CTS and Right-Wing Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Volume I, The Politics of Labelling Political Violence: 1

This volume is a timely contribution to the current debates and potential efforts to study and counter the phenomena of extreme right violence in a period when the rise of right-wing extremism is being witnessed across the globe. Against this backdrop, the violent radicalisation and extremism of individuals and groups belonging to the extreme right threaten to undermine and destabilize societies and democratic orders, leaving a research gap that has only started to be filled in recent years, but that is still quite wide when it comes to counter-terrorism approaches to extreme right violence. Learning from the past, and trying to avoid similar mistakes, this volume creates a much-needed space for open, honest, and ethical debate around countering extreme right violence, answering social and political calls to debate how to counter this kind of violence. This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary scholars to contribute to national and international, academic and policy debates about countering extreme right violence from a critical perspective.

Volume I focuses particularly on exploring how extreme right violence has been approached, narrated and made sense of in different spatial and temporal contexts, examining how political actors such as media and politicians portray the threat of and actual violence perpetrated by the extreme right, deconstructing current counter-terrorism approaches, and formulating a critical approach to researching extreme right violence. It will be of great interest to all students of terrorism studies, security studies, international relations, and political science in general.

The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Studies on Terrorism.

Alice Martini is Lecturer in International Relations at Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Her research focuses on counter-terrorism and prevention of extremism, specifically at a global level and as implemented by the United Nations. More in general, her research examines and deconstructs global discourses on security, (counter)terrorism and (counter)extremism, looking into the resulting practices of power and international hegemonies. She is the author of The UN and Counterterrorism. Global Hegemonies, Power and Identities (2021) and co-editor of, among others, Encountering Extremism (2020).

Raquel da Silva is Assistant Professor of International Relations at the School of Economics, University of Coimbra and Integrated Researcher at CEI-Iscte. She is the author of Narratives of Political Violence: Life Stories of Former Militants (2019). Her research has been funded by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the British Academy, and the European Union, among others.