The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism

The Oxford Handbook of Terrorism systematically integrates the substantial body of scholarship on terrorism and counterterrorism before and after 9/11. In doing so, it introduces scholars and practitioners to state of the art approaches, methods, and issues in studying and teaching these vital phenomena. This Handbook goes further than most existing collections by giving structure and direction to the fast-growing but somewhat disjointed field of terrorism studies.

The volume locates terrorism within the wider spectrum of political violence instead of engaging in the widespread tendency towards treating terrorism as an exceptional act. Moreover, the volume makes a case for studying terrorism within its socio-historical context. Finally, the volume addresses the critique that the study of terrorism suffers from lack of theory by reviewing and extending the theoretical insights contributed by several fields - including political science, political economy, history, sociology, anthropology, criminology, law, geography, and psychology. In doing so, the volume showcases the analytical advancements and reflects on the challenges that remain since the emergence of the field in the early 1970s.

Erica Chenoweth is a Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School and, beginning in 2019, the Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. Foreign Policy magazine ranked her among the Top 100 Global Thinkers of 2013 for her work to advance the empirical study of civil resistance. Her book, Why Civil Resistance Works(Columbia University Press, 2011) with Maria J. Stephan, also won the 2013 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order. Chenoweth has authored or edited five books and dozens of articles on political violence and its alternatives. She earned a PhD and an MA from the University of Colorado and a BA from the University of Dayton.


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. He is the author of eight books, including the award-winning studies Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003) and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006). He 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, an Honorary Fellow of Keble College Oxford, and an Honorary Professor at the University of St Andrews.


Andreas Gofas is Associate Professor of International Relations at Panteion University of Athens and director of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism and European Security (CATES) at the European Law and Governance School. His publication include The Sage Handbook of the History, Philosophy, and Sociology of International Relations (co-edited with Inanna Hamati-Ataya and Nicholas Onuf, Sage, 2018), and The Role of Ideas in Political Analysis (co-edited wtih Colin Hay, Routledge, 2012).


Stathis N. Kalyvas is the Gladstone Professor of Government at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford and a fellow of All Souls College. Prior to his appointment at Oxford, he was the Arnold Wolfers Professor of Political Science at Yale University, where he also founded and headed the Program on Order, Conflict and Violence. His publications include Modern Greece: What Everyone Needs to Know (OUP, 2015), and The Logic of Violence in Civil War (CUP, 2006).