Victims of Terrorism ― A Comparative and Interdisciplinary Study

Based on fieldwork in several countries, this book examines the politicisation of victims of terrorism and creates a picture of the needs of victims and the reality of the victimisation experience.

Victims of terrorism are a unique group of individuals whose experience, while being exceptional in so many regards, is relegated to insignificance in the literature on terrorism. The theoretical approaches to terrorism recognise categories of victims of terrorism (primary, secondary and tertiary) and relate these victims to the notion of audience. This framework considers that the primary victims are in fact incidental to the act of terrorism as opposed to the 'audience' who is the true intended recipient of the communicative act. The positioning victims of terrorism in such a framework has contributed to their neglect in the study of terrorism. While this traditional approach may have been relevant when the incidence of terrorism remained of little significance globally, the same cannot be said of this group in recent years. After 9/11, many European countries (as well as the USA) took active steps to protect and provide for the victims of terrorism, particularly given the nature of victimisation post-3/11 (Madrid) and 7/7 (London).

This book is based on extensive field work in Northern Ireland, London and Spain and presents the results, which focused on the needs and experiences of victims of terrorism and political violence, and critically analyses these findings comparatively and in their own right. The aim is to assess the provision of support initiatives in Northern Ireland, mainland UK and Spain and understand if victims' needs are being met by these initiatives but most importantly to construct a picture of the local and international interpretation of the experience of victimisation by terrorism.

This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and political violence, victimology, criminology, security studies and IR.

Orla Lynch is Director of Teaching and Lecturer in Terrorism Studies at the University of St Andrews, and co-editor of State Terrorism and Human Rights (Routledge 2012).

Javier Argomaniz is lecturer in International Relations at the University of St Andrews and author of Post-9/11 EU Counter-Terrorism (Routledge 2011).