The Narratives of Europol on Terrorism: The Causal Layered Analysis of the European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports (TE-SAT)

Abstract

The thesis researches terrorism and counterterrorism because terrorism is falsely represented as something novel threat in the 21st century. Yet terrorism has always been and will continue to exist in the future. The study takes Critical Terrorism Study's (CTS) outlook towards an international police agency Europol, which aims to foster European-wide intelligence-led policing (ILP) solutions. However, terrorism does not have universal consensuses. Indeed, often, one's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Neither academics nor United Nations have unanimity regarding terrorism. Still, Europol has settled some understanding of terrorism in its yearly Terrorism Situation and Trend Reports (Te-sat). The reports do say nothing about the political and religious goals of terrorists, though they should be the essence of an academic terrorism definition. In ILP, an analyst proactively interprets a terrorist environment to produce an intelligence product so that a customer can impact the environment. By investigating the terrorism reports from Europol, the thesis yields four of Europol's overall narratives on terrorism. Secondly, the study dissects the worldviews and myths about terrorism that the interpretations of Europol depend on. Methodologically, the research adopts a case study as its research strategy, where document analysis by a sampling method led to select five terrorism reports to interpret them with causal layered analysis that is a narrative foresight method to unpack more profound stories from the future. The thesis will suggest paying more attention to emerging right-wing terrorism and giving practical recommendations on improving Europol's foresight work so it would not depoliticise terrorism.