What does Critical Terrorism Studies contribute to the study of Terrorism?
Aishling McMorrow1
Critical terrorism studies (CTS) emerged in 2007 in response to what was perceived to be a rather lacklustre
and naive study of terrorism by traditional or orthodox
scholars. Traditional literature has often been criticised
for a severe paucity of methodological rigour coupled
with a tendency to pander blindly to power relations produced by discourse(s) of terrorism. In this respect, CTS
enriches the study of terrorism through its interdisciplinary nature and the informed and sustained challenge
that it brings to the ruling ideas that manacle the scope
of terrorism studies.
Introduction
First, in this article, the contribution of critical terrorism studies (CTS)
to the study of terrorism will be described with reference to the implications of its epistemological commitments. This aspect of CTS will then
be linked to the essentiality of discourse analysis to this theory and how
the identification of discourse(s) liberates varying conceptions of terrorism. Subsequently, the ability of CTS to offer an alternative analytical
framew