is often ignored or depoliticised in government and academic assessments of the root causes of terrorism.
Counterterrorism laws, border security policies, and surveillance infrastructures function as racialised mechanisms of control that protect the interests of dominant groups by reproducing racial hierarchies through the policing of racialised populations. Moreover, the global terrorism industry – comprising private security firms, defence contractors, and surveillance technology companies – profits from these structures, reinforcing militarised policing, occupation, and economic dispossession, particularly in the Global South (Blakeley 2009). Overall, engaging with racial capitalism can allow CTS to further expose how counterterrorism discourses and practices legitimise state violence, justify military interventions and expenditure, and sustain global inequalities, thereby situating counterterrorism within broader systems of racialised economic and political domination.
Further Reading
Boukalas, Christos. 2015. “Class War-on-Terror: Counterterrorism, Accumulation, Crisis”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 8 (1): 55–71.
Camp, Jordan T., and Jennifer Greenburg. 2020. ‘Counterinsurgency Reexamined: Racism, Capitalism, and US Military Doctrine’. Antipode 52 (2): 430–451.
Herring, Eric, and Doug Stokes. 2011. “Critical Realism and Historical Materialism as Resources for Critical Terrorism Studies”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 4 (1): 5–21.
Joseph, Jonathan. 2011. “Terrorism as a Social Relation within Capitalism: Theoretical and Emancipatory Implications”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 4 (1): 23– 37.
McKeown, Anthony. 2011. “The Structural Production of State Terrorism: Capitalism, Imperialism and International Class Dynamics”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 4 (1): 75–93.
Melamed, Jodi. 2015. ‘Racial Capitalism’. Critical Ethnic Studies 1 (1): 76.
Neocleous, Mark. 2015. “The Universal Adversary Will Attack: Pigs, Pirates, Zombies, Satan and the Class War”. Critical Studies on Terrorism 8 (1): 15– 32.
Richards, Imogen. 2020. Neoliberalism and Neo-Jihadism: Propaganda and Finance in Al Qaeda and Islamic State. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Lee Jarvis is a Professor of Security and Society at Adelaide University, and holds honorary professorships at the Loughborough University and the University of East Anglia. He is author or editor of 17 books and over 60 articles on the politics of terrorism and security. He is co-editor of Critical Studies on Terrorism, and his research has been funded by the ESRC, the AHRC, the Australian Research Council and NATO among others.
Alice Martini is a Lecturer of International Relations at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and holds an honorary professorship at the Queen Mary, University of London. She is the author of The UN and Counter- Terrorism: Global Hegemonies, Power, and Identities (Routledge 2021), and co-editor of Encountering Extremism: Theoretical Issues and Local Challenges (Manchester University Press 2020) and Contemporary Reflections on Critical Terrorism Studies (Routledge 2023). Her work has been published in journals including Security Dialogue and Third World Quarterly.