As surveillance becomes an issue to primary concern to theorists working in the Social Sciences and the Humanities, a great deal of attention is paid to the programmes that are being implemented in order to expand the capability for surveillance and how the process of surveillance actually works.
The paper proposed will address the unspoken element in the expansion of government surveillance of populations; namely that the purpose of watching is the justified direction of violence against the population.  The argument will necessarily include an analysis of Closed Circuit Television as an element of the Foucauldian principle/process of governmentality.  Additionally, a re-evaluation of Max Weber’s assertion that the state maintains a monopoly on the use of violence as a condition to legitimacy would appear to be in order.  At first glance, and in light of the process applications of the CCTV camera, it would appear instead that the state maintains a monopoly on the determination of legitimacy in the use of violence.
It is hoped that the analysis will situate one of the more pervasive (at least from a UK perspective) forms of popular surveillance as a component of the exercise of violence over a population rather than a method of prevention.  The paper will outline the way in which violence against the individual is a necessary component of the process of governing and that the demonstration of legitimacy in that use of violence is a condition of the stability of a government.  CCTV operates as a mode of communication across time and through different elements of the surveillance process.  What becomes evident, however, is that the ethereal capture of the visual carried out by this camera is made manifest in the direct physical action of a government against ‘legitimate’ offenders amongst its own citizenry.  

---

Changing Logic of Political Violence – The Case of The PKK in Turkey After the Invasion of Iraq
Rasim Özgür Dönmez and Pinar Enneli
International Relations Department, and Sociology department, Abant İzzet Baysal University, Turkey

Terrorism and violence are sometimes used by perpetuators to gain political ground. It is also the fact that the way and the means of terrorism can be changed according to national and international political conditions. In this context, this paper will analyze dynamics, logic and rationality of political violence in the case of a separatist terrorist movement, PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in Turkey. It will be focused on the conditions, actions and changing styles of violence of the PKK in line with the changing conditions of the Middle East and political environment in Turkey. By doing this, it will show how the international, national and regional politics mingled into each other and affect the way of violence performed by a terrorist organization.
The PKK used violent actions in the 1980s and 90s to set up an independent Kurdish state. In that period, the organization was very well disciplined. However, after its leader Abdullah Öcalan was captured, the organization came to a point of breakdown. Some members left the organization and form up alternative movements. The rest divided into two parts: hardliners and soft liners.
At the same time, the military intervention of the US to Iraq created a new political environment. The PKK found a self haven in the Middle East and used American hostility towards Iran for its interests. It has also aspired to set up a pan-Kurdish state beyond Turkish boundaries. As a result, profound numbers of Iranian and Syrian Kurds start to join to the organization and begin to constitute the commander ranks.
All these developments force the PKK to change its strategies and perform different sorts of violence not only against civilians and Turkish military in rural areas but also civilians in cities.

Download Conference Paper -

---

The Impact of Counterterrorism and Strain on Palestinian Terrorism
Maya Beasley
Department of Sociology, University of Connecticut, USA

The majority of academic and policy studies on counterterrorism rely on what is termed “the terror stock model”.  According to this model, terrorist activity can be viewed as a product of a stock of terror: a combination of human, physical, and monetary resources needed to launch terrorist attacks. Consequently, countering terrorism is a matter of reducing the capacity of terrorist organizations to operate via direct assaults on terrorists themselves. The reality, however, is that the efficacy of direct forms of counterterrorism is dubious at best and may in fact increase the number of willing participants. Defining terrorism as a form of collective action, this article examines how various Israeli initiatives influence Palestinian acts of terrorism.  In particular, this paper investigates how the rate of suicide terror attempts is affected by violent, non-violent, and socioeconomic forms of repression by the Israeli government between 2000 and 2006 using a series of event-history analyses.  While directly addressing the efficacy of what the Israeli government willingly terms its methods of counterterrorism - violent repression of insurgents and terror suspects – it also explores the applicability of various social movement theories to exact a more accurate awareness of what activities actually incite or inhibit terrorism.   Specifically, it explores the impact of non-violent physical repression, such as the erection of the security wall, and impeding Israeli settlements, as well as the role of direct socioeconomic strain. 

---

Powerful, Educated and Immune from Justice: Contemporary Cambodian Vitrioleuses
Jane Welsh
Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA

This paper discusses the issue of acid attack violence in Cambodia: a brutal and cruel form of violence that involves the intentional throwing of corrosive acid onto another person with the intention of disfiguration.  In this country, attacks are predominantly perpetrated by women as a result of sexual jealously and crimes of passion.  Much of the current discourses and interventions in Cambodia are focused on the victims of these crimes by often labelling victims as Sangsars – mistresses to older, married men – who are blamed for their own attack.  Thus, perpetrators are largely ignored and remain free from prosecution.  With particular reference to the high-profile acid attack of Tat Marina by Khoun Sophal - the wife of a senior government official - this paper will also explore other factors that contribute to the impunity and disregard for Cambodian vitrioleuses.  Some of these structural, human and contextual factors include power, gender imbalance, inequality, corruption and traditional beliefs that find women incapable of perpetrating vicious, intentional violence.  This paper will be of particular interest to advocates and academics working on gender, human rights and disability issues.