Abstract

This article seeks to examine whether there is a deliberate ignorance on the part of scholars over the possibility of state terrorism. According to Jackson, Smyth, and Gunning (2009: 78), academics who ignore the “possibility of state terrorism … as a field with academic and political authority … can be considered … conditions that … make state terrorism possible.” The argument will incorporate realism, with its focus on state-centric security, with liberalism, with its focus on human security, to identify which theoretical perspective best evaluates whether academics are deliberately ignoring the possibility of state terrorism. It will also draw on interviews conducted with a small group of academics, all specialists in the fields of security, international relations, and intelligence, during the spring of 2019, for the purpose of this research.

Highlights

  • The definition of state terrorism used for this paper is the use or threat of violence, intimidation or frightening by a state or their proxies towards a broader audience (Jackson, 2009)

  • Despite this, the available academic literature on state terrorism is dwarfed by the amount of academic literature on non-state terrorism (Monaghan and Prideaux, 2016)

  • Research regarding state terrorism that uses terrorism studies theories, concepts, and methods remains relatively rare and provides the grounds for this paper. If it is more dangerous than non-state terrorism, but lacks an adequate amount of literature, this implies that academics are ignoring the possibility that state terrorism exists

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Summary

Introduction

The definition of state terrorism used for this paper is the use or threat of violence, intimidation or frightening by a state or their proxies towards a broader audience (Jackson, 2009). Research regarding state terrorism that uses terrorism studies theories, concepts, and methods remains relatively rare and provides the grounds for this paper. If it is more dangerous than non-state terrorism, but lacks an adequate amount of literature, this implies that academics are ignoring the possibility that state terrorism exists. According to Jones and Smith (2009), Western democracies have ensured academics conducting research into the concept of state terrorism do not produce literature that could bring the legitimacy of the state into disrepute. To have academic literature that identified state terrorism within Western states would present hypocrisy to their leadership in democracy and human rights. AJoshua Wright is a Birmingham City University graduate, studying for a Masters in Security Studies

Whose security?
The literature on state terrorism
Deliberate ignorance?
The interviews
State terrorism
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