Critical Terrorism Studies emerged around 2007, in the context of the rapidly intensifying War on Terror. It was in this era that "terrorism" became a "growth industry" which generated a huge amount of academic research as well as social and political activity. Yet a yawning gap developed between the actual material threat posed by terrorists, and the level of investment and activity devoted to responding to this threat. Similarly, the quality of terrorism research was noticeably weak and lacking in methodological rigour. Critical Terrorism Studies set out to explore the exceptional treatment of political violence, to challenge the political manipulation of terrorism fears and increase in draconian anti-terrorism legislation, and to address some of the conceptual and methodological failings of terrorism research. In the 10 years since the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism was launched, that context and mission remains as important as ever. This volume looks back on the achievements and failures of Critical Terrorism Studies in this period, as well as collecting state of the art research into terrorism discourse, queerness and the War on Terror, the Prevent Strategy, epistemology in terrorism studies, state repression, the ambiguous ends of militant campaigns, the epistemology of preventative counterterrorism, and the question of non-violent responses to terror. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Critical Studies in Terrorism.

This book offers a wide-ranging and critical examination of recent counter-radicalisation policies, using case studies from several countries. Counter-radicalisation policies, such as the UK 'Prevent' strategy, have been highly controversial and increasingly criticised since their introduction. In this edited volume, voices from disciplines including sociology, political science, criminology and International Relations are brought together to address issues across the global roll-out of counter-radicalisation agendas. In so doing, the book critically interrogates: (i) the connections between counter-radicalisation and other governmental programmes and priorities relating to integration and community cohesion; (ii) the questionable dependence of counter-radicalisation initiatives on discourses and assumptions about race, risk and vulnerability to extremism; and, (iii) the limitations of existing counter-radicalisation machineries for addressing relatively new types of extremism including amongst 'right-wing' activists. Through examining these questions, the book draws on a range of contemporary case studies spanning from counter-radicalisation in the UK, Germany and Denmark, through to detailed analyses of specific preventative initiatives in Australia and the United States. Conceptually, the chapters engage with a range of critical approaches, including discourse theory, autoethnography and governmentality. This book will be of much interest to students of radicalisation, critical terrorism studies, counter-terrorism, sociology, security studies and IR in general.

Terrorism and neoliberalism are connected in multiple, complex, and often camouflaged ways. This book offers a critical exploration of some of the intersections between the two, drawing on a wide range of case studies from the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, and the European Union. Contributors to the book investigate the impact of neoliberal technologies and intellectual paradigms upon contemporary counterterrorism - where the neoliberal era frames counter-terrorism within an endless war against political uncertainty. Others resist the notion that a separation ever existed between neoliberalism and counter-terrorism. These contributions explore how counterterrorism is already itself an exercise of neoliberalism which practices a form of 'Class War on Terror'. Finally, other contributors investigate the representation of terrorism within contemporary cultural products such as video games, in order to explore the perpetuation of neoliberal and statist agendas. In doing all of this, the book situates post-9/11 counter-terrorism discourse and practice within much-needed historical contexts, including the evolution of capitalism and the state. Neoliberalism and Terror will be of great interest to readers within the fields of International Relations, Security Studies, Terrorism Studies, and beyond. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies on Terrorism.

Critical thinkers like Foucault, Benjamin, Derrida and Zizek have long challenged the liberal separation of violence and politics by highlighting the implicit violence within political and economic structures. But in an era of international terrorism and counter-terrorism, should we not also reverse the question to ask 'what is political about violence?' Using interviews with ex-militants from Italian leftist struggle of the 1970s and the Cypriot anti-colonial militancy of the 1950s, Heath-Kelly explores the political utility of violence. Studies of conflict and international politics rarely address how killing and injuring function to win wars or overturn regimes. But by rejecting conceptions of violence as a means-to-an-end found in the works of Clausewitz and Arendt, this book draws upon studies of pain to explore the ways in which armed struggle produces new political subjects and regimes, and discredits others, through experiences of violence. Using Elaine Scarry's conception of pain as 'world-destroying' and Walter Benjamin's delineation of violence as either lawmaking or law-preserving to frame ex-militant discussions of participation in armed struggle, the book contributes a pathbreaking empirical exploration of violence to international politics literatures - moving the study of political violence away from an understanding of violence as just a means-to-an-end. Drawing out insights that have a far wider resonance and significance for the analysis of the 'politicality' of political violence, this work will be of interest to students and scholars in areas such as international relations, security studies and international relations theory.

Terrorism and neoliberalism are connected in multiple, complex, and often camouflaged ways. This book offers a critical exploration of some of the intersections between the two, drawing on a wide range of case studies from the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, and the European Union. Contributors to the book investigate the impact of neoliberal technologies and intellectual paradigms upon contemporary counterterrorism - where the neoliberal era frames counter-terrorism within an endless war against political uncertainty. Others resist the notion that a separation ever existed between neoliberalism and counter-terrorism. These contributions explore how counterterrorism is already itself an exercise of neoliberalism which practices a form of 'Class War on Terror'. Finally, other contributors investigate the representation of terrorism within contemporary cultural products such as video games, in order to explore the perpetuation of neoliberal and statist agendas. In doing all of this, the book situates post-9/11 counter-terrorism discourse and practice within much-needed historical contexts, including the evolution of capitalism and the state. Neoliberalism and Terror will be of great interest to readers within the fields of International Relations, Security Studies, Terrorism Studies, and beyond. This book was originally published as a special issue of Critical Studies on Terrorism.

This book offers a wide-ranging and critical examination of recent counter-radicalisation policies, using case studies from several countries. Counter-radicalisation policies, such as the UK 'Prevent' strategy, have been highly controversial and increasingly criticised since their introduction. In this edited volume, voices from disciplines including sociology, political science, criminology and International Relations are brought together to address issues across the global roll-out of counter-radicalisation agendas. In so doing, the book critically interrogates: (i) the connections between counter-radicalisation and other governmental programmes and priorities relating to integration and community cohesion; (ii) the questionable dependence of counter-radicalisation initiatives on discourses and assumptions about race, risk and vulnerability to extremism; and, (iii) the limitations of existing counter-radicalisation machineries for addressing relatively new types of extremism including amongst 'right-wing' activists. Through examining these questions, the book draws on a range of contemporary case studies spanning from counter-radicalisation in the UK, Germany and Denmark, through to detailed analyses of specific preventative initiatives in Australia and the United States. Conceptually, the chapters engage with a range of critical approaches, including discourse theory, autoethnography and governmentality. This book will be of much interest to students of radicalisation, critical terrorism studies, counter-terrorism, sociology, security studies and IR in general.

Critical thinkers like Foucault, Benjamin, Derrida and Zizek have long challenged the liberal separation of violence and politics by highlighting the implicit violence within political and economic structures. But in an era of international terrorism and counter-terrorism, should we not also reverse the question to ask 'what is political about violence?' Using interviews with ex-militants from Italian leftist struggle of the 1970s and the Cypriot anti-colonial militancy of the 1950s, Heath-Kelly explores the political utility of violence. Studies of conflict and international politics rarely address how killing and injuring function to win wars or overturn regimes. But by rejecting conceptions of violence as a means-to-an-end found in the works of Clausewitz and Arendt, this book draws upon studies of pain to explore the ways in which armed struggle produces new political subjects and regimes, and discredits others, through experiences of violence. Using Elaine Scarry's conception of pain as 'world-destroying' and Walter Benjamin's delineation of violence as either lawmaking or law-preserving to frame ex-militant discussions of participation in armed struggle, the book contributes a pathbreaking empirical exploration of violence to international politics literatures - moving the study of political violence away from an understanding of violence as just a means-to-an-end. Drawing out insights that have a far wider resonance and significance for the analysis of the 'politicality' of political violence, this work will be of interest to students and scholars in areas such as international relations, security studies and international relations theory.

Critical Terrorism Studies emerged around 2007, in the context of the rapidly intensifying War on Terror. It was in this era that "terrorism" became a "growth industry" which generated a huge amount of academic research as well as social and political activity. Yet a yawning gap developed between the actual material threat posed by terrorists, and the level of investment and activity devoted to responding to this threat. Similarly, the quality of terrorism research was noticeably weak and lacking in methodological rigour. Critical Terrorism Studies set out to explore the exceptional treatment of political violence, to challenge the political manipulation of terrorism fears and increase in draconian anti-terrorism legislation, and to address some of the conceptual and methodological failings of terrorism research. In the 10 years since the journal Critical Studies on Terrorism was launched, that context and mission remains as important as ever. This volume looks back on the achievements and failures of Critical Terrorism Studies in this period, as well as collecting state of the art research into terrorism discourse, queerness and the War on Terror, the Prevent Strategy, epistemology in terrorism studies, state repression, the ambiguous ends of militant campaigns, the epistemology of preventative counterterrorism, and the question of non-violent responses to terror. The chapters originally published in a special issue in Critical Studies in Terrorism.

What does it mean to be 'vulnerable'? Exploring the rise of 'vulnerability' as an organising concept in migration detention, integration, public health, national security and social policy, this volume reveals the blurring of welfare state logics with national security ends. Governments and international agencies use the language of vulnerability to identify needy constituents and communities, but also to frame that need as potentially dangerous. Using international case studies this book shows how vulnerability governance permeates policy sectors - transforming the methods used to govern, problematise and resolve - bringing questions of risk management and security into social policy, but simultaneously brings social policy sectors into counterterrorism delivery. The combination of welfare state and security logics brings interventions deeper into societies, securitising communities and individuals on account of their needs, governing the social through security politics. -- .

The aim of this book - submitted as part of my Master's degree in Political Theory - is to examine the motivation behind the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, commencing with examinations of the positions taken in several prominent political theories concerning this issue. The theorists examined are Chalmers Johnson, Benjamin Barber, Mark Jurgensmeyer and Gilles Kepel. I shall also present a tripartite framework for Islamic fundamentalism, to model ideational developments within this sphere and to simplify the task of understanding the motivations of Islamist groups. I shall contend that Islamic fundamentalism actually consists of three distinct variants; bodies whose actions demonstrate distinct nationalised, regionalised and 'globalised' ambitions. The paradigm of 'globalised fundamentalism', to which I contend that Al Qaeda belong, developed along with 'regionalised fundamentalism' from the archetypal existence of 'nationalised fundamentalism'. I bring this understanding to bear on the deficits of the theories examined.

Making a bold intervention into critical security studies literature, this book explores the ontological relationship between mortality and security. It considers the mortality theories of Heidegger and Bauman alongside literature from the sociology of death, before undertaking a comparative exploration of the memorialisation of four prominent post-terrorist sites: the World Trade Centre in New York, the Bali bombsite, the London bombings and the Norwegian sites attacked by Anders Breivik. By interviewing the architects and designers of these reconstruction projects, the book shows that practices of memorialisation are a retrospective security endeavour - they conceal and re-narrate the traumatic incursion of death. Disaster recovery is replete with security practices that return mortality to its sublimated position and remove the disruption posed by mortality to political authority. The book will be of significant interest to academics and postgraduates working in the fields of critical security studies, memory studies and international politics. -- .