Playing Politics. Incident-Driven Counterterrorism Policy-Making in the Netherlands, 2001-2004

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Crisis and Security Management

Playing Politics

Incident-Driven Counterterrorism

Policy-Making in the Netherlands, 2001 – 2004

Casper Stap

30.686 words

Thursday June 8, 2017

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Master thesis in fulfillment of the

Magister Scientiae degree of Crisis and Security Management.

Class of 2017

First reader: Prof. Dr. Alex P. Schmid

Second reader: Dr. Constant W. Hijzen

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Dr. Alex P. Schmid for his

guidance and immensely quick and good help, whether that was from The Hague

or Pakistan, or somewhere in between.

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From the beginning, I knew the public reaction to my decisions would be colored

whether there was another attack. If none happened, whatever I did would probably

look like an overreaction. If we were attacked again, people would demand to know

why I hadn’t done more.

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Abstract

Recent studies have suggested that government reactions to terrorist attacks often have a political character. Not only can elites overreact to terrorist attacks to consolidate their power, it is also a chance for domestic politicians to push forward their own policy goals. This thesis has researched the extent to which the Dutch counterterrorism measures between 2001 and 2004 have been embedded in such “political games”. First, using securitization theory and John Kingdon’s policy formation model, the political debates in the aftermaths of three major terrorist attacks – the United States in 2001, Madrid in 2004 and Amsterdam in 2004 – have been studied to assess the extent to which politicians have tried to securitize the terrorist threat and used it to push forward their own policy goals. Second, the major counterterrorism policy developments after those terrorist attacks have been outlined. Third, the theoretical tools were used to systematically analyze the four years as a total. This thesis concluded that politicians in parliament indeed tried to use the attacks to push forward their policy goals, often securitizing the terrorist threat to give it – and automatically also their proposed policies – more urgency. Furthermore the reigning CDA and VVD pursued a right-of-center counterterrorism agenda, which was accompanied by a vast amount of political rhetoric by these parties. This can be largely understood by looking at the broad political atmosphere at the time, which was dominated by a societal discussion on the problems of “the multicultural project”. However, there exists a gap between the political rhetoric from the debates and the actual policies implemented, which can be largely ascribed to non-visible actors. Lastly, initial counterterrorism measures were often largely a “shock reaction” made in the aftermaths of the terrorist attacks, while room for evaluation and reflection of the measures – and the terrorist threat as a whole – came only years later.

Keywords: playing politics with terrorism, counterterrorism, Kingdon’s policy formation theory, securitization, moral panic, cultural trauma.

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Introduction

Terrorism is not new, nor is it new in the Netherlands. It has been around more than 150 years, and contrary to popular belief, terrorist attacks in Europe have been less frequent in the last decade than in the 1970s (Global Terrorism Database, 2017). However, when terrorists attacked the United States on 11 September 2001, this led to an international response that strongly influenced our threat perceptions and changed the security context. Governments had to better protect their citizens against terrorism – or they at least had to show they were trying to do so, with the U.S. having the additional task to arrest or kill those responsible for 9/11 (Hughes & Stoddart, 2012: 629). Terrorism and counterterrorism have laid the foundations for policies that dominated the last 15 years: wars in, among others, Afghanistan and Iraq, domestic radicalization and polarization, surveillance affecting privacy, and new waves of terrorist attacks. It is obvious that 9/11 and the War on Terror have influenced the world greatly. And now, more than fifteen years later, the official terrorist threat level in the Netherlands is still ‘substantial’ (NCTV, 2017).

Europe has not been exempt from jihadist terrorist attacks in the new century. Examples are the train bombings in Madrid in 2004, the public transport bombings in London in 2005, and more recently the attacks in Paris in 2015 and the concert bombing in Manchester in 2017. Although with less impact in terms of fatalities, the Netherlands also experienced a terrorist attack in 2004, when Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death by a radical homegrown Muslim in Amsterdam.

Due to the public apprehension (and the large media coverage), such security lapses called for a strong governmental reaction. Western governments have responded by creating new agencies, new legislation, new programs, new strategies, and more. From travel restrictions to “militarizing” urban areas, from de-radicalization programs to seeking the fight with “the enemy” in the Middle East: responding to terrorism has many facets on many levels. Counterterrorism policy also entails, for example, international harmonization of legislation regarding arms trafficking and financial flows (Clingendael & ICCT, 2015: 8). Counterterrorism policy is often, directly or indirectly, on different levels, the result of different approaches. Yet more often than not new measures were introduced following a major terrorist attack that governments were not able to prevent.

While 9/11 hit the United States soil physically, the broader shock of the terrorist attack was also felt on the other side of the Atlantic, including in the Netherlands. There was a feeling of a new, much more destructive terrorism1

. Whereas the terrorism of the previous decades had been dealt with restraint,

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For a time, there has been a debate on a dichotomy between “old” and “new” terrorism. The new terrorism, rising in the 1990s, would differ from the old in, among others, its religious nature and the use of weapons of mass destruction. Over the years, but already starting before 2001, there has been a growing body of literature arguing that real empirical data to support this conclusion is lacking and that the conclusion is thus ahistorical (e.g. Tucker, 2001: 12; Crenshaw, 2009: 149; Copeland, 2001: 102; Duyvesteyn, 2004: 450 – 451).

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this terrorism “demanded” real change, and politicians sensed this. What followed was a wave of judicial reform, institutional changes, and new programs, especially between 2001 and 2004. As of 2017, it is clear that much has been done about terrorism in the last fifteen years.

Most political initiatives aired in parliament by opposition or governing parties were not put into action, but some were. Over the years, terrorist attacks continued to spark and renew debates on which counterterrorism policies would best serve to combat terrorist threats while at the same time still guarantee the protection of civil liberties. The shock of a terrorist attack not only creates a sense of urgency for addressing the problem, it can also shift the threat perceptions. The period immediately after a major terrorist attack therefore provides an interesting focus for analysis.

Responding to a terrorist attack is thus not neutral, and does not take place in a political vacuum. It happens in a context full of different perceptions and different plans and that context can be influenced strongly by events that suddenly turn the table, like elections, scandals, or of course, terrorist attacks. Whereas terrorism is inherently political, so is its response, leading some authors to call the interaction between states and terrorists ‘the Great Game’ (Miller, 2007: 18). A game between state and terrorist, but also between parliamentary politicians within the state, where ‘existential survival of the state, nation or any other publicly articulated referent object is not necessarily the primary stake for professional politicians’ (Neal, 2012: 109).

George Kassimeris edited an impressive volume on how states have played politics with the terrorist threat: Playing Politics with Terrorism: A User’s Guide. In this work, various authors gave us different accounts of playing politics with terrorism in, among others, the British and American led Global War on Terror, the murder of Italian party leader Aldo Moro, and Russian president Putin’s exaggeration of the Chechen terrorist threat. States have shown a tendency to overreact to the terrorist threat to maintain ‘the myth of an overwhelmingly dangerous enemy’, and by doing so they themselves risk doing the damage terrorist could never do: real long lasting societal change. ‘There never was “a terrorist threat” to western civilization or democracy, only to western lives and property’, Kassimeris argued, and therefore governments should be wary in what tactics they deploy to effectively counter the terrorist threat (2007: 12). This is even more important as the real threat may very well be how our governments shape policy that truly affects our lives, and for that we ought to be warned. ‘[You do not] send tanks to catch field mice. A cat always does the job better’ (George Grivas in Kassimeris, 2007: 14).

The question, therefore, is not necessarily what has been done in the Netherlands to counter terrorism. Much has been written on that already. Nor is the question what the exact political atmosphere has been in the Netherlands in the new millennium, for that would be not only too ambitious for a master’s thesis, but would also miss the essential link to how that political atmosphere has resulted in policy. Also not the question is what the exact political interplay has been behind the counterterrorism policy developments, as the answer to that question lies hidden behind the closed doors of fifteen years of political interplay in The Hague, and sometimes does not even derive from a clear political process.

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Rather, what misses in most observations of post 9/11 counterterrorism policy discussions is a structural view on how exactly politicians responded to the terrorist attacks and how they politicized it, and how that relates to the actual counterterrorism policies that found their origin in those terrorist attacks. In an attempt to fill this gap, the following research question has been formulated:

What specific national counter-terrorism security measures have been discussed, introduced and implemented in the Netherlands in the immediate aftermath of three major terrorist attacks (the United States in 2001, Madrid in 2004, and Amsterdam in 2004)?

To get a better grip on this question, approaching it from the corner of policy making theory and securitization theory, three sub-questions can be formulated:

1. If and how have politicians in their parliamentary debates tried to securitize the terrorist threat in

the aftermath of the terrorist attacks?

2. How and to what extent have politicians in their parliamentary debates tried to put forward their

own policy goals in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, and have they been successful in those attempts?

3. What factual counterterrorism policy developments can be seen over time and as a result of the

terrorist attacks?

Societal and Academic Relevance

From a policy perspective, it is of importance to understand how governments and societies react to terrorist attacks. Governments can derive greater legitimacy from protecting their people effectively from terrorist attacks, or at least showing the public that something is done about it. A sense of insecurity combined with a perceived threat of future terrorist attacks tends to increase popular support for tougher security policies, internally as well as externally (Huddy, Feldman & Weber, 2007: 614). Moreover, a sense of insecurity increases support for curtailing civil liberties, and such support is higher when governments are trusted than when they are not, as Davis & Silver showed (2004). In addition, terrorist attacks affect the political legitimacy of governments. Left-of-center governments have shown to be more prone to fall after major acts of terrorism than right-of-center governments, probably because they are less inclined to securitization than those of the political right (Williams, Koch & Smith, 2012: 343). Both governments and opposition parties tend to “play politics” with terrorism and counterterrorism. It is therefore important to achieve a better understanding of how governments respond to those attacks.

From an academic perspective, this research will add to an empirical understanding of two issues. Firstly, it adds to the body of literature on how and with what policies governments can react to a terrorist threat. The Dutch response has been covered in the past, e.g. by De Graaf (2010) and by Den Boer (2007). This as such is thus not new and this thesis will merely add to the understanding of those policies,

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instead of providing new insights. Secondly, and most importantly, what so far has not been done is to look into the question how those policy developments relate to the broader political debate that took place after those aftermaths. This thesis will provide a structural observation of the relationship between securitization practices, decision-making and terrorism. Therefore, besides contributing to the understanding of securitization and decision-making, this thesis will also contribute to the broader concept of “playing politics” with terrorism, by looking at it with a systematic, not an anecdotal approach.

Methods

This thesis aims to improve the understanding of the counterterrorism policy developments in the Netherlands between 2001 and 2004 with a strong emphasis on the political process behind it. For that, a case study design is most fit, as this research design gives room for a thorough understanding of the complex context of the subject (Bryman, 2012: 67). The case chosen is the Dutch response to terrorist threats. This is the single case, as the case is observed over time. This case is relevant as there have been extensive accounts of how the counterterrorism developments in other countries have been embedded in political “games”, while this has not been done on the Netherlands, a country that not only experienced a terrorist attack, but was also active in the GWOT. The timeframe used for this thesis is logical: the assumption that the attacks in the United States in 2001, Madrid in 2004 and Amsterdam in 2004 were the most important attacks in bringing about the major incident-driven counterterrorism developments of the new millennium is widely accepted.

The approach to each terrorist attack is the same. First, the attack is introduced by using news sources and academic papers. Special attention is given after each attack on the context that is important, whereas that for 9/11 would be the attack itself, for Madrid that would for example be the political controversy in Spain surrounding the aftermath. Second, a brief look is taken on the political atmosphere after the terrorist attack. This is problematic, as researching the political atmosphere can be a lot like sinking in quicksand – the more you search, the more you find, the deeper you go, and the harder it is to stop searching. It is impossible to really get an accurate picture of all political positions and statements regarding terrorism since 9/11 and therefore the search for that political sphere should be disciplined and restricted to the primary goal: assessing whether securitization practices can recognized and whether politicians try to “use” the terrorist attack as a coat rack for their own political goals. For that goal, it is wisest to look at the transcriptions of the first political debate on the terrorist attacks. In the aftermath of an attack, that is the most logical place for politicians to get the chance to ventilate their stances on the subject. Press appearances would also be of interest, but that comes with methodological concern for two reasons: [1] it is impossible to look at all press appearances, and [2] some politicians are expected to be more visible in the press than others. This would make a qualitative comparison of the politicians hard. The political debates do not have this problem as they form a clearly limited focus for analysis in which all actors have a chance to address the issue. Furthermore, this thesis will use the “snowball”-method:

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when analyzing the political debate, it will do research into references made in the debate, like mentioned reports, motions, etc. Third, after looking at the political debate, the policy consequences will be introduced by looking at the response from the government. For this, a variety of sources will be used, like governmental reports and academic papers. Fourth, after each attack a short discussion will be given on how the three elements – securitization, politics, and implemented policy – relate to each other and to the previous attack.

Limitations of Research

This thesis tries to balance between several large subjects that are related. As this thesis is limited in length and has as primary goal to see if and how the Netherlands “played politics” with terrorism, it does not aim to give a thoroughly substantiated analysis of those related subjects: the political sphere in the Netherlands between 2001 – 2004, which politicians were most powerful in pushing through their policy goals in those years, and the total of counterterrorism measures taken after the terrorist attacks.

Firstly, the political sphere. 150 members of parliament plus a cabinet have a vast amount of opportunities to express their views on an enormous variety of subjects in four years. Already only on terrorism and related subjects, there have been so many discussions, motions, letters, expressions in media, etc. that it is impossible for this thesis to ever get a really accurate picture of all relevant issues in those years and what stances were taken and with what words. Therefore, the political debate in the aftermath will serve as the guideline, highlighting only the very relevant political issues and statements, or those that have anecdotal value. This thesis thus does not pretend to give an accurate answer to the question how the political sphere in those four years has been and evolved, but it does give an indication of what the broader sphere tends to look like.

Secondly, for an accurate depiction of the political power play behind the counterterrorism policies between 2001 and 2004 I am using the model of Kingdon. This comes with two methodological concerns. Firstly, it is impossible to accurately describe the political process in those years as it is impossible for an outsider to really get a clear picture for example regarding who influenced whom. The political process takes place behind closed doors and especially regarding the large timespan, and how big the theme terrorism has been in those years, it is impossible for this thesis to give an accurate description of what that political process has looked like. What could have been done is using Kingdon’s model on the four years as a whole, instead of splitting that timespan apart in the three attacks. However, as this thesis specifically focuses on how politicians acted in the aftermath of each terrorist attack, such an approach would miss the point. Therefore, in this thesis it is chosen to only use Kingdon’s theory as a frame of reference when looking at the political processes after the attacks, and applying its relevant elements more coherently in a later part. Secondly, a great deal of the counterterrorism measures are a result of the work of people that are formally outside of politics – the people working at the ministries. Therefore, many concrete policies that will be discussed will probably have a limited political fingerprint.

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Thirdly, the totality of counterterrorism measures is not taken into account. This thesis will only focus on the important domestic counterterrorism developments. It will thus not describe policies that are arguably only distantly related to counterterrorism (e.g. the Dutch participation in the Afghanistan war), that are international, or that are too specific and insignificant and/or are not essential for broadly understanding Dutch counterterrorism developments. What has been done in counterterrorism is just too much to grasp, especially for a thesis, and even more for a thesis that focuses on the political aspect of it. Moreover, overviews of Dutch counterterrorism policy already exist, thus that would make the academic relevance of this thesis very limited.

Fourthly, this thesis does not take a normative stance regarding securitization and the policies that followed. Where many describe “waves” of ‘responses to perceived security emergencies … with executive prerogative asserted, critical deliberation sidelined and concerns about liberties and rights pushed aside’ (Neal, 2012: 108), this thesis does not take into account the success, legality, morality, and legitimacy of these measures.

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Background

Terrorist groups want to provoke a reaction with their actions. This reaction can be emotional, like fear and anger and the possible following polarization and forcing people in the attacked society to choose a side. It can also be practical, like when the terrorists use their attacks to provoke certain measures that they see as in their best interests. Terrorism is in almost all cases a means to a certain end, however that end may be defined by the terrorist.

Terrorism and the response that follows are, mainly in public discourse, seen as an objective threat to which a government reacts to ensure the safety of its citizens. Or, as Miller describes it: ‘terrorists provoke governments, who act in self-defense when deciding to employ tactics of violence’ (Miller, 2007: 17). However, the reality seems to be much more fluid, complex and multi-faceted than this view. Observers have increasingly been puzzled by the questions who decide how big the terrorist threat actually is, and how threats result in policy. The response to terrorist threats turns out to be very political, in its dynamics as well as in its outcomes. Political actors interpret terrorist attacks as reasons as well as possibilities for achieving certain political goals. As Miller argues, states often pursue tactics that increase violence and/or curtail civil liberties in ‘their attempt to neutralize or destroy what they perceive as a threat to ‘national security’ (ibid.: 16). Other actors can see in these attacks reasons for other forms of policy. Most importantly, terrorism is not only political in that it is a political tool itself for the terrorists, but that it also has that political character for the “other side”: this other side “plays politics” with terrorism.

“Playing politics” with terrorism has two important aspects. Firstly, political actors decide that terrorism is an imminent threat to national security and with that decision they provide for themselves and their audience a rationale for taking certain political measures. Politicians therefore securitize terrorism. As an objective threat to life it is, in most countries, minor when compared to other causes of death, like car accidents, heart attacks, etc. However, contrary to many other man-made disasters, it is seen as a threat that ‘requires a heightened level of vigilance and militarized practices’ (Grayson, 2003: 338). Terrorism is perceived as a threat not only to human life, but also to societies’ core values. Or, as John Gray described it in the aftermath of the 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris:

If the SAS has been on the streets of London and Brussels under lockdown, these are more than responses to the prospect that further attacks may occur. What we are witnessing is the rediscovery of an essential truth: our freedoms are not free-standing absolutes but fragile constructions that remain intact only under the shelter of state power. (Gray, 2015: 27)

The terrorist threat is thus perceived as a threat to ideas and values like freedom and civil liberties. Yet open societies make democracies easy targets for terrorist attacks. Against this background, John Gray noted:

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The aftermath of 9/11 brought a new form of unlimited warfare. The Hobbesian anarchy that is the result of disintegrated states, has enabled stateless armies to hit right in the heart of the world’s superpower. As a reaction, the U.S. and other liberal societies transform themselves into Hobbesian police states. (2003: 92)

Secondly, this political aspect of terrorism takes place in a context that itself strongly influences political outcomes. A given response is not merely the only logical and rational response to what happened. The response takes place in a context in which people have predefined notions of what policies work, different interests collide, and even personal factors can influence what policies come about.

Therefore, to get a better understanding of how Dutch politics reacted to terrorist events, these two aspects have to be thoroughly described. This thesis will go forth by introducing two theories that reflect these aspects. Firstly, securitization theory, and more specifically, the securitization of terrorism. Secondly, John Kingdon’s agenda-setting and policy formation theory. Furthermore, the concepts of focusing events, moral panic and cultural trauma will be introduced.

Securitization theory

For a long time, security has been analyzed mainly in terms of state sovereignty and the relative military power of a state in comparison to potential hostile other states. Students of international relations started to reflect more critically on security after Buzan (1983) broadened the concept of security in his seminal work People, States and Fear. Others, like Baldwin, also tried to “strip” security as a concept from its exclusive military focus, and made the concept applicable to other contexts (Baldwin, 1997: 24). A broader conceptualization of security nowadays also includes human security, economic well-being and environmental sustainability.

Following this development, security is not only seen as an objective state (if it can ever be fully objective), it is also a complex concept that implies attention for certain consequences, very often in the policy realm. Perceptions of security or insecurity have to be addressed as well, next to more objective factors. Therefore, defining something as a security problem also implicates certain policy answers. This is the central thesis of securitization theory, introduced by the Copenhagen School. Most notably represented by Buzan, Wæver & De Wilde, this interpretation widens the notion of security, emphasizing also its dynamic nature. Security is not something that just exists: people determine whether it is present or absent. Various securitizing actors, such as government and opposition, action groups, lobbyists, et al can ‘securitize issues by declaring something, a referent object, existentially threatened’ (Buzan e.a., in Emmers, 2016: 169). Security is not limited to national security, as e.g. cultural symbols can also be threatened. Securitization thus has a strong constructivist dimension. Declaring something a security issue often implies a reassessment and reconstruction of a threat (Violi in Balzacq, 2011: 11).

Securitization theory as a conceptual tool has evolved over the years, leading to a dichotomy between what is called philosophical and sociological securitization. In its original meaning of the

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Copenhagen School, securitization was defined as a speech act ‘through which an intersubjective understanding is constructed within a political community to treat something as an existential threat to a valued referent object, and to enable a call for urgent and exceptional measures to deal with the threat’ (Buzan & Wæver, 2003: 491). It was thus primarily understood as something that exists when [1] by act of speech, a certain subject has been defined as a security issue, and [2] when the context and the securitizing actor are appropriate for securitizing that specific subject (Balzacq, 2005: 172). Securitization is primarily something performative: it changes, for example, someone’s attitude or frame of reference. This stems from its roots in linguistics. Language, according to Austin & Searle, consists of three actions: [1] the locutionary, ‘the utterance of an expression that contains a given sense and reference’, [2] the

illocutionary, the act of performing that utterance, and [3] the perlocutionary, the consequence of that

utterance for the beliefs and actions of others (Austin in Balzacq, 2011: 4 – 5). Philosophical securitization, as Balzacq argues, has a too narrow interpretation of the link between the illocutionary and the perlocutionary, meaning that that what is said must have strong results on the ideas and beliefs of the other: securitization is when one succeeds in changing the beliefs of the security context of the other (Balzacq, 2005: 172). Moreover, through its focus on act of speech and a relevant securitizing actor, this approach, in practice, focuses on a narrow group of actors because, with act of speech as atool, they are most often seen as the actors that are powerful enough to make change possible (ibid.: 190).

In this notion, there is no distinction between a securitizing move and securitization, because it is assumed that securitization does not exist if it does not succeed in changing someone’s attitude. This not only brings problems to the broader understanding of securitization, but also to its analytical aspect. In order to be able to make a distinction between successful securitization and attempts of securitization, among others Balzacq and Floyd argued for a widening of the notion of securitization, where the results of the securitization attempt on the audience get more to the background and where more emphasis is given to the process of securitization. According to Floyd, securitization is the sum of securitization moves (the illocutionary) and securitization practices (the perlocutionary) (2011: 428 – 429).

For Balzacq, this is the emergence of the sociological variant of securitization. He argues that the Copenhagen School notion of securitization does not make clear enough the relationship between the securitizing actor, the referent object, and the functional actors (those who have significant effect on security making but are not part of the referent object or the securitizing actor), and the weight between these units (2005: 178 – 179). Securitization should be seen more as a process in which multiple actors interact and influence each other, in which not only language is a tool but also other forms of expression like gestures, images, e.a., in which the audience has a greater role in denying or accepting claims by the securitizing actor and that this differs between audiences, and in which securitizing actors abide by different strategies depending on the audience and the context in how and if they will securitize (ibid.: 172; 179). In the sociological notion, securitization is not merely when a securitizing actor influences his audience by formulating this threat by act of speech and which they will follow. Rather, it is thus much more political,

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strategic and intersubjective (ibid.: 173). Or, as Balzacq describes: ‘securitization is better understood as a strategic (pragmatic) process that occurs within, and as part of, a configuration of circumstances, including the context, the psycho-cultural disposition of the audience, and the power that both speaker and listener bring to the interaction’ (2011: 1 – 2). Therefore, he defines securitization as:

An articulated assemblage of practices whereby heuristic artefacts (metaphors, polity tools, image repertoires, analogies, stereotypes, emotions, etc.) are contextually mobilized by a securitizing actor, who works to prompt an audience to build a coherent network of implications (feelings, sensations, thoughts, and intuitions), about the critical vulnerability of a referent object, that concurs with the securitizing actor’s reasons for choices and actions, by investing the referent subject with such an aura of unprecedented threatening complexion that a customized policy must be undertaken immediately to block its development. (Balzacq, 2011: 3)

But what then, causes securitization? It is clear that securitization itself, as Guzzini argues, is a causal mechanism in that sense that it is transformative. But can securitization itself be abstracted to a set of mechanisms and conditions? Because of its complex, political, and intersubjective nature, it is argued that ‘there is no reason to assume that [there] are ‘universal’ contexts within which speech acts (always) function, if only the right conditions apply. Looking for case-independent generic scope conditions for (de)securitization therefore misses the point’ (Guzzini, 2011: 335).

That said, Balzacq does offer a broad typology of the circumstances that might influence the success of a securitization effort. He restructured that to three broad sets of factors: audience, context, and securitizing agent. The audience factor is then based on three aspects: a shared frame of reference, the audience’s readiness to be convinced, and its ability to grand or deny a formal mandate. Firstly, the shared frame of reference consists of a textual and a cultural meaning. The former entails knowledge acquired through language (written and spoken), the latter entails ‘knowledge historically gained through previous interactions and situations’ (Balzacq, 2005: 183). If these are not (largely) the same, creating a shared security threat is impossible. For example, convincing a tribesman in the Amazon forest of the dangers of global warming would be hard, as it would probably be the first time he’d ever hear of it. Secondly, the audience needs to be ready to be convinced. It needs to be receptive for an idea of vulnerability and therefore securitization is based on the ‘securitizing actor’s choice of determining the appropriate times within which the recognition, including the integration of the “imprinting” object – a threat – by the masses is facilitated’ (ibid.: 182). Thirdly, securitization to a certain extent is based on the ability of an audience to grant or deny a formal mandate to officials. Not only is the securitizing actor sensitive to moral support, he will often also strive for formal support, as this gives it the opportunity to transform the beliefs into policy (ibid.: 184 – 185). In terms of contextual effects on responsiveness, of importance is the audience’s “habitus”: ‘a set of dispositions that informs their perceptions and behaviors’ (Bourdieu in Balzacq, 2005: 189). This can stand for, among others, the shifting power relations and the historical situation that influences the power of a performative (ibid.: 189 – 190). Lastly, the success of securitization efforts is

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influenced by the power of the securitizing actor to mobilize the audience. Although this ability is not confined to act of speech, this is still the most important tool. Therefore, the actor must have access to channels to reach his audience. Mostly, state officials have the best access, as they are (perceived) to represent the states legitimacy and thus its aim to protect the state (ibid.). Moreover, in case the actor has access to mass media, knowledge, trust and power strongly affect the ability to securitize, as they influence the ‘assumption that a given securitizing actor knows what is going on, and works for common interests’ (ibid.: 191).

Figure 1. Determinants of securitization success.

Before concluding this section, it is useful to give a very short look at how the debate on terrorism has evolved over the last decades, especially in the U.S. Two ways of looking at terrorism, as a (cultural) war and as a form of pure evil, can be recognized in the discourse over the years. As will be shown in several cases in the analytical section of this thesis, these two (sometimes overlapping) ways of framing terrorism, can also be recognized in Dutch political discourse.

In the 1980s, with the Reagan administration, counter-terrorism strategy moved ‘towards military retaliation, accompanied by a new narrative that reframed terrorism as civilizational struggle, between “the democracies” or “the West” against a network of terrorists’ (Stampnitzky, 2013: 109 – 110). After 9/11, the narrative of terrorism being a “long war” was reinforced. President George W. Bush gave it a name, the Global War on Terror (GWOT), arguably the epitome of securitization: a declaration of war against a worldwide clandestine network of terrorists. His metaphorical language created political urgency (De Graaf, 2010: 20). This became very clear when President Bush addressed Congress after September 11, 2001: ‘Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists’. A long applause followed. He continued:

Audience

•Does the audience have the same frame of reference? •Is the audience

ready to be convinced? •Does the audience have the ability to grant or deny formal mandate? Context •What is the (influence of) the (social) context? Securitizing agent •What is the (linguistic) capacity of the securitizing agent to mobilize the audience?

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This is not, however, just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. (Bush, 2001)

The War on Terror was thus portrayed as a ‘sort of zero-sum, global-scale, generational struggle against anti-liberal ideological extremists who want to rule the world’ (Buzan, 2006: 1101). It is important to note that this war narrative is different from Huntington’s in his seminal work The Clash of Civilizations and

the Remaking of World Order. The GWOT is a (declared) war between “the West” and a worldwide

clandestine network of terrorists, whereas the narrative of Huntington is specifically based on a perceived clash of regional civilizations in which ‘cultural commonalities and differences shape the interests, antagonisms, and associations of states’ (Huntington, 1996: 29). Both narratives can be observed and sometimes in public discourse, they overlap.

Since 9/11, and especially in the immediate wake of it, much of American public discourse has been characterized by what Stampnitzky describes as “the politics of anti-knowledge”, meaning that ‘a problem has been removed from the realm of (some types of) political debate’ (Stampnitzky, 2013: 187 – 188). Terrorism was declared to be “just evil”, and efforts to rationalize it were considered wrong: the rationality and ethics of terrorism were, for a while, no longer part of debatable knowledge. This can be recognized in, for example, the many times president Bush has used the language of “evil”2

, but also by just looking around and seeing how hard people often find it to have to rationalize terrorism and think that there exists a “normal” rationale for the activities of the terrorists.

Kingdon’s Three Streams Theory

The broad determinants of successful securitization outlined by Balzacq are very similar to John Kingdon’s model on how policy comes about. It is thus not surprising that, among others, Léonard & Kaunert argue for more integration and cross-fertilization between his model and securitization theory (2011: 63). Before introducing a first attempt of this integration, the following section will describe Kingdon’s theory at length, with special attention to the concept of “focusing events” and related concepts like “cultural trauma” and “moral panic”.

Theorists of policy-making process have, over time, increasingly tried to invent policy making models that give truth to the complex, fluid, and messy nature of the process. In 1972 an important step forward in that direction was made with the garbage can model, which stands at the core of the latter famous theory of Kingdon (Rawat & Morris, 216: 609). According to the garbage can model, decision makers are limited in their knowledge and do not always have predefined (and accepted by e.g. it’s

2

The word “evil” was used by Bush in his speeches well over a thousand times between his inauguration and June 2003 (Stampnitzky, 2013: 166).

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colleagues or seniors) policy preferences (Bevir, 2007: 335). Moreover, there are four “streams” of elements that affect the policy making process and mix, like in a garbage can, resulting in a different decision every time. These four elements are that [1] problems are internal as well as external of the organization, [2] solutions do not solely stem from existing problems, they also exist independently and problems are sought to apply them to, [3] choice possibilities do not only come in a controlled way from decision makers but are also the result of structural processes, and finally [4] participants in the process come and go, ‘depending on the time they have available and their interest in individual problems and solutions’ (ibid.).

This model, which was awkwardly based on university decision making, had – on the face of it – similarities with the U.S. federal government, Kingdon argued (1984: 85). He sought to revise the model by applying its logic of organized anarchy on the government, emphasizing more the structures and patterns that are recurrent (ibid.: 86). According to Kingdon, there are three major process streams in federal government: problem recognition, the formation and refining of policy proposals, and politics (ibid.: 87). Together with political entrepreneurs and policy windows, these form the five structural elements of the policy making process (Zahariadis, 2015).

According to Kingdon, two processes precede the decision-making process: agenda setting and alternative specification. The agenda setting process ‘narrows the set of subjects that could conceivable occupy their attention to the list on which they actually do focus’ (Kingdon, 1984: 196). The process of alternative specification ‘narrows the large set of possible alternatives to that set from which choices are actually made’ (ibid.).

Three explanations, it is argued, exist for what reaches the governmental agenda and what does not. Firstly, there must be problems that have enough relevance for the policy maker to be addressed. They can reach the policy maker by three ways: First, indicators. Indicators are ‘used to assess the magnitude of the condition’ (ibid.: 197). This can be, for example, a governmental report on illiteracy in a specific urban area. Second, there are focusing events. Focusing events are events that ‘[draw] attention to some conditions more than to others’ (ibid.). As terrorist attacks fall in this category, it is appropriate to explore this concept in more depth, as will be done in a later section. Third, feedback can serve to put problems of existing programs on the agenda. This can be formal (e.g. reports on costs) or informal (e.g. complaints by constituency) (ibid.: 198).

The second line of explanations comes from politics. What is the political climate in the area of focus? For example, a major flooding would probably work much better as a focusing event of global warming for progressive, green parties than it would for conservative parties, as they would be less interested in the problem. As Kingdon describes it: ‘a new administration, for instance, changes agendas all over town as it highlights its conceptions of problems and its proposals, and brings attention to subjects that are not among its priorities much less likely’ (ibid.: 198 – 199). Thus, besides all other aspects, the

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frame of reference in the population of focus, and more specifically the decision makers in that arena, matters greatly.

The third line of explanations comes from who’s visible (enough) to be able to affect the agenda. Kingdon makes a dichotomy between visible and non-visible participants (who will be introduced in more depth in the following section), of which the former affects the agenda and the latter the alternatives. The most visible agents, and interestingly this holds for elected officials and their appointees more than for others, can enhance the chances of a subject rising on a (governmental) agenda (ibid.: 199).

These three lines of explanations describe how issues can reach the policy agenda. However, that is just the first stage. That what makes it to the agenda is then often being redefined and made fit for real consideration, the alternative specification. Broadly, this can be analyzed from a “giving”, and solvent side, and from a “receiving”, selecting side. This firstly happens through those that are not visible but are still active in dealing with the problems at hand. Examples are academics, bureaucrats, consultants, etc. With their expertise, they offer insights and ideas that shape the alternatives, proposals and solutions associated with a problem (ibid.: 200). Secondly, the functioning of the policy stream itself affects the policy proposals at hand. Proposals are critically reviewed and weighed. Among the criteria that are used are ‘technical feasibility, congruence with the values of community members, and the anticipation of future constraints … public acceptability, and politicians’ receptivity’ (ibid.). This is partly a rational process, but that is not to say that political entrepreneurs, who will be introduced later, have great influence in this process.

In order to achieve political change, all three streams – problem, politics, and policy proposals – almost always need to be accounted for (ibid.: 202). For example, if a problem has been identified and change has been advocated for but a solution remains missing, change does not happen. Similarly, if there is political advocacy for change and the solutions are present but it is not enough regarded as a problem and therefore urgency misses, change also does not take place. Therefore, there are two elements that arise from the streams and drive the streams to the crossroad where change takes place: policy windows and political entrepreneurs.

Policy windows entail, but are not limited to, the three sorts of problem recognition earlier

described. For example, a focusing event can be a policy window, but is not always, because for some reason the political and policy streams do not (yet) enable policy change. A policy window is:

An opportunity for advocates to push their pet solutions or to push attention to their special problems … When [it] opens, problems and proposals flock to it. People concerned with particular problems see the open window as their opportunity to address or even solve these problems. … [They] present opportunities for the complete linkage of problems, proposals, and politics, and hence opportunities to move packages of the three joined elements up on the decision agenda’ (ibid.: 203 – 204)

For example, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as Mazarr showed, were a policy window for anti-Saddam activists in the upper echelons of the U.S. government in 2001. They had problem recognition (Islamist terrorism),

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policy (toppling Saddam Hussain), and the political context fitted (there was political support for military action3

) (Mazarr, 2007).

Next, political entrepreneurs play a key role in making the political change possible. They are:

People willing to invest their resources in return for future policies they favor. They are motivated by combinations of several things: their straightforward concern about certain problems, their pursuit of such self-serving benefits as protecting or expanding their bureaucracy’s budget or claiming credit for accomplishment, their promotion of their policy values, and their simple pleasure in participating. (ibid.: 204)

They are active in all three political steams to make sure their policy goals are realized. They try to frame focusing events to turn them into policy windows, and they obstruct policies they don’t like and seek many channels to promote those they do like (ibid.: 204 – 205).

There are thus three streams in which different sorts of actors are active. These three streams are “themes” that affect decision making. To really get a grip on how these streams interact, it is wise to look at the different sorts of processes (agenda setting and alternative formulation) and the different actors (politicians/elites versus bureaucrats, journalists, consultants, e.a.), and how they connect. It can be observed that actors differ, for example, in how they behave in different streams. The “elites”, as Rawat & Morris call them, tend to be more active in the political stream and offer more solutions, and the more diverse group of “pluralists”, like scientists, lobbyists, media figures, etc. are more active in the problem stream and are more active in refining and reviewing different policy (options) (Rawat & Morris, 2016: 610). By looking at the three streams as well as differentiating between actors and processes, and by using the (structural) elements of policy windows and entrepreneurs, Kingdon’s model is fit for analyzing the fluid and complex decision making process.

As promised, because of its great importance for this thesis, the notion of a focusing event will be better explained. According to Kingdon, focusing events are often crises or disasters, powerful symbols, or the personal experience of a policy maker (Kingdon, 1984: 94 – 95). Crises and disasters are pretty straightforward in the way they influence the political agenda, but personal experiences and powerful symbols speak less to mind. With personal experiences, Kingdon means that specific experiences can strongly influence decision makers in their (personal) agenda. Alzheimer’s disease might serve as an example. For decision makers that have had, for example, close relatives with Alzheimer’s, the cure and/or treatment of it might be structurally higher on the agenda than it would “normally” be (ibid.: 96). The powerful symbol, then, is a symbol that, in the minds of the decision makers, stands for a bigger and broader event or process, and that serve as a strong reminder (ibid.: 97). An example would be how 9/11

3

The U.S. Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, which authorized the

President to use appropriate military force if all other diplomatic were unsuccessful, with strong bipartisan support (Mitchell & Hulse, 2002). Polls showed a steady support of a war. Albeit not demanding it, a majority of the Americans believed a war would be legitimate, and numbers grew even more supportive in the early weeks of the war (Newport, 2003; Smith & Lindsay, 2003).

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is still being used to recall the emotions of that time. This shows that the character of a focusing event can change over time. Whereas in the case of 9/11 it used to be a focusing event in the sense that it really was a crisis, over time it has changed to a symbol that serves to direct thoughts on that crisis, more than fifteen years ago.

Focusing events, by themselves, rarely carry a subject to policy agenda prominence. They have to be given a political meaning. This political meaning differs per focusing event. For example, in one case, the event can function as an early warning that does not implicate any real change, in another case it can (be used to) recollect existing ideas in people’s minds, and in another case, it only gets meaning when it is combined with other (different) events (ibid.: 98).

Kingdon himself does not give a definition of a focusing event, as he merely describes what they

can be. For that, we might look at Thomas Birkland, who defined it as:

… sudden; relatively uncommon; [one that] can be reasonably defined as harmful or revealing the possibility of potentially greater future harms; has harms that are concentrated in a particular geographical area or community of interest; and that is known to policy makers and the public simultaneously. (1998: 54)

Its impact is not only determined by its objective harm or impact. If this is subtle, vague, and different to explain and/or visualize, its impact may lessen (ibid.: 55). For example, although experts stated that the nuclear incident at Three Mile Island in 1979 was very serious, its influence on the political agenda was not as big as expected as the harms were ‘unclear and relatively hard to understand and detect’ (ibid.).

Terrorist attacks as focusing events have been analyzed in several case studies, like the Oklahoma bombing in 1995 (e.g. Worrall, 1999; Lewis, 2000), the terrorist attacks of 9/11 (e.g. Birkland, 2004; Foersel Branson, 2009: 120), and the influence of terrorism on EU decision-making (Alexandrova, 2015). They fall in the category of “deliberately caused catastrophes” (Birkland, 2006: 1). This deliberative aspect seems to increase its thrust in affecting agenda-setting, as Worrall showed (1999: 335).

Several interrelated concepts have been introduced, like the focusing event, the audience factor, and the political stream. However, there is a body of literature that explores further how events can influence the dominant feeling in a society, and how that can relate to political change. This is important for this thesis the link between a focusing event and an audience’s frame of reference – and what place securitization practices can take in that relationship – stands at the core of playing politics. Therefore, two concepts are of particular interest here, moral panic and cultural trauma.

Moral panic can be described as a ‘disproportionate and hostile reaction to a circumstance, person or group that is seen as a threat to societal norms and values’ (De Haan, 2007: 253). It is often a reaction to a sudden unexpected event that is perceived as threatening. Introduced by Cohen in 1972, moral panic theory describes how media and political actors play great roles in creating an exaggerated panic around “folk devils”, which are ‘the individuals responsible for the deviant or criminal behavior. Unlike normal

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deviants or criminals, these folk devils are “unambiguously unfavorable symbols”: the embodiment of evil’ (Rothe & Muzatti, 2004: 329). Media play a key role in this process. They serve ‘to inflate the seriousness of the incidents, making them appear more heinous and frequent than they truly are’ (ibid.). Their stake in reporting terrorism is logical, as they thrive on stories that are sensational, eye-catching and speak to a shared sense of morality (Mythen & Walklate, 2006: 130). They are one of the dominant actors that decide if, and to which extent, some issues come to be perceived as being a threat.

Moral panic as an analytical concept has a problem because it is based on the presumptions that there are political entrepreneurs that are consciously fueling the exaggerated threat, and that long lasting and impactful social change has to follow (Rothe & Muzzatti, 2004: 332). Rothe & Muzzatti have argued that a moral panic did indeed happen in the U.S., especially taking into account that their article was written in 2004, in the wake of 9/11, but it is questionable if it is also applicable to the Dutch case, and we will dig into this in a later section of this thesis. Moreover, as De Haan argues, moral panic downplays the authenticity and seriousness of a (traumatic) perception, as it is seen as a product of a complex interplay between, among others, media and politicians (De Haan, 2007: 262).

Therefore, another concept is also of interest: cultural trauma. Cultural trauma occurs ‘when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their future identity in fundamental and irrevocable ways’ (Alexander, 2004: 1). Painful happenings cannot evolve into traumas without that ‘acute discomfort entering into the core of the collectivity’s sense of its own identity’ (ibid.: 10). Thus, it does not automatically assume the feelings are exaggerated, nor does it demand a social change. 9/11 can be seen as a cultural trauma as it damaged the idea of the U.S. as the ‘fortress that foreigners would forever be unable to breach’ (De Haan, 2007: 257). In addition, it gave people the feeling that:

the year 2001 was a scarred or ruined year, that the world must be regarded as having a pre-September 11 and post-September 11 reality, that the events would not only never be forgotten but also that we would never be able to forget them. (Smelser, 2004: 266)

But cultural traumas can change and fade over time. As Kaplan describes in how New York has learned to cope with 9/11:

New York will be forever “wounded.” How can it be otherwise? But at least the residues of the trauma that perhaps lay beneath the conflicts and tensions of rebuilding may be lessening. We have begun to translate the trauma into a language of acceptance while deliberately keeping the wound open; we are learning to mourn what happened, bear witness to it, and yet move forward. (Kaplan, 2005: 147)

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This matches the idea of Alexander that cultural traumas eventually enter a period of “calming down”. ‘As the heightened and powerfully affecting discourse of trauma disappears, the “lessons” of the trauma become objectified in monuments, museums, and collections of historical artefacts. The new collective identity will be rooted in sacred places and structured in ritual routines’ (Alexander, 2004: 22 – 23).

To a lesser extent, in the Netherlands, the murder of Theo van Gogh can also be described as a cultural trauma because it damaged the Dutch visions on liberty of speech and tolerance (De Haan, 2007: 260 – 261). In part because of the murder on Theo van Gogh, the discursive focus in the debate on immigration changed from integration to whether there was solidarity at all between Muslims and non-Muslims: the question shifted from how and if integration could work to whether the Dutch and the Islamic identity would ever be compatible, and if Muslims were even truly loyal to the Dutch society (Sleegers, 2007: 56 – 57; Mamadouh, 2008: 206 – 207). This will be explored in more depth later on.

Now the understanding of how the audience responds to focusing events has been deepened it is time to take a closer look at how securitization theory and Kingdon’s model relate.

Converging Kingdon and Securitization

Léonard & Kaunert have made an attempt to synthesize securitization theory and Kingdon’s model. They show that three of the five structural elements of Kingdon’s theory show remarkable similarities with securitization theory: the problem stream, the political entrepreneur and the policy window.

Regarding the problem stream, in both models problems don’t (solely) have objective reasons to be on the agenda. In Kingdon’s model, problems are only asserted as problems when they are defined so by political entrepreneurs and regarded as such by the audience (Léonard & Kaunert, 2011: 66). This is the same in securitization theory, where the securitizing actor “decides” whether a problem is a security problem or not. Problems are thus not only objective, but do also get their meaning from political actors. The securitizing actor is in essence, as Léonard and Kaunert argue, a specific form of the political entrepreneur (ibid.: 65). Both the political entrepreneur and the securitizing actor seek to define a problem in order to gain political resources or a chance to influence decision-making. They wait for policy windows to push their own agendas and they try to place the events in their own (political) narrative. Moreover, both the securitizing actor and the political entrepreneur often have high political authority and are politically skillful (ibid.: 68). Lastly, insights on the policy window also fit Kingdon’s theory. Kingdon argues that:

The appearance of a window for one subject often increases the probability that a window will open for another similar subject. … Taking advantage of a given window sometimes establishes a principle that will guide future decisions within a policy arena. (1984: 190)

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Political entrepreneurs will thus seek as many related issues as possible to increase their chance of success (Léonard & Kaunert, ibid.). This matches the securitization concept “security continuum”, which is the placement of several partly related issues in the realm of security (ibid.: 69).

Terrorism and the reactions that follow are, when looking at the previous sections, inherently political. There is a broader notion of the political nature that transcends the boundaries of the individual models. This “playing politics” means that, regarding terrorism, there are several players ‘… involving opposing interests given specific information and allowed a choice of moves with the object of maximizing their wins and minimizing their losses’ (Webster in Weinberg & Eubank, 2007: 157). As “playing politics” is, in this paper, not an analytical tool but merely a term to describe the political side of the reaction to terrorism, in which the described theories can be applied, it will not be further introduced theoretically4

. Instead, the following section will give a brief overview of notable Dutch (counter-)terrorism developments over the last decades.

History of Terrorism in the Netherlands

Before starting off with analyzing terrorism and Dutch responses of the start of the new millennium, it might be useful to give a short historical context. Obviously, a phenomenon as the reaction to terrorism can become a more interesting subject of study if it proves to have evolved (sharply) over time. The following section will focus on what terrorism the Netherlands have had to deal with, and how they have reacted to it, prior to 9/11. This will be done by analyzing arguably the most important period of terrorism and counterterrorism prior to 9/11: the 1970s (Muller, 2008: 217). Looking at two important terrorist threats in the Netherlands, the Moluccans and the Red Youth, how they were handled, and how counterterrorism policy was institutionalized, this section will give an image of how the Netherlands developed its first counterterrorism strategy: the de-politicization of the threat and refraining from violence as much as possible.

This section does not give an analysis of the 1970s using the theoretical concepts in previous sections. It aims not at describing the interplay between the political atmosphere, the attacks, and the counterterrorism policies that followed. Not only would that be too ambitious for this short background section (not much has been written on counterterrorism developments in relation to politics in the 1970s), it is also outside of the scope of this section. Rather, it aims at giving an overview of counterterrorism developments and how they have related to the upheaval of the “wave” of terrorist attacks in those years.

4

Moreover, in Kassimeris’ work, different authors handle different meanings of what “playing politics” entails, as this can be case-specific.

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The earliest terrorism in the Netherlands over the last seventy years was the result of the Second World War and the changing global political order that followed. Indonesia was born out of the independence of the Dutch East Indies in 1949. The Moluccans had fought as an ally with the Dutch against the Indonesians, forming the vast majority of the Royal Netherlands Indies Army (Koninklijke Nederland-Indisch Leger, KNIL). They were generally as a community the most loyal to the Dutch, many of them converted to Calvinism, and they enjoyed a more privileged status than others. While tensions grew in the aftermath of the war, the Moluccans were increasingly antagonized in the (mostly Islamic) Dutch East Indies: according to the Javanese, for example, the Moluccans were the ‘dogs of the Dutch’ (Rasser, 2005: 482). Thus, following interdependence and losing the protection of the Dutch, many of the Moluccans were forced to flee to the Netherlands. They demanded from the Dutch government an independent country within Indonesia (Van Riezen & Roex, 2008: 101). This started with protests of South-Moluccan youths in 1966 (Graaf, 2010: ibid.). They were second generation migrants and had mostly grown up in the Netherlands, and in contrast to the elderly, they tried to let the Indonesian and Dutch governments focus on the loss of “their homeland” with violence (ibid.).

This didn’t become violent until the 1970s. It became clear for the Moluccans that a planned conversation between their leader in exile, Manusama, and the Indonesian president Soeharto at the residence of the Indonesian ambassador in Wassenaar was aborted (Beatrice de Graaf, 2010: 28). 33 Moluccans in three vans assaulted and took hostage the 35 people in the residence on the early morning of August 31, 1970. One patrolling police officer, Hans Moolenaar, was immediately killed in the act. When he heard the vans and the subsequent gun shots, he ran to the residence with his gun pulled, and yelled at the gunmen. He was killed with a single shot in the heart (Blaauw, 2010). For eleven hours, the gunmen held the people hostage, before Masuma and a representative of the Moluccan Lutheran Church intervened and the gunmen surrendered (ibid.). Where the countering of the attack was already poor in the sense that protocols and crisis management plans were nonexistent, the aftermath was no better. No protocols were formulated and a major raid on a Moluccan camp was ordered, which was ill conceived and only further alienated the Moluccan community (Rasser, 2005: 484).

Similar incidents happened in those early years of the 1970s. For example, two Palestinians threw a hand grenade to the residence of the Israeli ambassador, Palestinian commandos bombed gas and oil tanks and installations, and the Maoist Red Youth (Rode Jeugd) ignited the America Institute and bombed the car of a police official. Although small in terms of damage and loss of life (some were not even recognized as acts of violence until much later), these events from groups with different backgrounds let the Dutch government focus on the terrorist threat in a more centralized way (De Graaf, ibid.).

In the wake of the hostage situation in 1970, and reinforced by the other incidents, elites within the domestic security apparatus agreed to focus more on political violence and terrorism. This resulted mostly in an intensified cooperation between local police and intelligence organizations. It did not, however, result in significant formal organizational reform. For this, the perceived international Cold War

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tensions still claimed too much attention (ibid.: 28 – 29). In 1972, the Ministry of Justice sought advice from police inspector Jan Blaauw. Blaauw was trained by the FBI and thus had not only an international network that would later prove valuable, but also experience with international terrorism. He advised for a centralization of the intelligence on, and management of, terrorism (De Graaf, 2010: 29). The terrorist attack on the 1972 Munich Olympic Games served as an extra impulse for the government to take into account the recommendations of Blaauw, and take the terrorist threat more seriously. In February 1973, the government informed the Parliament of the ‘National Strategy for Counterterrorism’, in which measures for the management of terrorist attacks were outlined, like the establishment of close combat- and sharpshooter units under the command of the minister of Justice (Special Assistance Units, BBE), recruited from army divisions (ibid.: 30 – 32). What is interesting is that the governmental response was aimed at dealing with the terrorist attacks, not preventing them, nor changing the law (Eikelenboom, 2007: 207).

In December 1975, seven Moluccan youths took 75 people hostage in the train to Groningen, which stopped near the town of Wijster. They demanded a UN debate on the establishment of an independent Moluccan country. Again, the Dutch government proved unprepared. At first, the negotiations were led by low level police officers with no experience. After an ultimatum set by the terrorists was not met, they executed a hostage. Only after that, the top leadership of the country became directly involved (Rasser, 2005: 485). With this, a concern addressed in 1971, that the top government should immediately be engaged in the crisis as otherwise a state of panic could occur in which the local government could make big mistakes, became reality (De Graaf, 2010: 31). After twelve days, successful negotiation and a steadily increasing winter frost, the terrorists surrendered (ibid.: 38; Rasser, ibid.).

In 1977, again a group of Moluccans took people hostage. One group of nine young Moluccans took the passengers of a train hostage, another group of four occupied a school in Bovensmilde (De Graaf, 2010: 39). But, as Rasser describes:

Government officials reacted swiftly and deliberately, applying lessons learned 16 months earlier. [The negotiator of the 1975 hostage situation] and a team of psychiatrists again held negotiations, attempting to repeat their earlier successes. Some scholars argue that the psychologists remained too committed to the strategy pursued in 1975 even as conditions in the current crisis sharply diverged. (Rasser, 2005: 486)

Three weeks later, a combined action of close combat marines, sharpshooters, and six F-104 aircraft made an end to the hostage situation, as it became clear that the negotiations were not going to be successful. In the act, six terrorists and two hostages died (ibid.).

Although the terrorist threat in the 1970s was not solely a Moluccan one – international terrorist groups like the IRA, ETA and Palestinians were also in the scope of the government – the Moluccan one was the most intense. Between 1970 and 1978, they were responsible for numerous attacks, of which some

Playing Politics. Incident-Driven Counterterrorism Policy-Making in the Netherlands, 2001-2004

Crisis and Security Management