De-recidivism, not de-radicalisation: Understanding the cognitive process among deradicalised Indonesian terrorist returnees
Against the looming public scepticism towards de-radicalisation, this paper argues for the reform of de-radicalisation programme from an effort to change terrorist’s worldview toward one that focuses on preventing terrorist recidivism. It contends that the lacklustre result of mainstream de-radica...
Introduction: Women, Gender, and Terrorism: Gendering Terrorism
The study of terrorism by a range of scholarly disciplines has enjoyed “explosive growth … in the past two decades” (LaFree & Freilich, 2017, p. 3) and has generated associated research in fields such as risk, global insecurity, securitization, and raised questions concerning increased sta...
Civilian-led counterterrorism and the carceral state in contemporary French film
In recent years, the French state has increasingly promoted a model of counterterrorism in which the state outsources responsibility for counterterrorism duties to individual citizens. This model frames such duties as a civic responsibility to be performed by all. Working in conjunction with a visio...
Poor, brainwashed and immature: prevalent gender stereotypes in Indonesian preventing violent extremism (PVE) and counterterrorism (CT) efforts
The root causes, nature and impact of Indonesian women’s involve ment in terrorism has yet to influence Indonesian Counter Terrorism (CT) and Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) policies. Through a feminist discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews with 28 Indonesian government represen...
The Tamil Proscriptions: Identities, Legitimacies, and Situated Practices
Conventional analyses of terrorism proscription rely on conceptions of policy in terms of bureaucratic institutions and processes functioning according to means-end rationality, and law as an institutionalised body of rules expressive of sovereign power. By contrast, this article argues that the wor...
Counter-Terrorism Strategic Communication Campaigns and the Generative Nature of Trust
This article examines how public-facing counterterrorism campaigns are strategically constructed and communicated, to try to signal trust, as part of their wider agenda to deter terrorist risks and threats. The empirical evidence includes frame analysis of the main messaging assets across three UK c...
To Call or Not to Call It Terrorism: Public Debate on Ideologically-motivated Acts of Violence in Finland, 1991–2015
This article looks at how domestic acts of ideologically-motivated violence have been treated in Finnish public discussion with a parti cular focus on how the word “terrorism” has and has not been used to characterize such incidents. The work demonstrates that Finnish public debate has, wit...
Terrorist learning in context – the case of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
It is astonishing how many researchers adopt a counterterrorism agenda and suggest researching terrorist learning in order to shape security countermeasures. Posing different questions would lead to different answers. One such question would be, “What makes terrorist learning different?” Terrori...
Introduction to Special Issue: The Practicalities and Complexities of (Regulating) Online Terrorist Content Moderation
According to the UK’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, “most terrorism arrestees are profoundly engaged in expressing and consuming violent and hateful material online, and that online encouragement can be troublingly effective at promoting violence in others.”1 This has also bee...
Combating the Terrorist Stigma: Communicating Rehabilitation and Reducing Barriers to Reintegration
Stigmatizing behavior and a lack of supportive behavior can act as a barrier to successfully reintegrating terrorist offenders, potentially resulting in reoffending. As such, there have been several efforts to understand how to build community support for reintegration of terrorist offenders, for ex...
Radicalization patterns and modes of attack planning and preparation among lone-actor terrorists: an exploratory analysis
This article explores the link between radicalization patterns and modes of attack planning and preparation among lone-actor terrorists. Building on theorized patterns of lone-actor radicalization, we discuss and compare their modes of pre-attack behavior, including target and weapon choice, observa...
Perceptions of Far-Right Extremist Violence as Terrorism: Exploring Influences on Public Perception in the United Kingdom
This article presents the results of an empirical inquiry into the complex dynamics of public perception of Far-Right Extremism (FRE). The instrument of data collection was an online questionnaire which produced a rich dataset comprising both quantitative and qualitative data. This study inves...
Editors’ introduction: neoliberalism and/as terror
The articles in this special issue are drawn from papers presented at a conference entitled “Neoliberalism and/as Terror”, held at the Nottingham Conference Centre at Nottingham Trent University by the Critical Terrorism Studies BISA Working Group (CSTWG) on 15–16 September 2014. The conferenc...
Terrorist Decision Making in the Context of Risk, Attack Planning, and Attack Commission
Terrorists from a wide array of ideological influences and organizational structures consider security and risk on a continuous and rational basis. The rationality of terrorism has been long noted of course but studies tended to focus on organizational reasoning behind the strategic turn toward viol...
Is camera surveillance an effective measure of counterterrorism?
Terrorist attacks are a serious threat for public security and are a challenge for both the private actors and public agencies involved in its provision.1 Recently, camera surveillance has gained prominence as a measure for counterterrorism, and public security agencies in many countries plan to inv...
Collection of forensic traces by the ADF during an order for Defence Force Assistance to the Civil Authority
The Australian Defence Force (ADF) can be called out to assist police during a domestic violence incident, including terrorism, hostage situation, widespread or significant violence. Pt IIIAAA of the Defence Act 1903 (Cth) governs the call out of Defence Force Assistance to the Civil Authority (coll...
A Common Psychology of Male Violence? Assessing the Effects of Misogyny on Intentions to Engage in Violent Extremism, Interpersonal Violence and Support for Violence against Women
The growing evidence base of risk factors for violent extremism demon strates overlaps with different types of gender-based violent behaviours, such as intimate partner violence, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. Each of these manifestations of violence are, to a varying extent, under pinne...
How does language influence the radicalisation process? A systematic review of research exploring online extremist communication and discussion
Contemporary research has highlighted the steady rise of individuals becoming radicalised via exposure to extremist discussion on the internet, with the ease of communication with other users that the internet provides playing a major role in the radicalisation process of these individuals. The aim ...
In-group and out-group identity construction in extremist discourse: a critical multimodal approach
ISIS has seemingly been successful in mobilizing advocates from heterogenous backgrounds. Such diversity is symptomatic of the organization’s heavy investment in strategic messaging and identity construction to gain legitimacy. This study examined the multimodal discursive properties of ISIS’s n...
Bringing politics back in: the introduction of the ‘performative power’ of counterterrorism
While it is sensible that governments and academics endeavour to assess the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies, this article argues that it is almost impossible to measure arithmetically the outcome of counterterrorism efforts for a variety of reasons. How ever, this does not mean that the...
Cognitive Distortions in Men Who Have Exited White Supremacist Groups
Despite reports of longterm cognitive and emotional difficulties after exiting right-wing extremist groups, the latter stages of the extremist group member’s trajectory have been given little attention.1 This paper argues that clinical psychological theory has been underutilised in terrorism and e...
Counter-radicalization, Islam and Laïcité: policed multiculturalism in France’s Banlieues
What is the impact of counter-radicalization policies on minority membership in France? Probably more than any country in Europe, in France, the question of terrorism and radicalization has been inseparable from that of the accommodation of the Muslim minority – a debate structured around the Fren...
Developing best practices “against terrorists who protest”: Regional organizations as learning clubs for autocracies
Regional organizations have long addressed cross-border challenges like environmental degradation and terrorism. While much of the existing literature analyzes how democratic regional organizations support democracy among members and aspirants, a growing body of research examines how authoritarian c...
Improving affected victims and community reintegration of former Boko Haram terrorist defectors in Nigeria: a community-informed participatory action research
Reintegrating defectors of terrorist groups into society is challenging due to community resistance and affected victims’ trauma. This article is the first to detail affected victims and community involvement in designing a trauma-informed cognitive behaviour therapy intervention to aid the reinte...
French normalisation of exceptional powers as a response to terrorism post-Paris attacks
This article explores the crystallisation of counterterrorism emer gency powers and the normalisation of the “exceptional” in the French context. It scrutinises the framing of the terrorist threat within political discourse in the aftermath of the attacks of 13 November 2015, to the enactme...
Disrupting Daesh: Measuring Takedown of Online Terrorist Material and Its Impacts
Governments worldwide are racing to implement a new wave of intrusive digital surveillance policies, driven by the ominous threat of cyberterrorism. The U.K. leads the charge with some of the most expansive surveillance laws in the democratic world. But does exposure to cyberterrorism actually foste...
Secondary school teachers’ and prevent practitioners’ conceptualisations of radicalisation in England and the impact of the prevent duty
https://doi.org/10.1080/17539153.2024.2370115
Exploring Youths’ Willingness to Engage with Civil Society and Public Sector Institutions: The Untapped Potential of Religious Communities in Preventing Violent Extremism
Research on preventing violent extremism is still in its infancy concerning the question of who the target audiences might be willing to talk to if they need help. To explore this question, we utilized the “Young in Oslo” dataset from 2015, where attitudes toward the use of violence were ex...
Conflicted colonialisms: multi-dimensional violence in the Western Sahel
In October 2020, French-language media overflowed with coverage of the release of Sophie Pétronin, the last French hostage held overseas. Pétronin, a 75-year-old humanitarian worker, had been kidnapped in northern Mali nearly four years earlier and returned to France as a Muslim convert who challe...
Experimenting with Threat: How Cyberterrorism Targeting Critical Infrastructure Influences Support for Surveillance Policies
Governments worldwide are racing to implement a new wave of intrusive digital surveillance policies, driven by the ominous threat of cyberterrorism. The U.K. leads the charge with some of the most expansive surveillance laws in the democratic world. But does exposure to cyberterrorism actually foste...
Preventing and countering violent extremism: the logics of women’s participation
Women’s participation in preventing and countering extremist violence is increasingly prioritised in international, regional and national policies on Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/ CVE), after the adoption of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2242 (2015). It is crucial to...
Automating Terror: The Role and Impact of Telegram Bots in the Islamic State’s Online Ecosystem
In this article, we use network science to explore the topology of the Islamic State’s “terrorist bot” network on the online social media platform Telegram, empirically identifying its connections to the Islamic State supporter-run groups and channels that operate across the platform, with whi...
They are from within us: CVE brokerage in Southcentral Somalia
This article explores how societal actors in Somalia take part in a transnational politics of countering/preventing violent extremism (CVE/PVE) through a political sociological approach to militarisation. We argue that the transnational politics of CVE represents an extension of global militarism by...
“Securing the state” in post-2011 Tunisia: performativity of the authoritarian neoliberal state
In this article, I adopt the theoretical lens of authoritarian neoliberalism coupled with the concept of performativity to analyse posttransition Tunisian counterterror politics. In doing so, I argue that “securing the state” from discursively constructed “threats” such as terrorism, politic...
Terrorist Financing and the Internet
While al Qaeda has used the Internet primarily to spread its propaganda and to rally new recruits, the terrorist group has also relied on the Internet for financing-related purposes. Other Islamist terrorist groups, including Hamas, Lashkar e-Taiba, and Hizballah have also made extensive use of the ...
Managing Violent Extremist Clients in Prison and Probation Services: A Scoping Review
The literature on terrorism and the rehabilitation of terrorists is growing continuously, but primary studies of high quality are still scarce. In many countries, the number of clients convicted of terrorist offences is increasing. As such, prison and probation services serve as important actors ...
Resilient non-radicalisers: beating the odds through non-radicalisation despite significant suffering
This study explores how and why some individuals are resilient to radicalisation by focusing on individuals who were labelled “terrorists” for their alleged involvement or support for an attempted coup that took place in Turkey on 15 July 2016, yet who have shown no sign of violent radicalisatio...
Threat Perception, Policy Diffusion, and the Logic of Terrorist Group Designation
Many governments maintain lists of terrorist groups, imposing sanctions on designated organizations. However, the logic behind designation remains unclear. Furthermore, most studies focus on Western countries. This paper develops arguments for why attack attributes, group attributes, and policy diff...
International Organisations and Terrorism: Multilateral Antiterrorism Efforts, 1960–1990
This article examines early antiterrorism negotiations within international organisations (IOs) and their outcomes. It assesses how international coop eration emerged in specialised, regional, and global IOs and provides a long- term overview from the 1960s until the late 1980s. Drawing on prima...
Return of the Lost Son: Disengagement and social reintegration of former terrorists in Indonesia
People involved in terrorism do not always survive as part of a group or fail to assimilate into society. Many former terrorists have returned to their community and even taken part in the deradicalization movement. (1) This study aims to find out: First, the background of the former terrorists’ i...
Masking and countering racialisation: Dutch counter radicalisation through policymakers’ eyes
This article explores the reflections and problematisations of Dutch Preventing and Countering radicalisation and Violent Extremism (P/ CVE) policymakers, focusing on racialisation and the masking thereof. It analyses their reflections on changing contexts, effects versus origins of policies, and th...
Who supports Jihadi foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq? Assessing the role of religion- and grievance-based explanations
This article explores public support for Jihadi foreign fighters, an area largely unexplored in existing literature, despite its relevance to counterterrorism. The study draws on two key theoretical perspectives: grievance-based explanations that propose support for militancy arises from perceived s...
Does Incapacitation Effectively Deter the Occurrence of Terror Attacks? Israel as a Case Study
While countries may differ considerably in their counter-terrorism strategies, there are some shared features across contexts, namely the use of incapacitation in the form of arrests, incarcerations, and sometimes killings of offenders. These counter-terrorism practices mirror those in anti-crime se...
An exploratory analysis of leakage warning behavior in lone-actor terrorists
Leakage is one of the eight warning behaviors referred to in the violence risk and threat assessment literature. Previous research has highlighted the relevance and prevalence of leakage in loneactor terrorists; however, a more detailed understanding of this phenomenon is lacking. This study sets ou...
The terror experts and the mainstream media: the expert nexus and its dominance in the news media
Academic writing on ‘terrorism’ and the availability to the mainstream media and policy-makers of terror ‘experts’ have increased exponentially since 11 September 2001. This paper examines the rise of terror expertise and its use in one particular public arena – the mainstream news media. ...
Visible Counterterrorism Measures in Urban Spaces—Fear-Inducing or Not?
Many scholars working within the tradition of critical studies are sceptical of the presence of visible security measures in urban spaces, arguing that they cause fear and facilitate the political control of citizens. A study carried out in Denmark in 2011 sought to capture, describe, and rank facto...
The construction of threats by intelligence agencies: analysing the language of official documents in Slovakia
Intelligence agencies play a prominent role in the production of knowledge about national security threats and their evaluation. This function is not just a value-neutral technical activity, but a social and political action. The purpose of this article is to explore the ways in which the Slovak Inf...
Theorising and illustrating plural policing models in countering armed banditry as hybrid terrorism in northwest Nigeria
Banditry constitutes about 40% of national insecurity in Nigeria. It is a composite crime manifesting in wanton killing, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, levying of illegal tax on farming communities, sexual violence and trafficking of arms and drugs. Through qualitative and quantitative rese...
Developing a geographically weighted complex systems model using open-source data to highlight locations vulnerable to becoming terrorist safe-havens
Adaptability and invisibility are hallmarks of modern terrorism, and keeping pace with its dynamic nature presents a serious challenge. Innovations in computer science have incorporated applied mathematics to develop a library of models that reflect a variety of approaches to counterterrorism ...
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