Abstract: Terrorism is best understood as a form of armed propaganda: an effort to use deadly violence, against civilians, to attain political goals, by spreading fear. Over the last 150 years it has been used by a range of different groups, from the far-left to the radical right, nationalists, and religious extremist. One of the core elements of terrorism as a strategy is that terrorist groups usually see themselves as the weaker part in an asymmetric conflict, and therefore seek to provoke an overreaction from the state they attack. This talk analyses Hamas October 7th attacks in the context of terrorism as a strategy for state-building, and considers what lessons can be learned from comparative analysis.
Bio: Nick Sitter is Professor of Public Policy at CEU, Professor of Political Economy at BI Norwegian Business School, and a Research Associate at the LSE Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation. He holds a PhD, MSc and BSc (Econ) from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He works on security and conflict, energy policy, and democratic backsliding. He has published a number of articles on terrorism, nationalism and civil war, and the monograph Terrorismens Historie: Attentat og Terrorbekjempelse fra Bakunin til IS [A History of Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism], Dreyer 2017. Other recent books include A Liberal Actor in A Realist World: The EU Regulatory State and the Global Political Economy of Energy, OUP 2015 and Energy Union: Europe's New Liberal Mercantilism?, Palgrave 2017.
The lecture will take place on Monday, 27 November at 17.30 in the D-001 Tiered Room and will be streamed on Zoom.
Registration for both onsite and online participation is mandatory.