Three waves of critical terrorism studies: agenda-setting, elaboration, problematisation

The past twenty years have witnessed critical terrorism studies (CTS) become an increasingly influential body of work. In this article, I offer the first sustained effort to chart CTS’ development and transformation by positing three successive waves in its evolution. CTS’ first wave, I argue, was characterised by agenda-setting efforts to map the prospects of a distinctively critical approach to terrorism research. Second wave literature elaborated on this nascent project’s scope, strengthening and broadening its empirical, conceptual, and methodological ambitions. More recent third wave work seeks to problematise the underpinning assumptions and commitments of earlier CTS literature, especially in relation to its engagement with race and colonialism. Mapping CTS’ development in this way, I argue, offers three contributions to knowledge. First, it helps historicise CTS research by detailing the academic and wider contexts of its development. Second, it enables engagement with CTS’ pluralism, foregrounding the importance of internal disagreements for its past and future trajectories. And, third, it enables new reflection on the political and normative stakes of differing approaches to, and aspirations for, critical terrorism research.