Dealing with the terrorist threat in Belgium: mapping counterterrorism through the Coordination Unit for Threat Assessment (CUTA)
Belgium has been subject to severe criticism following the November 2015 Paris attacks for its perceived laxity on terrorism and radicalization. However, since the terrorist attacks of 9/11 in the United States and even more after the Islamic State-related shooting at the Brussels Jewish Museum in May 2014, the regional and federal governments strengthened the judicial and legislative arsenal to fight terrorism. The result is a complex counterterrorist architecture with multiple actors and blurred responsibilities. The first goal of the research will be to map the involved actors and their respective duties. We will then analyze more precisely the position and functioning of the Coordination Unit for Threat Assessment (CUTA), entrusted to define the threat level. Drawing on the Paris School’s work, completed by an instruments-based approach, we will ask the following question: Who has a voice in Belgium’s counterterrorism architecture and how does CUTA tries to position itself in it? We will hence try to understand the power relations and influences between the professionals who construct security. A first part of the research will consist of analysing counterterrorist regulation and initiatives – through legislation, strategic documents and grey literature - to be able to map the Belgian counterterrorist field. As a second step, we will organize individual semi-directives interviews with CUTA’s members and members of its support services to unveil the relationships between those professionals and the strategies they develop to insure their position in the counterterrorist field.