Critical Terrorism Studies

A special issue of Societies (ISSN 2075-4698).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 May 2017) | Viewed by 358

Special Issue Editor

Department of Sociology and Criminology, Saint Mary’s University, Canada

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) is a relatively new subset of terrorism studies, borne out of a collective concern over the shortcomings of traditional terrorism scholarship (Orthodox Terrorism Studies (OTS)). A few core academics founded the Critical Terrorism Studies Working Group and established the Journal of Critical Studies on Terrorism. Critical Terrorism Studies seeks to overcome several shortcomings of OTS. Firstly, that OTS, all too often, relies on secondary information and flawed data due to institutional limitations, bias, and funding directives. Secondly, OTS originates from security studies and counter-insurgency studies closely linked to government and military institutions. Unfortunately, this often results in “counterinsurgency masquerading as political science” (Schmid and Jongman, 1988: 182). Thirdly, is the practice of embedding in the “terrorism industry”. That is to say that many “terrorism experts” are too closely linked to, or employed by, government or military organisations. This continued close relationship results in a limited field of view in OTS that seems to perpetuate conservative views of terrorism and counter-insurgency. Fourth, the dominant knowledge in the field is founded on ‘problem solving theory’ (Gunning, 2007) that takes the issues at face value without ever asking critical questions about power and injustice (Cox, 1981). That is not to imply that CTS is without criticism, as Lutz (2010) points out, many of the concerns raised by CTS are represented in the existing orthodox literature. Rather Lutz (2010) urges CTS scholars to recognize the contributions of all scholars in the field as having merit as opposed to dividing them.

I would like to invite academics to submit works that explore CTS and CTS’s relationship with OTS in an effort to expand the scope of CTS and encourage mutual understandings between the two schools of work. These works should adhere to strict academic guidelines of originality and quality.

Dr. Ashley Carver
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Societies is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

References

Cox, R. W. (1981) ‘Social Forces, States and World Orders: Beyond International Relations Theory’ Millennium, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp.126–155.

Gunning, J. (2007) ‘A Case for Critical Terrorism Studies’ Government and Opposition, Vol. 42, No. 3 p. 363–393.

Lutz, J. (2011). A Critical View of Critical Terrorism Studies. Perspectives On Terrorism, 4(6). Retrieved from: http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/130.

Schmid, A. P., Jongman, A. J. (1988) Political terrorism: A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases, theories and literature New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.

Keywords

  • Critical Terrorism Studies
  • Orthodox Terrorism Studies
  • Counter-Terrorism
  • Terrorism
  • Socio-legal studies
  • Insurgency
  • Home Grown Terrorism
  • Lone Wolf Terrorism
  • Defining Terrorism

Published Papers

There is no accepted submissions to this special issue at this moment.
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