Liberty in the Age of Terror: A Defence of Civil Liberties and Enlightenment Values

Abstract: Political disputes over toleration are endemic, while toleration as a political value seems opposed to those of civic equality, neutrality and sometimes democracy. Toleration in Political Conflict sets out to understand toleration as both politically awkward and indispensable. The book exposes the incoherence of Rawlsian reasonable pluralist justifications of toleration, and shows that toleration cannot be fully reconciled with liberal political values. While raison d'etat concerns very often overshadow debates over toleration, these debates - for example about terrorism - need not be framed as a conflict between toleration and security. Framing them in this way tends to obscure objectionable behaviour by tolerators themselves, and their reliance on asymmetric power. Glen Newey concludes by sketching a picture of politics as dependent on free speech which, he argues, is entailed by the demands of free association. That in turn suggests that questions of toleration are inescapable within the conditions of politics itself.

Abstract: Almost a decade after the horrific events of September 11 it is timely to reflect on some of the lessons learned from the global ‘war on terror’. The evolution of a more sophisticated understanding of the threat posed by contemporary terrorism has cast doubt on the value and accuracy of using a war metaphor to define an effective global response. Terrorism is fundamentally the use of intimidation and fear to force major social and political change. The willingness of terrorists to use indiscriminate force against civilians means that terrorism falls outside the scope of the international laws governing armed conflict. In responding to terrorism with extreme (war-like) measures, there is a risk that the state could damage the social bonds that are the foundation for a cohesive, peaceful, inclusive, and resilient society.

Abstract: The threat of terrorism, and in particular the threat of terrorists using biological weapons, has grown since the early 1990s, over the decade the assessment and perception of threat escalated despite an absence of biological weapons use. This research explores policy responses to the threat from bioterrorism in the UK between 1990 and 2005. A case study approach is used to examine the emergence and rise of the bioterrorism threat, and the institutional arrangement in place to confront that threat. The dissertation further investigates the construction of the threat narrative. The policy area of bioterrorism is obscured by secrecy. Therefore, this dissertation looks towards policy responses to pandemic influenza, and uses responses to pandemic influenza as a heuristic device to illustrate the difficulties of risk assessment and the accompanying institutional complexity. The study posits that traditional, academic risk assessment methodologies do not appear to have as large an influence as the narratives. Furthermore, the prevailing conceptualisation of the bioterrorism threat is the product of the confluence of three threat narratives. These narratives have become entangled and subsequently embedded in the institutional response. Moreover, a number of events have influenced and shaped the threat narrative of bioterrorism. First, a change in perception (sarin, 1995); then a jolt to the political and institutional structures (September 11, 2001); and finally, further bombings and plots have augmented the threat narrative (Madrid & London). This study is positioned at the intersection of policy studies and risk assessment, contributing to an understanding of the formation of institutional threat perceptions

Abstract: Early participants in the Internet experienced very little legal or social pressure with respect to either data privacy or regulation. However, the innovations of Web 2.0 are symptomatic of a re-creation of cyberspace from an original “free for all,” in which websites had no normative constraints, toward a significant shift to website management that addresses privacy concerns. If the laws of the non-virtual world are difficult to apply to the online world, must the non-virtual world create new laws to control the online world? Should a balance be made between laws of the non-virtual and virtual worlds, or should a new set of laws be created specifically to govern the Internet? Concordant with this dilemma is the issue that although precedent may create new laws, when the law changes with the possibilities for uses and abuses of new online technologies, to what extent can it be said to either perpetuate or create to any internally consistent system?