State terrorism: are academics deliberately ignoring it?

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.