Description
This paper examines the terrorism trial as a site of resistance. Terrorism trials are conventionally thought of as settings in which the state re-asserts its authority over those charged with challenging its monopoly on violence. Yet, given the interactive and inherently political nature of terrorism proceedings, the courtroom also offers a space for defendants to further their political projects and continue their struggle over power with the sovereign nation. Whereas current conceptualisations of the courtroom acknowledge the presence of dynamics of liminality and the potential for failure of the political trial, they stop short of a nuanced and comprehensive theorisation of (the potential for) resistance by so-called terrorist actors. Drawing on the case studies of the Red Bridges in Italy and the Reichsbürger trials in Germany, we argue that paying closer attention to the organisational and ideological logics of the group in question as well as the socio-political contexts within which their trials are placed paints a more differentiated picture of the modalities of resistance in terrorism proceedings.
