The Psychology of Terrorism

This new edition of John Horgan's critically acclaimed book is fully revised and updated and contains three new chapters.

The book presents a critical analysis of our existing knowledge and understanding of terrorist psychology, and in doing so, highlights the substantial shortcomings and limitations of the nature and direction of current research. In so doing, it presents a unique model of involvement and engagement in terrorism by considering it as a process and exploring three distinct phases of the making of a terrorist: becoming involved, remaining involved (or 'being' a terrorist), and leaving terrorism behind. Despite the ongoing search for a terrorist personality, the most insightful and evidence-based research to date not only illustrates the lack of any identifiable psychopathology in terrorists, but demonstrates how frighteningly 'normal' and unremarkable in psychological terms are those who engage in terrorist activity. By producing a clearer picture of the complex processes that impinge upon the individual terrorist, a different type of terrorist psychology emerges, one which has controversial implications for efforts at countering terrorism in today's world.

This new edition of The Psychology of Terrorism will be essential reading for students of terrorism and political violence, and counterterrorism studies, and recommended for forensic psychology, criminology, international security and IR in general.

John Horgan is Professor of Security Studies and director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, USA. He is co-editor of The Future of Terrorism (Cass 2000, with Max Taylor) and the Terrorism Studies Reader (Routledge 2011, with Kurt Braddock), and author of The Psychology of Terrorism (Routledge 2005), Walking Away from Terrorism (Routledge 2009) and, most recently, Divided We Stand: The Strategy and Psychology of Ireland’s Dissident Terrorists (2013).