This course is a study of terrorism – its causes and aims as well as its forms – and of counter-terrorism measures introduced by the international community and individual states. The course examines the implications of terrorism for international politics in the 21st century. Adopting a European perspective allows us to better understand the history, concept, and phenomenon of terrorism and the varied attempts to fight it.

Terrorism and counter-terrorism have been on everyone’s mind since 9/11. However, terrorism didn’t just appear out of the blue on that horrifying September day. Unfortunately, several European countries have a very long history of dealing with not only well known actors like IS and Al-Qaeda, but also with long established terrorist groups, e.g. Northern Ireland (IRA), Spain (ETA), Italy (Red Brigades) and Germany (Red Army Faction) as well as individual right-wing terrorism (Norway). This perspective will allow us to better understand what terrorism is, why terrorism occurs, how terrorists organize and operate, and what some of the consequences are of reacting in different ways to terrorism.