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，恐怖主义专门知识在公共政策、媒体机构和其他领域的刑事司法系统中是一项宝贵的资产。拟议的研究将采用一种创新的混合方法，力求加深对在塑造我们对恐怖主义的理解方面影响最大的个人和机构的了解。该项目还旨在开展重要的知识交流和与政策有关的工作，目的是与关于恐怖主义的循证研究合作，并将其纳入政策和其他领域。这将通过各种“领导力”活动进行，包括沙坑、研究务虚会和一个著名的“维基”网站和社交媒体。它将衡量不同恐怖主义专家在不同领域的突出程度，包括学术界、媒体、互联网、刑事司法系统和政策社区。它将寻求解决为什么不同的专家在这些不同的领域或多或少地突出的问题，以及是否存在恐怖主义方面的真正专门知识以及我们如何识别它的问题。特别是，这项研究将分析法院、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，并将探讨他们的思想和体制渊源和从属关系。此外，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人研究机构，并探索他们的来源和资助制度，以及他们与其他智库和研究机构、政府、执法部门、情报机构和私营部门参与者的关系。研究结果将对寻求高质量恐怖主义专业知识的政策制定者、媒体和刑事司法专业人员、企业和民间社会团体具有重大好处。调查结果也将与普通公众相关--特别是那些受到反恐政策不成比例影响的社区，最明显的是在基于证据的专门知识评估和追究公共机构责任方面。

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.