Terrorism Expertise Portal

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Welcome to the Terrorism Expertise Portal on Spinprofiles

Terrorism Expert Steve Emerson on Fox News

Welcome to the Terrorism Expertise Portal on Spinprofiles. It links to a wide range of organisations, think-tanks, academic research institutes, front groups and individual experts which shape the views of the public, policy makers and elites on 'terrorism' and political violence. An A-Z list of articles on both individuals and institutions is here.

The editor of the Terrorexpertise Portal is Tom Mills tom.mills AT spinprofiles.org.

Spinprofiles has a policy of strict referencing and is overseen by an Managing editor and a Sysop and several Associate Portal editors.

What is a Terrorism Expert?

As the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities puts it:

Academic terrorism 'experts' - or terrorologists - are deeply embedded in the elite power structure. They conveniently blur distinctions between political dissent, resistance to oppressive regimes, and violent threats to populations. These experts advise governments on counter-terrorism, thus sanitising Western state terror as legitimate techniques for self-defence. Where did these terrorologists come from? How do they gain influence and credibility? How can they be countered?'[1]

The Jewish American historian Joel Beinin comments that:

A new field of "terrorology" emerged, with its own journals, conferences, and research institutes. This popular and scholarly literature informed the discourse of the first American "war on terrorism" during the mid-1980s.Middle East Studies Association members, to our everlasting shame according to some pundits, did not participate much in the scholarly field of terrorology. In my view, there was great wisdom in this abstention. The terrorologists have not accomplished a great deal of practical or intellectual significance. Their studies have not noticeably decreased the incidence of acts of violence against civilians throughout the world. Nor have they enhanced our understanding of the causes of such acts. What they have done is to focus attention on tactics and symptoms, thereby impeding investigation into historical and social causes. This is an ostensibly pragmatic, but fundamentally misguided, approach to understanding terrorism. If the term is to be understood in any useful rather than propagandistic way, terrorism must be regarded as a social and historical phenomenon, not a moral or political epithet.[2].

What is a terrorist, and what is a terrorologist? See an introduction to the topic here.

Research

Methodology

Compilation Lists

Expert's Influence Lists

Institution's Influence Lists

Recent Articles on SpinWatch

Categories

All pages associated with the Terrorism Spin Portal are listed here.

There are also a number of distinct sub-categories listed below. You can click on any of these links to display an A-Z list of all pages in that category.

There are also a number of pages on Spinprofiles which specifically examine the terrorism research activities of particular institutions which are also involved in other research areas. The name of these pages is preceded by the phrase 'terrorexpertise:'. For example, there is a page on Spinprofiles on the U.S. think-tank the RAND Corporation, and a related page terrorexpertise:RAND Corporation examining RAND's terrorism related research.

New pages on Spinprofiles

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References and Resources

External links on Terrorology

Getting Started

Looking for somewhere to start?

To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit Spinprofiles:About, Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, A quick guide to editing or experiment in the sandbox.

Or contribute a new article: go to Quick Guide to Getting Started.

Research and Writing Tips

How to research front groups | Resources for studying propaganda | Research using the web

Can you help?

Spinprofiles can be made more effective if more people join the project. If you have research or writing skills or just spare time, you can help.

If you are unsure where to start, you could expand some of the recently created but currently very brief articles. (If you look at the recent changes page you will see some noted as being 'stubs' - articles that may just be a line or two and needing to be fleshed out). So if you would like to add to some of those you would be most welcome.

There is an automatically updated page which includes the pages which have been signalled by Spinprofiles users as most wanted. In addition there is a page which includes a list of Things you can do to help.

Or if you would like some other suggestions closer to your interests you could drop Spinprofiles editor, David Miller an email. His address is editor AT spinprofiles.org

Start Here


Spinprofiles history

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Contributors are now working on 19,141 articles.

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References

  1. Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), Embedded Experts in the 'War on Terror' (Accessed: 18 January 2008)
  2. Joel Beinin (MESA President), Middle East Studies After September 11, 2002 MESA Presidential Address, 2002 Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Summer 2003)