Tag: terrorism

Counterterrorism in the absence of terror on home soil: Everyday practices of policing in Ghana

The unexpected and catastrophic nature of terrorist attacks has called for the implementation of precautionary measures aimed at combating the threat of future attacks. Across the globe, this has given rise to the proliferation and circulation of counterterrorism measures and models – also in countries that have not experienced terrorist attacks on home soil. This… Read more »

Time will tell – Defining violence in terrorism court cases

Counter-terrorism measures are characterized by pre-emptive logics: suspicious behavior must be detected and captured before it materializes into terrorist attacks. Terrorist networks need to be mapped and surveilled to prevent the moving of funds or weapons. Through increased regulations, these pre-emptive dynamics increasingly find their ways to the domestic judicial systems in Europe. One concrete… Read more »

Book review: Encountering extremism. Theoretical issues and local challenges

by Alice Martini, Kieran Ford and Richard Jackson (Eds) Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2020. 328 pp. ISBN: 978-1-5261-3660-2. What is the difference between terrorism and extremism? The book Encountering extremism. Theoretical issues and local challenges, edited by Alice Martini, Kieran Ford and Richard Jackson, jumps in this debate by charting the linguistic shift from terrorism… Read more »

Book review: Disordered Violence: How Race, Gender, and Heteronormativity Structure Terrorism

by Caron Gentry. Edinburgh University Press, p. 216. Hardback: 9781474424806 The best question I have been asked about my work was ‘if you were to use this text to teach, what would you like to students to learn?’. This is a useful question for establishing your own argument but also for thinking about what you… Read more »

Rashomon in the Sahel: Conflict Dynamics of Security Regionalism

Between 2013 and 2017, as a Ph.D. student I devoted my efforts to the attempt of analyzing in a comparative way the American, the French, and the European security initiatives towards one of the most unstable and conflict-prone regions in Africa, namely the Sahel. Since the beginnings of the Malian crisis in 2012, the Sahel… Read more »

The War Against Vague Threats: The Redefinitions of Imminent Threat and their Impact on Anticipatory Use of Force in the “War on Terror”

In this research project, I explored how the United States (U.S.) has redefined the concept of ‘imminent threat’ to relax the rules for anticipatory use of armed force against insurgent groups. In particular, two new definitions of imminent threat have changed the conduct of specific combat activities: drone strikes and ground combat operations. In the first part of the… Read more »

Does terrorism work?

Does Terrorism Work? A History by Richard English. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. 368pp., £25.00 (h/b), ISBN 9780199607853 The renewed proliferation of terrorism studies that rapidly followed the 9/11 attacks has been well-documented, and the post-9/11 wave that is now nearly two decades old, has focused predominantly on an elusive, universally-accepted definition of terrorism. Efforts… Read more »