Talking Terror

Daniel Byman is a Professor and Senior Associate Dean at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Byman has served as a Professional Staff Member with both the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States (“The 9-11 Commission”) and the Joint 9/11 Inquiry Staff of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. He has also worked as the Research Director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation and as an analyst of the Middle East for the U.S. intelligence community. Dr. Byman has written widely on a range of topics related to terrorism, international security, and the Middle East. His publications have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, International Security, and numerous other scholarly, policy, and popular journalsHis books include Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge 2005) and A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (Oxford, 2011). His latest book is Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jihadist Movement: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford, 2015). Dr. Byman received his BA in religion from Amherst College and his Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research that influenced Daniel's career

Fouad Ajami (1986) The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon

Bruce Hoffman (1998) Inside Terrorism

Alan Cullinson (2004) Inside Al Qaeda's Hard Drive

Some of Daniel's key research

A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (2013)

Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the Global Jiahdist Movement (2015)

Deadly Connections: States that Sponsor Terrorism (2005)

Joel Busher is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations (CTPSR), Coventry University. His research examines, 1) the social ecology of political violence and anti-outsider politics, and 2) the implementation of counter-terrorism policy and its societal impacts.

His work centres on the micro- and meso-level processes of collective action – the rituals that shape and comprise our everyday lives; the cognitive and moral orders that we make, break and patch together again; and the emotional rules and rhythms of our lives – and how these give rise to, exacerbate or mitigate divisive social relations.

In his work on anti-minority mobilisations he addresses questions about how and why people become involved in anti-minority protest, and what sustains, energises or undermines such protests. His book, The Making of Anti-Muslim Protest: Grassroots Activism in the English Defence League (Routledge) was joint winner of the British Sociological Association’s Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, 2016. His other current research interests include: the processes of interactive escalation, non-escalation and de-escalation between movements, counter-movements and the state; the implementation of the Prevent duty in schools and colleges in England and Wales; and how Brexit is playing out in British ‘expat’ communities living in Spain.

Some research that has influenced Joel's career

Kathleen M. Blee (2012). Democracy inthe Making: How Activist Groups Form.

Deborah B. Gould (2009). MovingPolitics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS.

Roger Hewitt (2005). White Backlash and the Politics of Multiculturalism

Some of Joel's key research

What the Prevent duty means for schools and colleges in England: An analysis of educationalists’ experiences. With Tufyal Choudhury, Paul Thomas, P. and Gareth Harris (2017)

The Making of Anti-Muslim Protest: Grassroots Activism in the English Defence League. (2016)

Micro Moral Worlds of Contentious Politics: A Reconceptualization of Radical Groups and Their Intersections with One Another and the Mainstream. With John F. Morrison (In Press)

Daniela I. Pisoiu completed her PhD study at the University of St Andrews – School of International Relations and the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence on the topic of Islamist radicalisation processes in Germany, France and Austria and acted as tutor within the Certificate in Terrorism Studies Programme. Between 2005 and 2006 she was a Fulbright junior scholar at the University of Cincinnati, where she also carried out a research project on the integration and marginalisation of Muslim minorities in several European countries, having been awarded a graduate enrichment award from the Charles Phelps Taft Research Center. Before that she obtained a Diploma and Master degrees from the Diplomatic Academy and University of Vienna in the areas of EU Studies and International Relations. She also specialised in legal aspects of human and civil rights at the University of Geneva and the Babes-Bolyai University in Romania.

Research that Influenced Daniela:

Max Taylor The Terrorist

John Horgan The Psychology of Terrorism

Donatella Della Porta Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State

Daniela's Key Research:

Theories of Terrorism: An Introduction

Islamist Radicalisation in Europe: An Occupational Change Process

Subcultural Theory Applied to Jihadi and Right-Wing Radicalization in Germany

Donald Holbrook is a Visiting Fellow at ICCT. He became a lecturer at the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University, UK, in September 2016. Prior to that he was Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews, which he joined in 2008.

His research has focused mostly on beliefs, ideas, and media in the context of terrorism and political violence, especially on how terrorists interact with published media and social media and how this engagement has changed over time. He has published on a wide variety of topics relating to these themes, including a book, edited volumes, journal articles, as well as reports and other deliverables for counterterrorism practitioners and policymakers. He currently manages a large-scale research project dissecting ways in which individuals involved in terrorism use different types of media, developing case studies and thematic analyses of different ideological milieus (including far-right and Islamist extremism), different types of activity (including domestic terrorism and ‘foreign fighters’) and different organisational contexts (such as groups versus lone actors), as well as comparisons across sections.

Research that has influenced Donald:

Benford, R & Snow, D. (2000) ‘Framing Processes and Social Movements: An Overview and Assessment’ in Annual Review of Sociology (Vol. 26., pp. 611-639) à or indeed other material from them on collective action frames

Max Taylor & John Horgan (2006) ‘A Conceptual Framework for Addressing Psychological Process in the Development of the Terrorist’ Terrorism and Political Violence (18: 4).

Political Terrorism: A New Guide To Actors, Authors, Concepts, Data Bases, Theories, And Literature, Alex P. Schmid, Albert J. Jongman. 1988, Transaction Publishers à or other Schmid work on the essence of terrorism

Donald's Key Work:

The Al-Qaeda Doctrine: The Framing and Evolution of the Leadership’s Public Discourse (Bloomsbury, 2014) &

Al-Qaeda 2.0: A Critical Reader (Hurst, 2017)

I’d take these together as one is essentially a supplement to the other.

‘What Types of Media Do Terrorists Collect? An Analysis of Religious, Political, and Ideological Publications Found in Terrorism Investigations in the UK’, ICCT (September 2017)

‘Designing and Applying an ‘Extremist Media Index’, Perspectives on Terrorism (9:5, 2015)

Richard English is Professor of Politics at Queen's University Belfast, where he is also Distinguished Professorial Fellow in the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. During 20111-16 he was Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations, and Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of eight books, including Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003), Terrorism: How to Respond (2009), and Does Terrorism Work? A History (2016). He is a frequent media commentator on terrorism, and is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, and Honorary Fellow of Keble College Oxford, and an Honorary Professor at the university of St. Andrews.

Research that has influenced Richard's career

Martha Crenshaw (2011), Explaining Terrorism

Charles Townshend (1984), Political Violence in Ireland

Eric Hobsbawm (1997), On History

Some of Richard's key research

Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003)

Terrorism: How to Respond (2009)

Does Terrorism Work? A History (2016)

Richard Jackson is Professor of Peace Studies and Director of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Otago, New Zealand. He is known as one of the founding scholars of the field of Critical Terrorism Studies, and has published a number of books, articles and chapters on the critical study of terrorism. He is the founding editor and current editor-in-chief of the journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism, and his latest book is The Routledge Handbook of Critical Terrorism Studies (editor, Routledge, 2016). His current research focuses on nonviolent responses to terrorism.

Research that has influenced Richard's career

Joseba Zulaika and William Douglass (1996) Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism.

David Campbell (1998). Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity, Revised edition

Lisa Stampnitzky (2013). Disciplining Terror: How Experts Invented “Terrorism”

Some of Richard's key research

Writing on the War on Terrorism. (2005)

Constructing enemies: ‘Islamic Terrorism’ in Political and Academic Discourse. (2007)

The Epistemological Crisis of Counterterrorism. (2015)

Petter Nesser is a senior researcher at FFI’s Terrorism Research Group. He is trained in the areas of Social Science, Middle Eastern Studies and Arabic at the University of Oslo (UiO) and The American University in Cairo (AUC).

Dr Nesser has conducted extensive research on militant Islamism (jihadism) in Europe for more than a decade while focusing on motivational factors, recruitment and radicalization processes.

He has communicated research findings in Norway and internationally, through academic conferences, speeches before public sector and NGOs and the media.

April 10, 2018, was the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement. The Agreement is seen as the cornerstone of the existing peace in Northern Ireland.

Our friends in the Anthill podcast interviewed a number of experts about the Agreement, it's key actors, and where it stands today. Within this podcast they interviewed a range of experts on this topic, including the Talking Terror host John Morrison.

Noémie Bouhana is Senior Lecturer in Security and Crime Science at UCL, where she leads the Counter-Terrorism Research Group and convenes the MSc in Countering Organised Crime and Terrorism. She holds a BA in Political Studies from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of Lyon, an MA in Political Science from Université Jean Moulin Lyon III, and an MPhil and PhD in Criminology from the University of Cambridge. Most recently, Noémie led the €2.9M EU FP7 PRIME project, an international, multidisciplinary study on lone actor radicalisation and attack behaviour. At present, she is Principal Investigator of the $1M comparative study "The Social Ecology of Radicalisation", funded by the US DoD Minerva Initiative. She is also a co-Investigator on large grants funded by EU H2020 and CREST. Previous research was funded by DSTL, Home Office OSCT, MOD Counter-Terrorism Science and Technology Centre, EPSRC and NIJ. On the fundamental side, Noémie's work is concerned with the social ecological processes involved in the emergence and maintenance of radicalising settings (the "where" of radicalisation, as opposed to the "why"), the role that these settings play, through mechanisms of selection and exposure, in the development of an individual propensity for terrorism, as well as the mechanisms which underpin individual vulnerability to moral change. On the applied side, she is interested in the development of risk analysis instruments, which go beyond reliance on unstable risk factors and indicators. Her approach to the study of terrorism is informed chiefly by criminological, epidemiological and systemic thinking, which is reflected in the research that most influenced her to date.

Research that has influenced Noémie's career

Per-Olof H. Wikstrom and Robert J. Sampson (ed.) (2006). The Explanation of Crime: Context, Mechanisms and Development.

J.M. Mc Gloin, C.J. Sullivan and L.W. Kennedy (eds.) (2011). When Crime Appears: The Role of Emergence.

Sandro Galea, Matthew Riddle and George A Kaplan (2010). Causal thinking and complex system approaches in epidemiology.

Some of Noémie's key research

Al-Qaeda-Influenced Radicalisation. With Per-Olof H. Wikstrom (2011)

PRIME: A Lone Actor Extremism Risk Analysis Framework. With Amy Thornton, Emily Corner, Stefan Malthaner, Lasse Lindekilde, Bart Schuurman and Gali Perry (2017)

Preventing Radicalization in the UK: Expanding the Knowledge-Base on the Channel Programme. With Amy Thornton (2017)

Michael Boyle is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at La Salle University in Philadelphia. He was previously a Lecturer in International Relations and Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) at the University of St. Andrews. He is also an alumnus of the Political Science Department at La Salle.

His research interests are on terrorism and political violence, with particular reference to the strategic use of violence in insurgencies and civil wars. He has also published more broadly on security studies and American foreign policy. His writings have appeared in a range of scholarly journals and popular outlets, including regular columns for the Guardian (UK). His most recent book, Violence after War: Explaining Instability in Post-Conflict States, was published by Johns Hopkins University Press in March 2014.

Research That Influenced Michael's Career

Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism and the Liberal State (New York: NYU Press, 1977)

Charles Tilly, The Politics of Collective Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

Stathis Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Some of Michael's Key Research

Violence after War: Explaining Instability in Post-Conflict States (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014).

“The Costs and Consequences of Drone Warfare” International Affairs 89:1 (2013)

“Bargaining, Fear and Denial: Explaining Violence Against Civilians in Iraq 2004-2007,” Terrorism and Political Violence 21: 2 (2009), p. 261-287.