Preaching to the Converted: Parliament and the Proscription Ritual

Date01 December 2017
AuthorTim Legrand,Lee Jarvis
DOI10.1177/0032321717694049
Published date01 December 2017
Subject MatterArticles
/tmp/tmp-187Z2LRyiHu4z8/input
694049PSX0010.1177/0032321717694049Political StudiesJarvis and Legrand
research-article2017
Article
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(4) 947 –965
Preaching to the
© The Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
Converted: Parliament
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321717694049
DOI: 10.1177/0032321717694049
journals.sagepub.com/home/psx
and the Proscription Ritual
Lee Jarvis1 and Tim Legrand2
Abstract
This article explores UK Parliamentary debate around the proscription – or banning – of terrorist
organisations. It argues that these debates are usefully conceptualised as a form of political ritual
organised around a core script, established participant roles, a shared respect for the performance
of democracy and a predictable outcome. Taking these ritualistic aspects seriously extends
research on proscription by highlighting the importance of the procedures through which such
organisations are produced as requiring exclusion from the UK’s body politic. The article therefore
makes three contributions. First, it provides a sustained empirical analysis of data from every
relevant UK Parliamentary debate on proscription between 2001 and 2014. Second, it moves
academic debate on proscription beyond questions of the power’s effectiveness and legitimacy.
And, third, it contributes to contemporary work on political ritual by offering a new heuristic for
the analysis thereof centred on four dimensions: orchestration, constitutivity, sedimentation and
performativity.
Keywords
ritual, Parliament, proscription, counter-terrorism, British politics
Accepted: 28 November 2016
Recent years have witnessed a belated burgeoning of interest among political scientists in
the ritualistic and ceremonial aspects of parliaments. For contributors to this research, it
is vital that we take seriously Parliament’s ‘symbolic dimensions of political action’
(Atkins and Finlayson, 2014: 15) to ‘trace the circulation of meanings, the particularity of
institutional cultures and the sedimentation of power in political institutions’ (Rai, 2010:
284). Rituals in parliamentary settings have profound importance in the constitution of
1School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK
2 National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT,
Australia
Corresponding author:
Tim Legrand, National Security College, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University,
Lennox Crossing, Canberra, ACT 0200, Australia.
Email: tim.legrand@anu.edu.au; tim.legrand@gmail.com

948
Political Studies 65 (4)
political realities within and beyond this rarified space, and attention to them is vital to
understand the subtle workings of contemporary political power:
In parliaments, rules and norms become in/visible through ceremony and ritual – mirroring
dominant social relations on the one hand and, on the other, almost through a sleight of hand,
making them disappear from view (Rai, 2010: 287).
This article contributes to this research by approaching UK Parliamentary debate on the
proscription of terrorist organisations as a specific form of political ritual. The power of
proscription, as demonstrated below, is a weighty one with consequences which include
the outlawing of organisations from a designated territory and the criminalisation of sup-
port for, and membership of, banned groups. As of December 2016, 71 ‘international
terrorist organisations’ are proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 in the UK, with a
further 14 organisations proscribed in Northern Ireland under previous legislation.1
The article argues that proscription offers an excellent opportunity for exploring the
workings and implications of parliamentary ritual for two reasons. First, the symbolic
importance of this power is widely acknowledged by advocates and critics alike. As Hazel
Blears (2005b) argued in a 2005 debate, proscription ‘sends out a strong signal … that the
UK rejects such organisations and their claims to legitimacy’. Second, efforts to extend
the UK’s list of proscribed groups take place within discrete, self-contained debates
which are heavily orchestrated and marked – among other things – by a core script, estab-
lished roles, a shared respect for the performance of democracy and a predictable out-
come. The bounded, formulaic nature of these renders this power a conceptually and
methodologically promising case through which to explore the operation of contempo-
rary political ritual.
The article begins with a brief introduction to proscription and its exercise, before
reviewing existing research on this power. Here, we point, first, to a surprising lack of
engagement with proscription in general – especially beyond legal scholarship – and,
second, to a concern with this power’s symbolic significance. Although sympathetic to
this latter insight, we argue that proscription’s symbolism is more widely invoked than
researched or theorised. Moreover, interest in this symbolism is far more frequently
directed to the outcome than the debate of proscription decisions.
To address these limitations, and to highlight the importance of parliamentary debate
around proscription decisions, a second section – Politics and Ritual – introduces socio-
logical and anthropological research on the role of ritual in modern society. Drawing on
this and its political science interlocutors, we present a theoretical framework for the
reading of political ritual organised around four dimensions: orchestration, constitutivity,
sedimentation and performativity. A third section – The Proscription Ritual – then applies
this framework to an empirical study of every proscription debate between 2002 and 2014
in the UK Parliament: 27 debates in total. Approaching these debates as ritual, we argue,
sheds light upon the following: the preclusion of dissent and inevitability of cross-party
consensus therein; the preservation and reinforcement of Parliament’s sovereign right to
delineate the parameters of legitimate political enterprise; and the importance of ritual for
the constitution of political reality, including the production of newly banned ‘terrorist’
organisations.
The article’s contribution is, therefore, threefold. First, it offers a detailed empirical
analysis of a significant body of original primary research material totalling approxi-
mately 148,500 words and stretching across three British governments. Second, it com-
plements existing scholarship on proscription which is limited in scope and primarily

Jarvis and Legrand
949
oriented around questions of effectiveness and legitimacy. Our emphasis on the constitu-
tive function of the proscription ritual here offers an alternative approach to the causal
logics underpinning these questions (‘how does proscription affect terrorist organisations
or liberal democracy’), and provides a far more engaged theorisation of the power’s sym-
bolic dimensions. Third, it contributes to contemporary work on political and parliamen-
tary ritual by developing a novel political ritual heuristic.
Proscription and Its Precursors
In the UK, Section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 empowers the Home Secretary to lay an
order before Parliament for the designation and proscription of a terrorist organisation.
The Act empowers the Home Secretary to determine, first, that an organisation is terror-
ist, insomuch as it:
commits or participates in acts of terrorism; prepares for terrorism; promotes or encourages
terrorism (including the unlawful glorification of terrorism); or is otherwise concerned in
terrorism (Section 3(5) of the Terrorism Act 2000).
Second – for organisations deemed to meet this determination – the Home Secretary
mas assess whether proscription is a proportionate course of action. To do so, she may
consider the following:
the nature and scale of an organisation’s activities; the specific threat that it poses to the UK; the
specific threat that it poses to British nationals overseas; the extent of the organisation’s presence
in the UK; and the need to support other members of the international community in the global
fight against terrorism (Explanatory Memorandum to the Terrorism Act 2000).
The Home Secretary’s order must acquire the assent of both Houses of Parliament before
it takes effect. Parliament may only accept or reject a proscription order in its entirety,
even if multiple organisations are included in an order, and no amendments are permitted.
Should organisations change their name to circumvent proscription, Section 3(6) of the
Act allows the Home Secretary to make an order treating the new name as an alias for the
group originally proscribed.
Proscription triggers a range of penalties for those subject to this power. For example,
it becomes a criminal offence to belong, or profess to belong, to a proscribed organisa-
tion; support, or solicit support, financial or otherwise for the organisation; support,
organise, or speak at meetings promoting the organisation; or wear or display symbols of
support. Proscription also prompts a range of supplementary powers allowing, for exam-
ple, agencies to deny entry to the UK, or to seize/freeze an organisation’s assets and/or
disrupt its online communications.
Importantly, proscription is not a modern conceit. The authority to banish an indi-
vidual or group from a designated territory or political community is a long-standing
feature of sovereign power. In...

To continue reading

Request your trial

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT