1. Preaching to the Converted: Parliament and the Ritual of Proscription
Lee Jarvis and Tim Legrand
Contact: Lee Jarvis, School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies
University of East Anglia
Paper presented to the The Epistemology of Counter-terrorism conference, University of Warwick, May 2017

2. Proscription in the UK
The Home Secretary has the power to proscribe an organisation:
If it commits or participates in acts of terrorism; prepares for, promotes or encourages terrorism; or is otherwise concerned in terrorism (Terrorism Act 2000)
Extended, in 2006, to include glorification offences
Proscription powers:
Render specific groups illegal within a particular territory
Criminalise support for, and membership, of proscribed groups
Trigger further crimes, e.g. soliciting support, uniforms
As of May 2017:
70 international terrorist organisations
14 in Northern Ireland
Nine new groups added since the start of 2015

3. Debating proscription
Academic debate on proscription:
Surprisingly limited
Prioritises questions of ethics and efficacy
Is proscription legitimate?
Does proscription work?
Often critical
Implications for citizenship, democracy, and security
Concentrated on outcomes, rather than processes
Our focus:
How are proscription decisions argued, justified, and performed?
27 UK Parliamentary debates, between October 2002 and August 2014
Approximately 150,000 words

4. Proscription debates tell us something about…
National identity formation:
‘like battling a hydra’ (Heath, 2006)
‘cowards like to target civilians’ (Hopkins, 2011)
‘We must ensure that we properly respect individual freedoms and liberties while providing collective security for the country as a whole’ (Brokenshire, 2013)
Review of International Studies, 2016
Security discourse:
Parliamentary questions as demands upon the executive to:
Justify, explain, clarify, elaborate, and defend its decision to ban organisations
Security Dialogue, 2017
Political ritual:
Symbolic power of proscription widely acknowledged – by critics and advocates
Proscription ‘sends out a strong signal’ (Blears, 2005)
Decisions made within discrete, self-contained debates

5. On ritual
‘Ritual action … follows highly standardized sequences and is often enacted at certain places and times…Ritual action is repetitive, and therefore, often redundant’
Kertzer, 1989: 9
Ritual includes ‘performance, formality, invariance’
Rappaport, 1999: 24
Rituals may ‘use a delineated and structured space…; a special periodicity…; restricted codes of communication; … distinct and specialized personnel’
Bell, 2011: 204-5
Political rituals:
Orchestrate, constitute, and sediment political reality

6. Orchestrating political reality
Fixed authority figures, time, place, and actors:
Established roles, stylized language
Core script:
Familiarity of debate: justifications, questions.
Large parts of proscription debates repeated verbatim:
‘The Government are determined to do all we can to minimise the threat from terrorism to the UK and our interests abroad. …We would therefore like to add the organisation XXX to the list of XX terrorist organisations, amending Schedule 2 to the Terrorism Act This is the XX proscription under the 2000 Act’.
Respect for the ritual:
‘An important power’ (Blears 2005); a ‘very serious matter’ (McNulty 2006)
‘it is not appropriate to have shouty debates across the Dispatch Box’ (Smith 2012)
Pre-determined outcome:
‘I reassure the Minister that the official Opposition will support the order’ (Grieve 2005)
‘There is a long tradition of cross-party co-operation on issues of national security, and the Opposition will support the Government’s motion’ (Johnson 2013)

7. Constituting political reality
Proscription's value:
‘there is not much doubt that [proscription] has great value in disrupting the activities of terrorist organisations’ (Bassam 2005)
‘a powerful signal of the government’s and society’s rejection of those organisations’ claims to legitimacy’ (Filkin 2002)
Proscription's legitimacy:
‘The decision to proscribe an organisation is not taken lightly. It entails building a case…over many weeks and months’ (Hanson 2010)
‘Decisions to proscribe are taken with great care by the Home Secretary, and it is right that the case for proscribing organisations must be approved by both Houses’ (Brokenshire 2013)

8. The proscription ritual
Varies little over time, or across political parties
Established patterns of behaviour
Identifiable roles
Predictable outcome
No division has ever been called; groups are always banned
Produces terrorist groups as meriting exclusion
And affirms Parliament’s right to make this decision
A performance:
of democracy
of sovereignty

9. Thanks for listening!
Related publications:
Jarvis, L. & Legrand, T. (Forthcoming) ‘Preaching to the Converted: Parliament and the Proscription Ritual’, Political Studies.
Jarvis, L. & Legrand, T. (2017) ‘‘I am somewhat puzzled’: Questions, audiences, and securitization in the proscription of terrorist organisations’, Security Dialogue 48(2):
Jarvis, L. & Legrand, T. (2016) ‘Legislating for Otherness: Proscription Powers and Parliamentary Discourse’, Review of International Studies 42(3):
Legrand, T. & Jarvis, L. (2014) ‘Enemies of the State: Proscription Powers and Their Use in the U.K.’, British Politics 9(4):
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