Assessing the Academic Study of Counterterrorism Since 9/11 in Understanding and Preventing Terrorism

Abstract

This article assesses the strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in the discipline of counterterrorism studies since al-Qaeda’s catastrophic attacks against the United States on 9/11 along 10 dimensions: defining terrorism, group and lone actor typologies, causes of terrorism, terrorist psychologies, radicalization and recruitment, organizational dynamics, modus operandi, incident chronology databases, forecasting and predicting terrorism, and countering terrorism.