1st Edition
Counterterrorism Strategies in Egypt Permanent Exceptions in the War on Terror
This book reveals how counterterrorism discourses and practices became the main tool of a systematic violation of human rights in Egypt after the Arab Uprising.
It examines how the civic and democratic uprising in Egypt turned into robust authoritarianism under the pretence of counterterrorism and the ‘war on terror’. By interrogating Egypt’s counterterrorism legislation, the book identifies a correlation between counterterrorism narratives and the systemic violation of human rights. It examines the construction of a national security state that has little tolerance for dissent, political debate or the questioning of official policy, and how the anti-terrorism measures undertaken are actually anti-democracy strategies. The book also traces 150 years of Egyptian counterterrorism and counterinsurgency discourse, and analyses how this links with these practices of human rights assaults. By investigating how this discourse constructs and reproduces knowledge and meaning about terrorism and counterterrorism practices in Egypt, the book highlights how the government legitimises these violations against the population in the interests of the ruling elite.
This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism studies, critical terrorism studies, discourse theory, Middle Eastern politics, decoloniality, and International Relations.
Introduction
1. Terrorism Studies, Counterterrorism, and the Use of Force
2. Colonial and Postcolonial Experience
3. Counterterrorism Discourse in Egypt after the Arab Uprising
4. Counterterrorism and Human Rights in Egypt after the Arab Uprising
Conclusion
Biography
Ahmed M. Abozaid is a researcher at the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews, UK, and a Fellow at The Program on Exiting Violence, Columbia Global Centers | Amman, Columbia University, New York, USA.
