It has become almost a cliché in many Euro-Atlantic political and academic circles to argue that the transatlantic security community that defines itself around liberal-democratic values is facing a particularly dangerous set of challenges and must find ways to adapt to an environment marked by the growing power of unconventional enemies, particularly transnationally organized terrorist groups. But the question is, what has this meant in practice? What are the dynamics and implications of the security policies and practices aimed at addressing the (allegedly) new threat of international terror ... More

It has become almost a cliché in many Euro-Atlantic political and academic circles to argue that the transatlantic security community that defines itself around liberal-democratic values is facing a particularly dangerous set of challenges and must find ways to adapt to an environment marked by the growing power of unconventional enemies, particularly transnationally organized terrorist groups. But the question is, what has this meant in practice? What are the dynamics and implications of the security policies and practices aimed at addressing the (allegedly) new threat of international terrorism? This book examines the practices enacted by three key institutions of the transatlantic security community — the EU, NATO, and the OSCE — in the name of combating international terrorism, and analyses the ways in which those practices have both been affected by and contributed to changes in the field of security. This book argues that contemporary attempts to respond to the perceived threat of international terrorism reflect a particular ethos of risk-management and involve a combination of two different — an inclusive and an exclusionary — logics of security. This book examines the interplay between the two logics and analyses their implications, including the ways in which they have contributed to processes of reconstitution of boundaries and norms of governance in the security community. In developing this analysis, this book also explores some of the normative and political dilemmas generated by contemporary patterns of inclusion/exclusion. On this basis, it seeks to make a significant contribution to the study of security practices and international governance in the post-9/11 world.