Lessons and Legacies of the War On Terror: From moral panic to permanent war

This volume examines the lessons and legacies of the US-led 'Global War on Terror', utilising the framework of a political 'moral panic'. The book explores the decade of the war on terror not as a fleeting over-reaction, but as the foundation of a new anti-democratic global order that transcends partisan politics and national borders. The US and its allies responded to the terrorist threat by constructing national insecurity, mirroring the apocalyptic worldview of religious terror. This misbegotten stance undermined democracy at home and abroad, sacrificing the West's comparative advantage of legitimacy, tolerance, and flexibility, and empowering autocratic security elites. The contributors explore how and why these policies have become permanent fixtures of the exercise of power, irrespective of the administration or party in power in the US, and the interrelated implications of a permanent war on terror at home and abroad. The volume examines the deeper social, cultural, and political drivers of the war on terror through the framework of a 'political moral panic'. Moral panics are exaggerated responses to inflated existential threats, namely threats to individuals viewed as aimed at a way of life, social norms and values, civilization, and even morality itself. As such, the war on terror exaggerated the strategic threat; defined 'the enemy' in ever-growing concentric circles; and responded with disproportionate force. More important, the moral panic over terrorism facilitated the revival and entrenchment of a broad range of repressive policies from the past with very little debate or dissent. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism studies, US foreign policy, American politics, and Security Studies and IR in general.