Governmentality in counter-terrorism : the French response to returning foreign terrorist fighters

Governmentality in Counter-Terrorism: The French

Response to Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters

Master Thesis - University of Amsterdam - Graduate School of Social Sciences

Master Programme: Political Science Specialisation: International Relations Research Project: European Security Politics Supervisor: Dr. Rocco Bellanova

Second reader: Luc Fransen Author: Simeon Michel Hughes Student number: 12330728 Word Count: 22,658. Date: 21st of June 2019

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the thesis supervisor, Rocco Bellanova, for the time, effort and patience that he dedicated to me. The author is also grateful to other students in the course for the feedback provided during peer-review sessions. The author is also thankful to Beste Isleyen, for her contributions and advice during seminars. Finally, the author would like to thank Luc Fransen for accepting to be the second reader of the thesis.

Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.2) Description of the topic and context of the thesis ………. 5

1.3) Defining Returnees ……….. 6

1.4) Returnees within Contemporary European Security Politics ……… 7

1.5) The Case Study of France ……….. 8

1.6) Formulation of the problem and Research Question ……….. 9

1.7) Preliminary Presentation of Findings ……….. 10

1.8) Conclusion ……….. 10

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

2.2) Governmentality according to Foucault ………...………... 12

2.3) Governmentality within Critical Security Studies ………. 20

2.4) The Strengths of a Governmentality Approach ………. 23

2.5) Conclusion ……….. 26

Chapter 3: Research Design

3.2) Case Study Research ………. 28

3.3) Qualitative Analysis ……….. 30

3.4) Critical Discourse Analysis ……….. 31

3.5) Research Material ………. 34

Chapter 4: Analysis

4.1) Introduction ………... 41

4.2) Key elements of French Counterterrorism ……… 42

4.3) The Threat of Returnees ………... 48

4.4) La République Française ………. 55

4.5) National Security ……….. 63

4.6) Pervasiveness ……… 65

4.7) An Undefined Temporal Framework ………. 69

4.8) Conclusion ………. 71

Chapter 5: Conclusion and Discussion

Chapter 1: Introduction

1.1) Introduction

The thesis will apply Foucault’s concept of governmentality to the French State’s governance of Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters (RFTFs). Before presenting the theoretical premises and methodological tools that will be applied to the governance of returning foreign terrorist fighters, the thesis will begin by providing an introduction to the topic.

This introductory chapter will make explicit the reasoning that underpins the conduct of this research. In order to do so, the chapter will be structured as follows: first, the chapter will offer a contextual overview of the phenomenon of Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters is offered. Following this, the chapter will specifically define what is understood by the term “Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighter” and will briefly situate these agents within legal frameworks. Next, the chapter will situate the topic of Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters within the realm of European Security Politics. Following this, the chapter will provide justifications for the selection of France as a specific case study. All these elements will be brought together in order to formulate the main research question, and associated sub-research questions. The penultimate section of the introduction will provide an overview of the findings. And finally, a concluding section will be included to summarise the most important elements of this chapter.

1.2) Description of the topic and context of the thesis

Born from the Arab Spring movement in 2011, the Syrian Civil War has evolved from national protests to a full-scale civil war. During these 8 years, the conflict has become a primary concern for security communities on an international scale: the political turmoil in the country has created a power vacuum, resulting in a variety of groups with different interests competing for legitimacy, territory and control (Sorenson, 2016). One of the most notable agents within this complex conflict has been the Islamic State of Iraq and

Syria, widely known by its acronym: ISIS, and also referred to as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant). Despite its self-proclaimed radicalism and mass-mediated use of 1

violence, a remarkable characteristic of ISIS has been the group’s impressive ability to attract recruits from literally all over the globe (Melki and El-Masri, 2016: 32). At the end of 2012, Western intelligence communities and media outlets began reporting and signalling the first few cases of individuals leaving their Western European countries of origin to join the ranks of ISIS in Iraq or Syria (Bakker, Entenmann and Paulussen, 2014: 12 ; Senate 2015: 9). In response, governments throughout Western Europe attempted to impede individuals from leaving the national territory to join ISIS. As early as 2012, the French State passed an anti-terrorist law extending its jurisdiction over French citizens that left the national territory to participate in terrorist activities abroad (Hellmuth, 2015: 988). In 2014, the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178 defined FTFs as “individuals who travel to a State other than their States of residence or nationality for the purpose of the perpetration, planning, or preparation of, or participation in, terrorist acts or the providing or receiving of terrorist training, including in connection with armed conflict” (UNSC, 2014: 2). It is estimated that approximately 41,490 foreigners left their home countries to support the Islamic State, including about 5,900 from Western Europe (Cook and Yale, 2018: 14).

1.3) Defining Returnees

Returnees are a specific type of foreign terrorist fighters that reflect the evolution of the situation on the ground. In early 2015, ISIS controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria and administered a territory of 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) (BBC, 2019). However, since then, joint military forces have almost completely liberated the entirety of that territory, and as a result many European foreign fighters have been captured or have fled, returning to their countries (Shajkovci, Speckhard and Yayla, 2017: 82). In order to designate this segment of the French population, the thesis will employ the term

“returnees”, as this term is the most commonly used by the French State and associated experts. However, alternatively the thesis will also refer to returnees as “revenants” (Thomson, 2016) or Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters (RFTFs) in the interest of avoiding repetition. On a global scale, this group represents approximately 7,366 foreign fighters, including 1,765 from Western Europe (Cook and Yale, 2018: 15).

1.4) Returnees within Contemporary European Security Politics

Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters are exceptionally relevant within contemporary debates, policy circles and studies of Security with the European Union (Bakker,

Entenmann and Paulussen, 2014: 4), particularly within the context of territorial setbacks that ISIS have suffered over recent years. A report produced by Europol in 2017

forewarned of the security implications of Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters, and predicted that a progressive military defeat of ISIS would greatly increase the amount of foreign fighters returning to their countries of origin within Western Europe (EU, 2017). In response, governments and security services throughout Europe have had to prepare for the return of these individuals. The return of Foreign Terrorist Fighters is considered as a significant security concern, particularly in countries such as France, Belgium, the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany, from which a large amount of FTFs came from originally (Isakson et al., 2018: 5). In late 2018, US President Donald Trump declared his intention to withdraw American troops from Syria (Specia, 2019), further accelerating the immediacy of this security issue (Le Figaro, 2019). An American withdrawal will result in fewer security provisions and less logistical support for the Kurds that are currently detaining many Western European foreign fighters. Trump has also threatened to release 800 captured ISIS fighters that are currently being detained, including many foreign fighters, unless they are taken into custody by their national governments and other American allies (Baynes, 2019 ; Wintour, 2019). This element not only adds an extra sense of urgency to the already time-constrained issue (Mehra and Paulussen, 2019), but also sparks additional security concerns of “dispersion”, as argued by Jean-Yves Le

Drian, France’s Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs (Le Drian, 2019). As such, the return of foreign terrorist fighters constitute a significant source of insecurity within European politics.

1.5) The Case Study of France

The thesis focuses more specifically on the case study of France. One of the reasons for choosing France is the particular relevance of returnees within French security politics. As outlined above, the phenomenon of foreign fighters is widespread throughout Western Europe. However, France is the epicenter of this issue: out of all the countries in Western Europe, France is the country with the highest amount of nationals to have left the

country and travel to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS (Atran and Hamid, 2015: 2). The French State estimates that approximately 1,300 French nationals left the country to join the Islamic State (Senate, 2018a: 28). Not coincidentally, France has also been the target of the most amount of attacks between March 2012 and August 2017, the highest amount of casualties, and the highest amount of foreign fighters participating in attacks throughout Europe from 2013 to 2016 (Bindner, 2018: 2). The threat posed by nationals who have been abroad to fight was tragically evidenced by the attacks on Charlie Hebdo in January 2015, and the 13th of November of the same year. Cherif and Said Kouachi, the brothers who attacked the Charlie Hebdo Headquarters on January 7th, 2015, had received

training abroad before returning to strike in France (Bayoumy and Ghobari, 2015). In the aftermath of the attacks in Paris on the 13th of November 2015, the thorough

investigations conducted by the French intelligence services revealed that of the nine shooters and suicide bombers (all of whom were French or Belgian), six had been to Syria to fight for ISIS before returning to commit their terror attacks in France (Cragin, 2017: 218). Further, of thirty other individuals that were indirectly involved by providing logistical support, sixteen had been to Iraq or Syria to fight alongside the Islamic State (Cragin, 2017: 212). As early as 2014, Manuel Valls (who was Minister of the Interior at the time) stated that returning foreign terrorist fighters were “the greatest danger that the

country must face within the coming years” (Vidino, 2015: 260). These facts demonstrate the importance of the governance of returnees within matters of European Security Politics, particularly for France. Further, the case study of France was selected due to its exceptionalism. France’s counter-terrorism regime is reputed to be “tough”, “almighty” and intransigeant (Hellmuth, 2015: 980). The fact that France is an extreme manifestation of a specific conceptualisation of security and governance is in itself a good reason to employ it as a case study.

1.6) Formulation of the problem and Research Questions

The following section will formulate the problem that the thesis will strive to solve. Drawing on Foucault (1997: 300), Walters argues that governance necessarily “presumes the existence of a degree of freedom, however minor” for the governing entity, in the sense that “other ways of conducting oneself and others always remains possible” (Walters, 2012: 12). This serves as a starting point for the thesis: in their governance of returnees, the French State formulates particular political rationalities and implements particular governmental technologies. These political rationalities are informed by an explicit choice, and serve a distinct purpose. This implies that the State uses the

knowledge and expertise at its disposition in an attempt to achieve certain objectives and to implement specific strategies. Foucault argues that there is no power as such, there are only “dispositions, manoeuvers, tactics, techniques and functionings” (Foucault, 1977: 26). Concurrently, it is the researcher’s task to “carefully map, and distinguish” these elements (Walters, 2012: 14). This is therefore the task that the research will undertake: it will map the power relations and governmental strategies that are created and perpetuated by the French State through the specific technique of governance of Returning Foreign Terrorist Fighters. To achieve this task, the thesis will analyse political rationalities and governmental technologies.

As such, the central research question of the thesis is: _{​how does the French State govern}

the return of foreign terrorist fighters?_{​ In order to focalise the research, the thesis will}

also draw from three subquestions, which are as follows: how are power relations between the State and the population constructed through the means of political rationalities? How does the specific disposition of discourse contribute to the

legitimisation of French security dispositifs? And what is the role of expertise in the French State’s governance of returnees? Responses to these sub-questions will help guide the analysis and respond to the overall research question in a more effective manner.

1.7) Preliminary Presentation of Findings

This section will outline the main findings of the analysis. A significant, and perhaps somewhat surprising finding is that sources of expertise in France argue that the main threat posed by returnees is their ability to “inspire” other individuals into committing attacks. This is due to experts’ understanding of ISIS strategies, which place domestic networks and social media visibility at the center of recruitment strategies. The thesis argues that an integral aspect of France’s governmentality of returnees is the prevention of radicalisation on a domestic scale. As such, the thesis focuses on this aspect of the French State’s governmentality of returning foreign terrorist fighters. A critical discourse analysis of a multiplicity of sources, ranging from policy documents to public statements enabled the research to reveal the principle elements that characterise the relationships of power between the population and the State. It is argued that the use of discourse is a key aspect of this governmentality. Discourse is used to present the threat of jihadi salafism as an existential threat to the French Republic and a national security threat. As a means of securitisation, the State constructs a specific French identity that adheres to Republican values and adopts a preventative approach to security. In turn, State intervention (in the name of security) is pervasive and temporally undefined.

1.8) Conclusion

In conclusion, the introductory chapter of this thesis served to briefly establish the political and theoretical context informed the selection of this specific topic. The introduction defined Foreign Terrorist Fighters and described their relevance within contemporary European Security Politics. The chapter then discussed the selection of the case study of France, before making explicit the research questions. The main research question is asserted again here: how does the French State govern the return of foreign terrorist fighters? Finally, the introductory chapter provided a brief response to the research question, in order to provide the reader with an overview of the argumentation. The forthcoming chapter will discuss the theoretical premises of the research and the concept of governmentality.

Chapter 2: Theoretical Framework

2.1) Introduction

While the first chapter introduced the topic and provided a contextual overview of returnees, this chapter has an altogether different objective. This chapter will establish and explicate the theoretical framework through which the research will be conducted. By outlining the theoretical boundaries of the research, the theoretical framework makes explicit the lens through which French governance of returnees will be explored.

In terms of structure, the chapter begins by defining governmentality according to Foucault, and explicates the theory’s central conceptual components. Next, the chapter situates governmentality theory within the relevant literature of Critical Security Studies (CSS). Finally, the chapter explicates how the use of governmentality theory provides a theoretical vantage point from which returnee policy may be interpreted. The main points of discussion will be presented in a brief conclusion at the end of the chapter.

2.2) Governmentality according to Foucault

In order to formulate a response to the research question (and the associated

sub-questions), the thesis will make use of Foucault’s “governmentality” concept as a means of analysis. During the years 1977 and 1978, Michel Foucault delivered a series of thirteen famed lectures at the College de France, entitled “Security, Territory,

Population” (Foucault, 2007). These lectures were pivotal in the realm of Social Sciences (McKee, 2009). During these lectures, while discussing and developing a variety of notions, a central concept emerged above others: governmentality. This thesis will use Foucault’s concept of governmentality to analyse the French State’s returnee governance strategy. In order to effectively apply Foucault’s conceptualisation of governmentality to the topic of returnees, it is necessary to establish what Foucault meant by the term, and how he theorised it.

Foucault’s definition of governmentality is composed of three elements:

“First, by “governmentality” I understand the ensemble formed by institutions, procedures, analyses and reflections, calculations, and tactics that allow the exercise of this very specific, albeit very complex, power that has the population as its target, political economy as its major form of knowledge, and apparatuses of security as its essential technical instrument. Second, by “governmentality” I understand the tendency, the line of force, that for a long time, and throughout the West, has constantly led towards the pre-eminence over all other types of power – sovereignty, discipline, and so on – of the type of power that we can call “government” and which has led to the development of a series of specific governmental apparatuses (appareils) on the one hand, [and, on the other] to the development of a series of knowledges (savoirs). Finally, by “governmentality” I think we should understand the process, or rather, the result of the process by which the State of justice of the Middle Ages became the administrative State in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and was gradually ‘governmentalized.’” (Foucault, 2007: 144)

This definition will be unpacked in detail throughout the following sections, in order to make explicit the theoretical framework that will be employed to study the French State’s governance of returnees .

2.2.1) The Birth of Biopolitics

In essence, Foucault argues that modern liberal States dispose of a specific form of power incorporated into the very system of governance and social regulation. This new form of power, referred to as “biopower” (Foucault, 2003: 245), is complementary to pre-existing forms of power, such as sovereign power and disciplinary power. In fact, “‘[b]iopolitics’

is a technology of power that grew up on the basis of disciplinary power. Where discipline is about the control of individual bodies, biopolitics is about the control of entire populations” (Kelly, No Date). In order to pinpoint the origins of this form of power, Foucault adopts a social constructivist perspective and conducts a genealogical analysis of the emergence of the modern liberal State, from the 15th century onwards. Kretsedemas notes that “genealogies can operate as a method for tracing pathways that unravel the definitions we impose on things and for exposing the limitations of familiar narratives; producing explanations that are non-teleological” (Kretsedemas, 2017: 1). Indeed, this is the research project that Foucault undertakes: he studies the rationales, apparatuses and aspirations of the modern liberal State, and how they came to exist as such, taking nothing for granted.

Foucault argues, through the analysis of the State’s governance response to issues of grain shortages and the epidemic of smallpox, that the State transformed itself and its methods of governance (Foucault, 2007: 94). This shift in governance strategies came as a result of a morphing of the State’s perception of its relationship with those it governed (Foucault, 2007: 92). Grain shortages and the epidemic of smallpox were the problem of the population, not the ruler, king or State. However, authorities still intervened in order to provide food and health security for the population. Foucault argues that these

interventions reflected an evolution in the relationship between the State and the individual: the object of security was no longer the sovereign, but the aggregation of individuals (Foucault, 2007: 92-93). Thus, while in previous regimes, individuals had an obligation and duty to protect its king or sovereign, that relationship inverted itself: the objective of the State becomes to protect its each and every individual (Foucault, 2007: 172-173).

This changing relationship established public securitisation as the State’s objective in governance practices and as a result, the State’s perception of the people it governed transformed itself. It cannot protect each individual on their own within their given

context, however by seeing individuals in association with each other and as a whole reveals vulnerable segments (Foucault, 2007: 87). Throughout the process of developing a vaccine for smallpox, (in this case, scientific) authorities sought to solve the problem (lack of health security) not by looking at those that were infected (on a case by case basis), but by looking at the characteristics of those who were infected in relation to the broader aggregation of individuals (case in relation to population) (Foucault, 2007: 24). As such, the people governed by the State are no longer viewed as a simple aggregation of individuals, but a “population” (Foucault, 2007: 94). With the objective of

securitisation in mind and the population as the recipient, the State was able to identify what individual characteristics were more conducive to the development of the smallpox. This evidences that segments of the population are assessed on the basis of “the

absolutely crucial notion of risk”, which subsequently establishes the extent of “danger” (Foucault, 2007: 89).

The combination of these elements (the concept of population and risk-based

assessments) form the basis of biopolitics. Biopolitics “deals with the population, with the population as a political problem, as a problem that is at once scientific and political, as a biological problem and as power’s problem” (Foucault, 2003: 245). The population is now considered in biological terms and this reflects a change in the government’s mentality, or “governmentality”. This is an important consideration with crucial

implications. The fact that the State now views its population as a “biological problem” (Foucault, 2003: 245) implies a different approach to the practice of governance. While disciplinary power aimed to cease certain natural activities of the population, viewing the population as a biological entity enables the State to approach the “problem of how to govern” in a different way (Foucault, 2007: 127). As a result, the nature of power shifts: power no longer lies in an authority’s ability to physically impede individuals from engaging in natural behaviours (Foucault, 2007: 92-93). Rather, power is the ability to influence the boundaries of existence of the natural behaviours in a way that minimises risk. This represents a novel conceptualisation of security, which places the population as

the target of securitisation. Returning to the example of the smallpox vaccination

procedure helps illustrate this shift. Although the disease cannot be outlawed, by drawing this comparison, Foucault illustrates that rather than attempting to destroy the natural and biological process (by eliminating the virus), the authorities allowed its continuation, but shaped its existence and contained its worst excesses by limiting the boundaries of its development through the use of a vaccine (Foucault, 2007: 88).

2.2.2) The Regime du Savoir

The ability to influence the boundaries of natural behaviours in a way that the outcome of natural behaviour will minimise risk is based on the ability to understand how behaviours work in practice. As a result, in order to govern effectively, the State must develop a novel, biological understanding of its population. It is no longer as simple as using the “carrot and the stick” to shape people’s behaviours into desirable directions. In order to successfully govern a population through biopower, thus enabling natural processes to take place without hindering the population or the State, the State must accumulate a repertoire of knowledge determining the relative extent of risk associated with specific behaviours of the population. The risk-based assessment of the outcomes of the natural and biological behaviours of the population enabled the development of the notion of statistics (Foucault, 2007: 90). The notion of statistics created a novel brand of

knowledge through which social, political and economic realities no longer seemed to be in a state of anarchy. The advent of statistical analysis provided a lens through which trends and regularities could be observed, phenomena could be quantified and reality understood in a more systematic fashion. Indeed, in an unpredictable and anarchic world excesses or undesirable behaviour could only be regulated through the means of

disciplinary power, as was the case for Machiavellian conceptions of sovereign State power (Machiavelli, 2008). However, knowledge and understanding of the world, enabled by statistical analysis of the population, created a far more predictable

environment for State agency, and consequently the State can intervene precisely, on a specific section of the population, within a specific process or upon a specific norm. As

formulated by Miller and Rose, through the use of statistics “reality is made stable, mobile, comparable, combinable. It is rendered in a form that can be debated and diagnosed” (Miller and Rose, 1992: 185). This diagnosis is conducted within the parameters of understanding what potential danger may occur and how the risk of such danger may be minimised.

This repertoire of knowledge, the accumulation of all these collective understandings of the population, is what Foucault describes as the “régime du savoir” (Foucault, 1982: 2

781). The “régime du savoir” is the basis from which biopower is exercised in practice and as a result, this new form of knowledge becomes “absolutely indispensable for good government” (Foucault, 2007: 450). Foucault argues that this knowledge regime is the basis of State power, and the knowledge regime is developed on the basis of statistics. Foucault argues that “statistics mean [the] science of the State” (Foucault, 2007: 138). As such, the regime of knowledge is a State-centered source of scientific expertise which inform governance strategies.

2.2.3) Governing at a distance

As such, the statistical compartmentalisation of human existence resulted in the careful accumulation of knowledge relating to the risks associated to the natural activities of the population. This disposition of knowledge and understanding revealed an important aspect of human existence: the biological interlinkage of phenomena. Indeed, biological processes do not occur individually: they occur within the context of specific biological dispositions that define them. It follows that should those biological dispositions shift, the outcome of the natural process would be affected. As such, one of the objectives of the regime du savoir is to understand how phenomena are interlinked, and how influence on one domain can impact another. A novel and subtle relationship of power therefore emerges, and only did as a result of the advent of the concept of population and the subsequent risk-based biological assessment of the population, which created this new

form of knowledge. In turn, this new form of statistical expertise opened up an entire realm of strategies of governance, such as the ability to govern “at a distance” (Miller and Rose, 1992: 184). Indeed, the State develops the ability, through a stats-based analysis that recognises system interlinkages, to predict the impact of a specific intervention within a different domain: “having a hold on things that seem far removed from the population, but which, through calculation, analysis, and reflection, one knows can really have an effect on it” (Foucault, 2007: 100/101). As such, power relations become more subtle and less conflictual, as the domain which is the source of intervention is not directly linked to the objective of the intervention. In practice, the citizens don’t realise they are being influenced, and yet well and truly serve the State’s interests, or at least do not hinder them.

2.2.4) Discourse, discursive practices and productive power

Furthermore, Foucault contends that discourse is a crucial element that structures power relations. He argues that “in every society the production of discourse is at once

controlled, selected, organised and redistributed according to a certain number of procedures, whose role is to avert its powers and its dangers” (Foucault, 1971: 8). Discourse is a form of power enabled by the State’s statistical compartmentalisation of reality (Turkel, 1990: 177). By observing and translating social, economic and political realities into statistical figures, the State is able to identify and assess the scope of

activities and processes on the basis of the population’s degree of behavioural variation in relation to a given security issue. Subsequently, the State can determine a standard or a “normal” type of behaviour in relation to a specific process or framework (Foucault, 2007: 85). In fact, describing something as “normal” is a discursive practice that converges the population towards a standard that the State idealises, or at least permits, while excluding activities and individuals by confining them to the realm of “abnormal” (Foucault, 2007: 85). This is a device of subjectivation, what Foucault describes as “‘dividing practices’. The subject is either divided inside himself or divided from others. This process objectivizes him. Examples are the mad and the sane, the sick and the

healthy” and so on (Foucault, 1982: 777). Here, the exercise of power can be observed within discursive practices.

Using the “regime du savoir”, authorities articulate respective meanings attached to the discourse selected to qualify each category (Foucault, 1971: 19). Indeed, the meanings the population attach to specific discourses are derived from reference points that it has, and those reference points themselves are intimately linked to knowledge. As noted by Zanotti, “[s]tatements’ meaning can only be established within the archive that is the discursive space where their rules interact” (Zanotti, 2013: 296). For instance, the State constructs the category of sanity as boasting qualities such as rationality and sensibility, while madness is characterised by unpredictability, erraticness and unreliability

(Foucault, 1971: 9). Unpredictable and erratic behaviour are sources of insecurity for the State because it cannot always be neatly compartmentalised into statistical analysis nor specifically targeted for securitisation. However, by discursively constructing the categories of madness and sanity, and by presenting sanity (and its associated

characteristics) as a desirable attribute, the State can make people identify themselves within those categories and strive towards them, thus advancing State objectives of securitisation without implementing disciplinary measures. This form of power is described as “normalising power” (Foucault, 2007: 91).

Foucault argues that this form of organisation and governance was grounded within premises of “pastoral power” (Foucault, 1982: 782 ; Foucault, 2007: 169-174; Dupont and Pearce, 2001: 126). Pastoral power, stemming from Christianity, is power that

operates not only through explicitly formulated codes of conduct and institutions, but also through individual’s self-regulation via the careful discursive construction of shared norms and personal identity. Indeed, through the delimitation of reality into quantifiable and calculable entities and (following a risk-based securitisation assessment), the State has the power to discursively construct ideals or preferences amongst their citizens’ behaviours that the citizens themselves will constantly and mechanically strive towards

(Foucault, 2007: 91). The State not only has the power to establish the boundaries of its citizens existence through disciplinary power, but also has the ability to control, or at least influence the citizen’s behaviors and practices, without citizens being aware of it. The use of discourse as a means of power in order to shape the population’s perception of reality and of itself is called “productive power” (Merlingen, 2011: 151).

2.2.5) Political Rationalities and Governmental technologies

The aggregation of the discursive practices described above constitute what Miller and Rose describe as “political rationalities”, which designate “the changing discursive fields within which the exercise of power is conceptualised, the moral justifications for

particular ways of exercising power by diverse authorities, notions of the appropriate forms, objects and limits of politics, and conceptions of the proper distribution of such tasks among secular, spiritual, military and familial sectors” (Miller and Rose, 1992: 175). Political rationalities are translated into practice through “governmental technologies”, understood as “the complex of mundane programmes, calculations, techniques, apparatuses, documents and procedures through which authorities seek to embody and give effect to governmental ambitions” (Miller and Rose, 1992: 175). As such, there exists a strong inter-linkage between knowledge (expertise), discursive practices (political rationalities) and governance strategies (governmental technologies), and this interlinkage has important implications for the constitution of power relations between the State and the population. These are the elements of governmentality that will be explored throughout the thesis, in relation to the French State’s governance of

returnees.

2.3) Governmentality within Critical Security Studies

The section above outlined the main concepts within governmentality as conceptualised by Foucault. While the explanations were extensive, it was deemed necessary to fully explicate the theoretical premises and practical implications of governmentality theory in

order to aptly apply it to the present research. This section will situate governmentality within the relevant literature. In order to do so, this section will begin by describing the “critical turn” within Security Studies (Booth, 1994: 6). Next, the section will specify the nature and extent of the contribution of governmentality to this sub-discipline. Finally, the section will discuss the expansion of governmentality and provide a state of the art of governmentality studies. This section will also elucidate the state of the art of literature relating to foreign terrorist fighters and returnees, in order to specify the nature of the contribution of this thesis.

2.3.1) The Critical Turn

Throughout most of the 20th century, security was mostly conceptualised within the realm of international relations and discussion revolved around the State as the main agent (Donnelly, 2000: 7). Recognising the bipolar disposition of world politics at the time, traditional security studies focused on the nation-State and military power within an anarchic international system (Waltz, 2001). However, the end of the Cold War and the events of September 11th, 2001 shifted the attention of scholars of security away from the realist conceptualisation of security (Synder, 1999: 1). Increasingly, diverse world issues and sources of insecurity emerged, yet could not be sufficiently conceptualised or understood through the lenses of State power and military force: as a result, scholars began progressively offering “critical” contributions to the study of security. Critical Security Studies is difficult to define specifically (Collective, 2006: 443), not least because "there is no singular definition of what it means to be critical in security studies" (Peoples and Vaughan-Williams, 2014: 1).

For the purposes of this thesis the “orientation” (Peoples and Vaughan-Williams, 2011: 2-4) of Critical Security Studies is to study “the function of representations or discourses of security in defining group identity, enabling particular policy or legitimating particular actors as security providers” (Browning and MacDonald, 2011: 236). Throughout their piece, Browning and MacDonald emphasise the importance of considering “ethics” and

“politics” within security studies, both of which are relevant to this research, particularly the latter. According to Olivares, the conception that the “political and security realm cannot be analysed separately” is the field’s greatest achievement (Olivares, 2018).

2.3.2) Governmentality within Critical Security Studies

As a result of the critical turn within Critical Security Studies and the greater political and ethical nature of conceptualisations of “security”, more attention was paid to theories (such as governmentality) that focused on the micro-practices of power. Indeed, while he delivered his lectures in the late 70s, Foucault’s governmentality work has only really been developed since the early 90s (Walters, 2012: 1): this corresponds perfectly with the end of the Cold War and the beginning of the critical turn. The development of novel conceptualisations of security has led to the emergence of a number of schools of critical security, such as the Copenhagen School or the Welsh school (Burke, 2007: 4).

Foucault’s studies on governmentality have encouraged scholars and academics of Critical Security Studies to engage with the relationship between knowledge and power (Leese and Wittendorp, 2018: 174). The specific strengths of governmentality will be discussed below.

2.3.3) Governmentality Studies

Since the critical turn, Foucault’s work increased in relevance to modern practices and methodologies of security studies. As a result of governmentality’s distinctive attributes and qualities (which will be discussed in the following section) and within the context of the critical turn, it has risen to prominence, becoming “a productive site of conversation and shared purpose in the field of critical security studies” (Aradeau and Neil, No Date: 1). In fact, governmentality has evolved to become a field of study in and of itself (Burchell, Gordon and Miller, 1991). Scholars have employed governmentality to study an extensive range of topics, including education (Woronov, 2009), crime (Garland,

1997), energy (Kester, 2018) healthcare (Ferlie, Mcgivern and FitzGerald, 2012 ; Brown, Craddock and Ingram, 2012: 1183), colonialism (Scott, 1995) and modern international spaces (Larner and Walters, 2004). Walters (2012) provides a succinct critical overview of governmentality studies, and the wide range of contexts within which the framework has been used. Sokhi-Bulley also lists an extensive catalog of fields within which governmentality is employed to study the “problem of government” (Sokhi-Bulley, 2014). However, few authors have sought to explicitly apply the framework of governmentality to the issue of returnees.

The study of Foreign Terrorist Fighters has also produced an extensive amount of

literature and commentary. Scholars have examined historical perspectives (Malet, 2010 ; Mendelsohn, 2011), their motives when leaving to join the conflict (Bakker, Grol and Weggemans, 2014), the role of globalisation in the development of jihadism

(Hegghammer, 2010), the use of social media as a recruitment strategy (Klausen, 2015), the dimensions through which Foreign Fighters contribute to the jihadi cause in the field (Bakke, 2014) and their position and designation within legal frameworks (Kraehenmann, 2014). However, few scholars have explicitly studied the _{​return​ of foreign terrorist} fighters. This may be explained by the novelty of the issue, yet initial reports concerning the return of foreign fighters have been available for several years already. Another potential explanation is that primary resources are not always easy to locate or access, as this security issue is within the realm of politics of secrecy (Horn, 2011 ; Cilluffo, Cozzens, and Ranstorp, 2010: 3). However, the International Counter-Terrorism Center (ICCT), located in the Hague, have produced a series of high quality reports relating to this topic. Some examples include Entenmann et al., (2015), Ginkel, Paulussen and Entenmann (2016) and Mehra and Paulussen (2019), amongst others. As such, this thesis will strive to fill these voids: applying the lens of governmentality to study the return of Returning French Foreign Terrorist Fighters is a novel initiative and serves the purpose of filling empirical gaps in the literature.

2.4) The Strengths of a Governmentality Approach

The section above outlined the theoretical location of governmentality within CSS. Further, it summarised the state of the art of governmentality and RFTF literature, specifying the nature of the unique contribution this research project brings to these research fields. The following section will provide theoretical and practical justifications for the selection of a governmentality approach, while stressing the theoretical insights it enables and advantages it procures.

2.4.1) Governmentality: beyond Governance

The strength of governmentality studies in relation to governance is that governmentality enables an understanding of the underlying conceptions that inform power. Indeed, governmentality theory is a lens that functions as a catalyst, revealing underlying power relations: how French government uses its governmental technologies to enforce its political rationalities, what the objectives of the State are, and the mechanisms through which they are embodied in practice. As formulated by Zanotti, governmentality can be used “as a methodology of inquiry on power’s contingent modalities and technologies” (Zanotti, 2013: 289). As such the use of governmentality, as opposed to governance, enables the thesis to study the knowledge and the logic that informs the power plays, not just how the power interacts (Miller and Rose, 1992: 177). In this sense, a

governmentality perspective goes beyond governance. Governance literature will still be used as a stepping stone, but a governmentality perspective enables further understanding of the mechanisms through which expertise, discourse and political rationalities interact and shape contemporary systems of governance.

Furthermore, governmentality has a wider applicability. Within the study of governance, power plays are often very specific to the context within which they unfold. However, underlying rationalities may be observed throughout other dimensions of the French system of governance. In this sense, the use of a governmentality perspective means that

the conclusions of the research may potentially be used as the basis for a comparative study with another dimension of French governance, which may reveal consistencies (or lack thereof) within the French system. In this sense, governmentality is more universalist than governance as “it provides a flexible and open-ended lens through which the minor tactics of governing are magnified” (Sokhi-Bulley, 2014).

2.4.2) Theoretical Perspectives

From a more theoretical perspective, foreign terrorist fighters represent a specific point of resistance to power relations as they are currently constituted within society. Foucault suggests a “way to go further toward a new economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point” (Foucault, 1982: 780). Concurrently, Walters encourages us, as political scientists, to “look for the cogs and wheels that turn in the opposite direction, grinding against the adjacent machinery” (Walters, 2012: 149). As such, academics encourage researchers to identify this type of phenomena, whereby there is resistance against governmental mechanisms or apparatuses. In practice, there hardly exists a more overt and unequivocal defiance of current power relations than jihadism. Foreign Terrorist Fighters represent an utter rejection of contemporary systems of

governance. This justifies the selection of returnees as a topic of study. More specifically, geographically speaking, the epicenter of this systemic resistance is France: this justifies the selection of France as a case study.

2.4.3) Practical Insights

In a practical sense, governmentality also has its advantages. While governmentality as a theoretical framework is not prescriptive in nature (Zanotti, 2013: 295), the return of foreign terrorist fighters is already a central concern within European Security Politics and any further comprehension of the processes involved with their return can be of value. It can also serve to spark further debate amongst researchers. As argued by

Walters, the governmentality approach can be used to “complicate political and intellectual space” (Walters, 2012: 149), and thereby serves a purpose through that faculty.

Further, the employment of governmentality as an analytical “toolbox” (Walters, 2012: 2 ; Garland, 2014: 366) to study French returnee policy is also appropriate as it recognises the liberal characteristics and mechanisms of the modern State (Foucault, 2007: 70). The neo-liberal mentality that characterises modern Western European States is characterised by a constant trade-off and balance between the freedom of the individual and security apparatuses of regulation and control of the State. Miller and Rose describe this relationship as “regulated freedom” (Miller and Rose, 1992: 174). The research is focused on the political rationalities and governmental technologies, which are the essence of the political calculations made to determine the extent of liberalism permitted by the State, in order to maintain fundamental apparatuses of security. A governmentality perspective is therefore an appropriate model of research as it is entrenched within the very premises and neo-liberal functionings that inform the French system of governance.

Finally, the use of governmentality applies an “old school” theory to a contemporary issue, namely the contemporary governance of returnees in France. As argued by Walters, “studies of governmentality could speak to our present not just through historical investigations - Foucault’s preferred strategy - but by tackling the present directly” (Walters, 2012: 48). In this sense, the use of governmentality theory is a classic approach to an original topic.

2.5) Conclusion

In conclusion, this chapter has served multiple purposes. First, it began by outlining the main conceptual components of governmentality theory (as formulated by Foucault) and how they relate to each other. Next, the chapter located governmentality within the

broader framework of Critical Security Studies before discussing the emergence and development of governmentality studies. Finally, the chapter made explicit the specific benefits and strengths associated with governmentality as an “analytical toolbox” (Garland, 2014: 366).

Chapter 3: Research Design

3.1) Introduction

The following chapter will outline the research design and identify the core

methodologies that the thesis will draw from and implement in order to conduct the research. This chapter aims to make clear the explicit choices that were made in the conduct of this research: the selected methodologies were deemed both the most effective and the most appropriate means of responding to the research question. The chapter will outline the reasoning that underpins the selection of these methods as a means of analysis by demonstrating the strengths they exhibit. The potential drawbacks of the

methodologies will also be acknowledged and discussed.

This chapter is structured as follows: the first section will elucidate the nature and the benefits of the specific research design of the thesis, namely a case study approach. The thesis identifies and analyses the single case study of France. The reasons that inform the selection of France as a case study are the exceptionalism of the French counter-terrorism system and the particular salience of the French case amongst Western European nations. On a more personal note, the author of this thesis is French, which facilitates the

procedure of research and data collection.

The second section will elucidate the core premises of qualitative analysis, explain the strengths and specific insights this type of analysis enables, before justifying the selection

of qualitative over quantitative analysis. Next, this section will establish the premises of critical discourse analysis and its usefulness for the present research. Finally, the ultimate section in this chapter will indicate what specific research material will be studied, the usefulness of these materials and their accessibility. In sum, this chapter aims to make explicit both how the research is designed and why it is designed as such.

3.2) Case Study Research

3.2.1) The selection of a Case Study Research Design

For the purposes of the thesis, it was deemed that a singular case-study approach was the most appropriate and effective research design. While all methodologies have their strengths and drawbacks, some are more appropriate in specific settings. Yin contributes significantly to the literature that aims to elucidate the rationales, benefits and drawbacks that underpin the utilisation of particular methods of research. His research is particularly focused on case study methodology (Yin, 2003 ; 2011 ; 2017). Yin presents a system as a means of identification of the most appropriate research design, depending on the nature of the research (Yin, 2003: 4). The system is a series of three questions: “(a) the type of research question posed, (b) the extent of control an investigator has over actual

behavioral events, and (c) the degree of focus on contemporary as opposed to historical events” (Yin, 2003: 4). Yin argues that the most appropriate research design emerges naturally depending on the researcher’s responses to these three interrogations. He argues that case study methodology is the most appropriate research design if (a) the question is formulated as aiming to understand processes of “how” and “why”, (b) the investigator has no control over actual behavioural events and (c) the focus of the research is more contemporary than historical (Yin, 2003: 4-9).

In practice, case study methodology “tries to illuminate a decision or set of decisions: why they were taken, how they were implemented, and with what result” (Schramm,

1971). This concurs with the objectives of the research, which aim to elaborate the specific dispositions of the French system of governance of RFTFs. As such, the purposes of case study methodology reflect the objectives of the research.

A single case study research design was also selected quite simply for reasons pertaining to accessibility and feasibility. In terms of feasibility, for the purposes of this research it was deemed excessive to conduct a large-scale comparative study. While the

phenomenon of RFTFs can be observed throughout most of Europe, the scope of the thesis is insufficient to engage within a holistic analysis on a European scale.

Nevertheless, the thesis will occasionally draw on the experiences of other countries as a means of emphasising the singularity of the French governmentality in relation to that of its neighbours. Moreover, the selection of a single case study was informed by the limited accessibility of relevant material. The study of governmental technologies and political rationalities within the realms of terrorism and counter-terrorism may be inhibited by the lack of public availability of relevant research material, as they relate to high levels of security. This makes it more difficult to conduct a comparative study.

3.2.2) Addressing Potential Limitations: the Issue of Generalisability The following section will address the drawbacks associated with case study methodology. Indeed, it has been argued that focusing on a singular case limits the purview of the research as the results of the analysis may not be generalisable to other cases or contexts (Hammersley, 2016: 546 ; Tellis, 1997: 2). However, the fact that the results of this research are not generalisable is a consequence of the very reason such a methodology was chosen: it enables the research to focus on a specific case and study it in depth, within the given context, in order to explain how it is and why it is as such. It serves as a means to conduct “an in depth study of a particular situation rather than a sweeping statistical survey” (Shuttleworth, 2008). As a result, the theoretical framework and case study methodology mean that the findings of the research are unique to France and the context within which they were studied. As such, they cannot be generalised.

However, they can serve as a basis for future enquiry: for instance, the case of Germany could be analysed within a similar theoretical framework, revealing power relations exerted by the German government, through their use of political rationalities and

governmental technologies in their governance of returnees. A subsequent comparison of the findings of this research with the findings of this prospective research of the German case may reveal similarities, or lack thereof. As such, this research alone is insufficient to argue that the findings may be generalised. However, should the findings of this research be compared with a like-minded analysis of a similar case, regularities may be observed.

3.3) Qualitative Analysis

Case study research designs may be premised within and analysed through both qualitative and quantitative channels. However, quantitative research is based on the assumption that knowledge is “pre-constructed” and “objective” (Yilmaz, 2013: 312-313). On the other hand, this thesis aims to clarify the role of expertise in

establishing particular worldviews because these worldviews are subsequently reflected in governance strategies. As such, "[q]ualitative case study methodology provides tools for researchers to study complex phenomena within their contexts" (Baxter and Jack, 2008: 544). While Baxter and Jack are referring to qualitative analysis within medical sciences, qualitative case study methodology in the realm of Critical Security Studies exhibits the same characteristics. It is premised within a constructivist understanding of reality (Kuper, Reeves and Levinson, 2008: 405), whereby phenomena are interlinked (complex), context-specific (Ospina, 2004: 2) and influenced by the specific nature of knowledge and expertise. As such, qualitative research also recognises the features of the increasingly globalised (and therefore inter-linked) world within which social phenomena occurs.

Recognising the influence and importance of context is crucial as it enables qualitative analysis to “gain an understanding of underlying reasons, opinions, and motivations. It

provides insights into the problem” (DeFranzo, 2011). This function is expressly aligned with the intentions of the research and because of this, qualitative analysis is more appropriate than quantitative for the purposes of this research. However, the term “qualitative analysis” is too broad. In fact, because it refers to an extensive scope of methodologies and can be applied to an incredibly diverse range of topics, the term “qualitative” lacks a consistent definitional premise (Yilmaz, 2011: 311). For the purposes of the thesis, the instrument of analysis must be made more explicit: the thesis will employ a methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis.

3.4) Critical Discourse Analysis

This thesis analyses a singular case study, and will draw on qualitative methods of

discourse analysis (DA) as a means to operationalise the analysis of the research material. Drawing from Gill (2000), this section will begin by identifying four central elements that characterise discourse analysis as a methodology. However, two of these four

elements will be emphasised more than the others. Following this, the section will narrow down the explicit type of discourse analysis that this thesis will employ, namely a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), and justify its use within the present research.

3.4.1) The premises of discourse analysis

Discourse analysis is a methodology that places particular emphasis on the role of linguistics and language in social life (Trappes-Lomax, 2004: 133). Gill notes that discourse analysis can be disaggregated into four central themes (2000: 174-176): “a concern with discourse itself; a view of language as constructive and constructed; an emphasis on discourse as a form of action; and a conviction of the rhetorical organisation of discourse” (Gill, 2000: 174). It is important to note that these themes share links and overlap: for instance, viewing language as constructed and constructive enables the use of language as a form of action. The thesis will view these “themes” more as “central

extent. Breaking discourse analysis down into these central themes will enable the

methodology to examine “the way knowledge is produced within different discourses and the performances, linguistic styles and rhetorical devices used in particular accounts” (Snape and Spencer, 2003: 12). To the extent that ontology is prioritised over

methodology (Salter and Mutlu, 2013: 15), the thesis will draw from each of these four themes to a degree. This reflects the “[m]ethodological flexibility” of discourse analysis, which is considered “one of the hallmarks of this critical community” (Salter and Mutlu, 2013: 2).

The first point of Gill’s definition (“a concern with discourse itself”) will be analysed here, as it essentially recognises the importance of discourse as a constitutive element of power relations and social reality. This is common to all methodologies of discourse analysis, as the premise of their existence is “the rejection of the realist notion that

language is simply a neutral means of reflecting or describing the world, and a conviction in the central importance of discourse in constructing social life” (Gill, 2000: 172). Recognising the importance of discourse in social-political life is crucial if a researcher aims to elucidate the nature of power relations and the reasons they are constituted as such (Huysmans, 2002: 49). Importantly, the first of the four central themes identified by Gill places emphasis on the perception of discourse as a constitutive element of reality. As such, the world does not objectively exist, whereby the aim of linguistics is to

describe it as best possible (Kuper, Reeves and Levinson, 2008: 405). Instead, the world only exists and comes into being through discursive practices. In this sense, the starting point is discourse itself, not an abstract and objective disposition of the world. Therefore discourse, just like governmentality, is active as it constructs the world we live in, as opposed to passively describing it (Gill, 2000: 175).

The fourth component of Gill’s themes is the analysis of discourse as a “rhetorical device” (Gill, 2000: 175). Rhetorical devices in particular are important for the purposes of the research, which seeks to identify the key political rationalities that are used,

implicitly but also explicitly, to inform and justify French returnee policy. This is the fourth theme that Gill identifies, and it is a key concept within the context of the research. Conceptualising discourse as having an inherently persuasive function (Gill, 2000: 176) is a crucial notion that will enable the thesis to explore the State’s use of discourse as “a form of action” (Gill, 2000: 174). This presents the State with the opportunity to

encourage particular worldviews or behaviours in the face of particular security issues. As such, conducting an analysis of the rhetoric that underpins State-led discourse will highlight elements that structure power relations. In order to achieve this, the thesis will draw more specifically from methods of Critical Discourse Analysis.

3.4.2) Critical Discourse Analysis

More specifically, this thesis will make use of Critical Discourse Analysis. As such, the objectives of this section are twofold: to explain the functioning of critical discourse analysis and to argue why its use is appropriate and effective within the context of the thesis.

Critical Discourse Analysis is a type of discourse analysis that is distinctive in its ability to focus on the relationship between discourse and power relations (Van Dijk, 1993: 249). Fairclough argues that “[c]ritical discourse analysis (CDA) brings the critical tradition of social analysis into language studies and contributes to critical social analysis a particular focus on discourse and on relations between discourse and other social elements (power relations, ideologies, institutions, social identities, and so forth)” (Fairclough, 2013: 9). As such, the use of critical discourse analysis as a method of analysis recognises the premises of biopower and how it is operationalised in practice, and enables the analysis to focus on these aspects of governance.

In the theoretical framework it was argued that political rationalities are formulated through the means of discourse and subsequently operationalised through the

the specific discursive formulation of political rationalities inform the way in which governmental technologies operate and how they are legitimised in the minds of the population. As such, because governmental technologies reflect political rationalities and political rationalities themselves are constructed through discursive means, conducting a critical discourse analysis of political rationalities provides insight into the strategy that underpins the specific dispositions of governmental technologies. In this sense,

conducting a critical discourse analysis is both an appropriate and effective tool in order to uncover the power relations embedded within the discursive construction of political rationalities (and ensuantly reflected in practice through governmental technologies).

Finally, Critical Discourse Analysis goes beyond discourse analysis because it analyses the underlying norms and justifications used. As the thesis is studying political

rationalities, it must grasp the moral and normative justifications that are communicated to the population by the State. It is therefore coherent to apply a methodology that is “particularly attentive to language as a strategic site of power struggles, and how it is used to “claim definitory hegemony or to impose a particular worldview” (Sgier, 2012: 1). As such, critical discourse analysis can be used to study how identity is constructed through discursive means (Gay and Salaman, 1992). This characteristic is crucial for the purposes of this research.

In sum, this section has demonstrated that discourse is a central element of socio-political existence: in many ways it defines the relationship between the population and the State (Foucault, 1971: 8). The role of discourse and discursive practices is central throughout social existence. It defines the way in which the population views reality, emphasising the role of knowledge and expertise in the formulation and the maintenance of power relations. Further, it is actively used by actors seeking to impose their worldview through persuasion (Gill, 2000: 175). And finally, it is also used in practice and serves explicit purposes in policy documents by constructing social reality. Consequently, a critical

discourse analysis approach is both appropriate to the object of research, and an effective manner of highlighting the elements of study that the thesis aims to investigate.

3.5) Research Material

Thus far, this chapter has made explicit the nature of the research design: a case study analysed through qualitative means, specifically a critical discourse analysis. The chapter also provided theoretical and practical justifications for the selection of these methods as a means of analysis. Finally, this section of the chapter will specify the material that the research design will be applied to and explain the choices that underpin the use of such research material.

3.5.1) Which sources and why?

The thesis aims to investigate how returnees are governed in France. As elucidated in the theoretical framework, governmentality theory posits an interactive relationship between knowledge and expertise, political rationalities and governmental technologies in the constitution of policy. Further, the political rationalities are communicated to the

population through discourse, establishing specific power relations. As noted by Zanotti, “[a]nalyses of governmentality explore the government beyond its institutional aspects and study how discursive dimensions of power are manifested in political imaginaries and political rationalities that guide praxis” (Zanotti, 2013: 288). As such, it follows that the research design should focus its attention on material in which the State discursively translates its political imaginaries through the means of political rationalities. Therefore, the research material focuses on these composites of governance: expertise, political rationalities and governmental technologies, while paying particular attention to the structure and the nature of power relations between population and State. As a general rule, these sources were selected because they are considered illustrative of French governmentality. The thesis will draw extensively from primary sources.

It is key to specify that many of the sources that will be listed below provide data that is relevant to multiple aspects of the analysis. For instance, the thesis will draw from the government’s official website (Government, 2017b), and the governmental website “stop-djihadisme” (Government, 2015). These online sources are a prime locus for communication between the State and the population, and in this sense they define political rationalities through discourse. However, sections of the official government’s website also provide insight into governmental technologies (Ministry of Education, 2015a ; Ministry of Education, 2015b). As such, some sources are relevant for multiple sections of the analysis.

In regards of the temporal framework, the primary research material is all bounded with the same temporal framework that defines the problem. As noted in the introduction chapter, the phenomenon of returnees became apparent towards the end of 2012 (Bakker, Entenmann and Paulussen, 2014: 12). Consequently, the primary sources that were selected as a means of conducting this study are embedded within a timeframe stretching from 2012 to the present.

Political Rationalities

The French State constitutes power relations with the population through the means of political rationalities, which are communicated through discourse. Consequently, the thesis will draw from a variety of sources that use discourse to establish or depict the relationship between the population and the State. For instance, this thesis will also draw from public speeches, which are considered a key source (Hollande, 2015). Public speeches, in their faculty of being prepared in advance and directed towards a specific audience, arguably constitute the most prominent source of discourse that constitutes political rationalities.

Further, the thesis will also draw from debates and speeches within the two chambers of France’s parliament. In accordance with the 33rd Article of the French Constitution,

debates within the Senate are available to the public, while summaries must be made publicly available online within 14 days (Senate, no date). Since 1996, the French Senate publishes online summaries of the debates that take place, which will be relevant to the research (Collomb, 2017). On the other hand, the debates within the National Assembly (Assemblée Nationale) also constitute a source for relevant research material (Cazeneuve, 2016 ; Le Roux, 2017 ; Valls, 2016). Although to a lesser degree, the thesis will also draw on officials’ interviews with the press (Le Drian, 2019 ; Le Figaro, 2019).

Knowledge and expertise

One of the objectives of this research is to reveal the nature and constitution of the French State’s knowledge and expertise relating to returnees within the French State. This will be particularly relevant in establishing the nature of the French State’s perceived threat of returnees. In order to do so, the thesis draws from primarily from two technical reports conducted by the Senate’s investigative committee (Senate, 2015 ; 2018a). These reports provide a valuable insight into expert understanding of the threat posed by returnees, which in turn inform the French State’s strategies of governance. The most important and relevant document is the report on “the organisation and the means of the State's services to face the evolving threat of terrorism after the fall of the Islamic State” (Senate, 3

2018a). As noted in the introduction, the fall of the Islamic State accelerates the return of foreign terrorist fighters. Consequently, this report to the French Senate pays particular attention to returnees, making the document explicitly relevant to the research.

The thesis will also draw from a second report produced by the Senate’s investigative committee, which was conducted in view of assessing the “organisation and the means to combat jihadist networks in France and in Europe” (Senate, 2015). The selection of these 4

reports is informed by their content, but also the nature of the data collection process: the

3 _{“Rapport fait au nom de la commission d’enquête sur l’organisation et les moyens des services}

de l’État pour faire face à l’évolution de la menace terroriste après la chute de l’État islamique” (Senate, 2018a).