Militant Speech About Terrorism in a Smart Militant Democracy

Abstract

When faced with terrorism, the state should be “militant” but, state action must recognize that terrorism often represents endemic reactions to modernity and late modernity. The “smart militant state” must therefore work out forms of militant reaction that become more or less permanent and must adopt forms that can be accommodated within fundamental values rather than displacing them even during a temporary period of “emergency.” Having thus set the scene for action by a “smart militant democracy,” it is intended in this paper to consider the performance by the United Kingdom state in the context of a classical dilemma facing a militant democracy. That context is the appropriate response to militant speech - speech that in some ways encourages extremist political violence, but which is delivered in a mode that avoids participation in violence or even the traditional inchoate crimes of incitement or solicitation. Just two responsive state measures of militancy will be selected for discussion in this paper. Both were enacted by the UK's Terrorism Act 2006, and both relate to indirect incitement and glorification of terrorism.

Keywords: Terrorism, freedom of expression, militant democracy

JEL Classification: K19, K42, N40