Prevent What? Contemporary Issues in Terrorism and Counter-radicalization with Dr Ciaran Gillespie

Recent cases of mass violence and public protest raise questions about the definitions we have for terrorism in the UK.

This session will consider some areas of controversy such as the classification of the Southport killings, and the Palestine Action protests and prosecutions. These cases can illustrate both the definitional process, and the policy framing of terrorism to provide reflections on why it continues to be such a difficult phenomenon to cleanly describe.

We will briefly consider the government’s key counter-radicalisation strategy ‘Prevent’ and what it tells us about how competing rationales and lack of conceptual clarity generate new problems in pre-emptive policy responses.