Securitisation and spaces of terrorism in Kenya’s National Police Service counterterrorism discourse

What is it about?

This article examines how Kenya's National Police Service online counterterrorism discourse constructs the county's northeastern and coastal counties as spaces of terrorism. The objective is to justify and legitimise the implementation of norm-violating counterterrorism measures in the two regions. As the country's principal counterterrorism agency, the National Police Service is examined as a securitising actor. Its targeted audience have accepted the contents of the speech acts thereby legitimising the discourse.

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Why is it important?

This article contributes a new normative and empirical perspective to the literature on Kenya's National Police Service counterterrorism measures. The way that security agencies respond to terrorism is to some extent determined by the way they construct perceived threats in their counterterrorism discourse. An examination of Kenya's National Police Service counterterrorism discourse is, therefore, vital on both theoretical and empirical grounds. The construction of existential threats in the discourse does not occur in a vacuum. There conditions that enable the construction to take place. These are the existing security threats arising from the political marginalisation and prevalence of terrorism in Kenya's coastal and northeastern regions.