Terrorism, and responses to terrorism, remain central problems for states and citizens alike in the post-9/11 twenty-first century. Despite the huge literature now generated on the subject, more has been written on definitions of terrorism, and on the causes behind it, than on whether it actually works. In this Lecture, Richard English attempts to assess the question, Does Terrorism Work?, as seen historically, and with an eye to closely-focused, first-hand research on the detailed ways in which terrorism has (and has not) worked in practice.
Richard English is Wardlaw Professor of Politics in the School of International Relations, and Director of the Handa Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), at the University of St Andrews. He was born in 1963 in Belfast, where he worked at Queen's University between 1989 and 2011. He is the author of seven books, including the award-winning studies Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003) and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006). His most recent book, Modern War: A Very Short Introduction, was published in 2013 by Oxford University Press. He is also the co-editor of a further five books and has published more than forty journal articles and book chapters. He is a frequent media commentator on terrorism and political violence, and on Irish politics and history, including work for the BBC, ITN, SKY NEWS, NPR, RTE, the Irish Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Newsweek and the Financial Times. His research has received funding from, among others, the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the Nuffield Foundation. In 2009 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) and a Member of the Royal Irish Academy (MRIA). In 2012, Pan Macmillan published an updated version of Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA, in which Richard English analyses recent developments, including the growth of Irish Dissident Republicanism.