Understanding and explaining terrorism: Expertise in practice

由于恐怖主义和反恐是国际关系和国内政治中非常重要的问题，恐怖主义专业知识是公共政策、媒体机构的刑事司法系统和其他领域的宝贵资产。拟议的研究将采用一种创新的混合方法，力求更深入地了解在塑造我们对恐怖主义的理解方面最具影响力的个人和机构。该项目还旨在开展重要的知识交流和与政策相关的工作，旨在开展以证据为基础的恐怖主义研究，并将其纳入政策和其他领域。这将通过各种“领导”活动进行，包括沙坑，研究静修和一个突出的“维基”网站和社交媒体的存在。它将衡量不同领域的不同恐怖主义专家的突出地位，包括学术界、媒体、互联网、刑事司法系统和政策界。它将试图解决这样的问题：为什么不同的专家在这些不同的领域或多或少地突出，以及是否存在真正的恐怖主义专业知识以及我们如何识别它。特别是，研究将分析法院、政府和媒体使用恐怖主义专家作为顾问的历史和体制发展，并将探讨其意识形态和体制起源和从属关系。此外，该研究还将调查为这些专家提供支持和资助的各种智库和私营研究机构，探讨其来源和资助机制，以及它们与其他智库和研究机构、政府、执法部门、情报部门和私营部门行动者的关系。调查结果将对寻求高质量恐怖主义专业知识的决策者、媒体和刑事司法专业人员以及企业和民间社会团体大有裨益。调查结果也将与一般公众有关，特别是那些受到反恐政策不成比例影响的社区，最明显的是在以证据为基础的专门知识评估方面，以及在让公共机构承担责任方面。

Because terrorism and counter-terrorism are highly significant issues in international relations and domestic politics, terrorism expertise is a valued asset in public policy, the criminal justice system in media institutions and other domains. Using an innovative, mixed method approach, the proposed study will seek to develop a deeper understanding of the individuals and institutions that have been most influential in shaping our understanding of terrorism. The project also aims to undertake significant knowledge exchange and policy related work that aims to work with evidence-based research on terrorism and to embed it in policy and other domains. This will be undertaken by a variety of 'leadership' activities including sandpits, research retreats and a prominent 'wiki' website and social media presence.It will measure the prominence of different terrorism experts in different domains, including academia, the media, the internet, the criminal justice system and the policy community. It will seek to address the question of why different experts are more or less prominent in these different domains and the question of whether there is such a thing as genuine expertise in terrorism and how we might identify it. In particular the research will analyse the historical and institutional development of the use of terrorism experts as consultants by courts, governments and the media and will explore their ideological and institutional origins and affiliations. In addition the research will investigate the various think-tanks and private research institutes which provide support and funding to these experts and explore their origins and funding regime, as well as their in relations to other think-tanks and research institutes, governments, law enforcement, intelligence services, and private sector actors.The findings will have significant benefits for policy makers, media and criminal justice professionals and businesses and civil society groups seeking high quality expertise on terrorism. The findings will also have a relevance for the general public - in particular those communities disproportionately affected by counter-terrorism policies, most obviously in terms of evidence based assessments of expertise and in terms of holding public institutions to account.