Historical Social Research Historische Sozialforschung

372 Pages·2013·2.17 MB·English

by  Macuser 3

Historical Social Research
The Official Journal
Cornel Zwierlein & Beatrice de Graaf (Eds.):
of QUANTUM and
Security and Conspiracy in History, 16th to 21st Century Historische Sozialforschung
INTERQUANT
This Special Issue combines both of the recently emerging fields –
conspiracy and security history – for the first time by asking how
we can conceive their parallel history from the Renaissance to the
present. The new situation of international and national security re-
gimes after the Cold War has not only placed security studies at the
top of the Political Science agenda, but is also currently causing the
emergence of a new field of security history. Likewise, Conspiracies
and Conspiracy Theories have found a new great interest in the post-
Cold War constellation, particularly following 9/11. There has been
hitherto no attempt to conceptualize the development of Security
and Conspiracy in a longue durée perspective. Remaining sensitive
to the ancient and medieval forerunners, we nevertheless assume
that both fully developed conspiracy theories and ‘security’ as a lea-
ding political aim are phenomena mainly found in modern history.
Both can be treated as dispositives in a Foucauldian sense which y
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challenge each other – real or imagined conspiracies are threats to a
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the security of the state or the commonwealth. Both Security and pi
s
Conspiracy need to be carefully historicized. n
o
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This Special Issue offers a sketch of the supposed development of
d
the combined dispositives throughout modern history in addition n
a
to a theoretical approach. The contributions combine case studies
y
and methodological reflections from the Renaissance to 9/11 with a it
r
majority concerning the ‘high’ and ‘late modern’ periods since 1880. u
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International pioneers, as well as young researchers in the field of e
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conspiracy and security history, have contributed.
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Special Issue:

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Security and Conspiracy

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ol. HSR Vol. 38
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ISSN 2013
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0172-6404 H No. 1
The Journal: Scope & Imprint
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Historical Social Research
Historische Sozialforschung

Special Issue
Beatrice de Graaf & Cornel Zwierlein (Eds.)
Security and Conspiracy in History,
16th to 21st Century
Mixed Issue
Articles
No. 143
HSR Vol. 38 (2013) 1
The Journal: Editorial Board

Editors

Heinrich Best (Jena), Wilhelm H. Schröder (Cologne)

Co-operating Editors

Nina Baur (Berlin), Onno Boonstra (Nijmegen), Joanna Bornat (Milton Keynes), Franz
Breuer (Münster), Leen Breure (Utrecht), Christoph Classen (Potsdam), Jürgen Danyel
(Potsdam), Bert De Munck (Antwerp), Rainer Diaz-Bone (Lucerne), Claude Didry
(Paris), Claude Diebolt (Strasbourg), Peter Doorn (Amsterdam), Georg Fertig
(Halle), Gudrun Gersmann (Cologne), Karen Hagemann (Chapel Hill, NC), M.
Michaela Hampf (Berlin), Rüdiger Hohls (Berlin), Jason Hughes (London), Ralph
Jessen (Cologne), Claire Judde de Larivière (Toulouse), Hans Jørgen Marker (Gothen-
burg), Johannes Marx (Bamberg), Rainer Metz (Cologne), Günter Mey (Berlin), Jürgen
Mittag (Cologne), Katja Mruck (Berlin), Dieter Ohr (Berlin), Thomas Rahlf (Cologne),
Kai Ruffing (Marburg), Kevin Schürer (Leicester), Jürgen Sensch (Cologne), Manfred
Thaller (Cologne), Helmut Thome (Halle), Paul W. Thurner (Munich), Roland
Wenzlhuemer (Heidelberg)

Consulting Editors

Erik W. Austin (Ann Arbor), Francesca Bocchi (Bologna), Leonid Borodkin (Moscow),
Gerhard Botz (Vienna), Christiane Eisenberg (Berlin), Josef Ehmer (Vienna), Richard J.
Evans (Cambridge), Jürgen W. Falter (Mainz), Harvey J. Graff (Columbus, OH), Arthur
E. Imhof (Berlin), Konrad H. Jarausch (Chapel Hill, NC), Eric A. Johnson (Mt. Pleasant,
MI), Hartmut Kaelble (Berlin), Hans Mathias Kepplinger (Mainz), Jürgen Kocka (Ber-
lin), John Komlos (Munich), Jean-Paul Lehners (Luxembourg), Jan Oldervoll (Bergen),
Eva Österberg (Lund), Janice Reiff (Los Angeles), Ernesto A. Ruiz (Florianopolis),
Martin Sabrow (Potsdam), Rick Trainor (Glasgow), Louise Tilly (New York), Jürgen
Wilke (Mainz)

Special Editor

»Cliometrics«: Claude Diebolt (Strasbourg)
CONTENTS

Special Issue: Security and Conspiracy in History, 16th to 21st Century

Introduction
Cornel Zwierlein & Beatrice de Graaf 7
Security and Conspiracy in Modern History.

I. General and Interdisciplinary Approaches, Early Modern Foundations
Beatrice de Graaf & Cornel Zwierlein 46
Historicizing Security – Entering the Conspiracy Dispositive.

Cornel Zwierlein 65
Security Politics and Conspiracy Theories in the Emerging European State
System (15th/16th c.).

Karl Härter 96
Security and Cross-Border Political Crime: The Formation of Transnational
Security Regimes in 18th and 19th Century Europe.

Geoffrey Cubitt 107
Conspiracism, Secrecy and Security in Restoration France: Denouncing the
Jesuit Menace.

John T. Hamilton 129
Conspiracy, Security, and Human Care in Donnersmarck’s Leben der Anderen.

II. Case Studies Late 19th to 21st Century
Beatrice de Graaf 142
The Black International Conspiracy as Security Dispositive in the
Netherlands, 1880-1900.

Constant Willem Hijzen 166
The Perpetual Adversary. How Dutch Security Services Perceived
Communism (1918-1989).

Ondrej Ditrych 200
‘International Terrorism’ as Conspiracy: Debating Terrorism in the League
of Nations.

Susanne Keesman 211
The Communist Menace in Finsterwolde: Conspiring against Local Authorities?
A Case Study on the Dutch Battle against Communism, 1945-1951.

HSR 38 (2013) 1 (cid:327) 3
Tobias Hof 232
The Moro Affair – Left-Wing Terrorism and Conspiracy in Italy in the
Late 1970s.

Jelle van Buuren 257
Holland’s Own Kennedy Affair. Conspiracy Theories on the Murder of
Pim Fortuyn.

Liesbeth van der Heide 286
Cherry-Picked Intelligence. The Weapons of Mass Destruction Dispositive
as a Legitimation for National Security in the Post 9/11 Age.

Mixed Issue: Articles

Tobias A. Jopp 311
On the Historical Roots of the Modern Welfare State: The Knappschaft
Statistics of 1861 to 1920 as a Source for Quantitative Historical Social
Research.

Kitae Sohn 339
The Living Arrangements of U.S. Teachers, 1860-1910.

HSR 38 (20 13) 1 (cid:327) 4
Historical Social Research
Historische Sozialforschung

Special Issue
Cornel Zwierlein & Beatrice de Graaf (Eds.)
Security and Conspiracy in History,
16th to 21st Century
No. 143
HSR Vol. 38 (2013) 1

Security and Conspiracy in Modern History
Cornel Zwierlein & Beatrice de Graaf ∗
Abstract: »Sicherheit und Verschwörung in der Neuzeit«. Security History is a
new field in historical research. Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories have at-
tracted since some years great attention, both in historical and in social re-
search. A thorough study of those both opposed and mirroring key phenomena
and concepts does not exist. This contribution tries to outline a sketch of the
development of their interwoven history, how (imagined) conspiracies chal-
lenged new means of security production and vice versa. The main assumption
is that a) a translocal public sphere, b) concepts, practices and means of institu-
tionalized security production, and c) developed narratives that contain con-
spiracy theories only emerge together from the Renaissance onwards. Only if
there is a public sphere in which conspiracy theories can circulate anonymously
they become themselves an element of historical agency. Security as a leading
principle of politics emerges only with the development of the state. The con-
tribution outlines the steps of change from confessional age to Enlightenment,
to the Revolutionary age and to Modernity, identifying mainly two important
systematic changings which affect the security/conspiracy combination (Emer-
gence of observability alongside the politics/religion and Ancien Ré-
gime/Bourgeois Society distinctions). It finally asks if there is currently happen-
ing a third epochal shift of comparable importance.
Keywords: security, security history, conspiracy, conspiracy theory, communica-
tion history, information public sphere, Antichrist, confessional age, Renais-
sance, Enlightenment, revolution, Modernity, late Modernity, theory of epochs.
1. Introduction
Conspiracy theories circulating widely beyond local face-to-face communities,
concerning unclear, hidden but powerful threats to the security of the state, its
citizens or a community are a modern phenomenon in Europe. It is modern
because the constellation combining a) a translocal public sphere, b) concepts,
practices and means of institutionalized security production, and c) developed

∗
Note on this text: Main draft by Cornel Zwierlein, important additions and suggestions by
Beatrice de Graaf, mainly in Sections 2.4, 3.1, 3.2.
Cornel Zwierlein, Fakultät für Geschichtswissenschaften, Historisches Institut, Ruhr-
Universität Bochum, Universitätsstr. 150, 44801 Bochum, Germany; [email protected].
Beatrice de Graaf, Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Leiden University, P.O. Box
13228/2501 EE The Hague, Netherlands; [email protected].
Historical Social Research 38 (2013) 1, 7-45 (cid:327)© GESIS
narratives that contain conspiracy theories only emerges together from the
Renaissance onwards. Ancient times perhaps knew of such circulating texts,
but what has been transmitted to us are only public orations denouncing con-
spiracies and historical writings that describe conspiracies and rumors about
them circulating in society. This HSR Special Issue starts with that statement
about a historical specificity of the combined phenomena of conspiracy and
security and thus it embeds them in a wider context of a renewed Security
History. Being sensitive to the constructive and conditioning power of lan-
guage, semantics and narration in a narrower sense, and communication and
media support in a broader, it is also the conviction of the editors – shared in
nearly all of the contributions – that the history of security and conspiracy can
best be understood by carefully looking from a triangular perspective: Means
of security production, state institutions, and certainly the public where both
security discourses and conspiracy narratives circulate, obey the historical
conditions of communication devices. There is, to our knowledge, no attempt
hitherto in historical and social research to bind together the opponents of secu-
rity and conspiracy in this way, attempting to give an outline of their develop-
ment in modern history.
Security History is experiencing its take off these days. Regarding the field
of internal security and policing, the 19th century already saw the rise and
consolidation of an academic and professional discipline – but there was never
a ‘security history’ linked to it. On an international plane, security studies only
emerged in the 1940s, when Political Sciences and International Relations were
developed as a distinct field of research and education in the U.S. Since then,
security studies are an inter-disciplinary field of expertise for military strategy,
politics, foreign affairs and coordination of military and non-military tools of
defense that has been established as a subdiscipline of academic International
Relations (Wæver 2010; Zwierlein 2012; De Graaf and Zwierlein 2013). As
that field is strongly connected to politics itself, this development clearly has its
roots in the changing perceptions of the field of security politics: international
and domestic aspects of security became entangled through the coining of the
term “social security” during the Roosevelt administration. This marked not
only a shift in notions but also in content. In the post World War II period, a
series of new notions of national and international security followed one anoth-
er (“national security” itself, “extended security”, “common security”, “global
security”, “cooperative security” and “comprehensive security”, cf. Zwierlein
and Graf 2010). From the 1970s onwards, sociology and philosophy both de-
veloped branches of “security sociology” (Kaufmann 1973). But in historical
sciences, no corresponding field existed; only very recently can we recognize a
claim for establishing such a field in historical research.
Conspiracies and conspiracy theories are not generally, or at least not com-
monly, directly opposite terms to “security” like for example “threat” or “risk”.
But they are one possible threat in a given community or institutional frame-
HSR 38 (2013) 1 (cid:327) 8