![]() Indeed, it was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the CSTPV’s foundation that leading academics gathered in St Andrews on 7-8th November 2019 to debate the past, present and future study of terrorism. Yet that very same month the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St Andrews (CSTPV) was founded: and with it an enduring scholarly tradition that continues to evolve. Even the Provisional IRA called their first ceasefire for nearly two decades, in August 1994. Even the superb Global Terrorism Database managed to lose an entire year’s worth of data around this time. In short, terrorism seemed a distinctly faded and fading phenomenon. During the immediate aftermath of the Cold War – the period portentously proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama as ‘the End of History’ –the freelance atrocities of anti-state groups often seemed a rather trivial subject: especially when viewed against the genocidal tableaux of Bosnia and Rwanda. So it is hard to recall the general quality of public debates a quarter of a century ago: and, in particular, their prevailing tone of optimism that terrorism was yesterday’s nightmare. Everybody was telling me that, with the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, terrorism was going to end.Ĭomplacency has no half-life. ![]() ![]() Everybody was telling me there was no funding for terrorism research.
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