Donald Holbrook
Donald Holbrook is an Associate Fellow at ICCT. He became a lecturer at the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University, UK, in September 2016. Prior to that he was Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St Andrews, which he joined in 2008.
His research has focused mostly on beliefs, ideas, and media in the context of terrorism and political violence, especially on how terrorists interact with published media and social media and how this engagement has changed over time. He has published on a wide variety of topics relating to these themes, including a book, edited volumes, journal articles, as well as reports and other deliverables for counterterrorism practitioners and policymakers. He currently manages a large-scale research project dissecting ways in which individuals involved in terrorism use different types of media, developing case studies and thematic analyses of different ideological milieus (including far-right and Islamist extremism), different types of activity (including domestic terrorism and ‘foreign fighters’) and different organisational contexts (such as groups versus lone actors), as well as comparisons across sections.
A selection of publications can be found on http://lancaster.academia.edu/DonaldHolbrook
Recent cases of attacks by released terrorist prisoners highlight issues around the risk of re-offending posed by former terrorist prisoners. What are the appropriate processes and systems for managing and risk assessing such individuals, and to what extent is rehabilitation possible in the context of terrorist offending? This Policy Brief will explore these and related […]
On May 19th, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police announced that they were commencing terrorist proceedings related to a February 24 stabbing attack at a massage parlour in Toronto. In doing so, they claimed that this attack—in which an unnamed 17-year-old male killed a woman and injured one other individual—was inspired by what they call ‘Ideologically Motivated Violent […]
In 2013, four young British men from West London travelled to Syria to join ISIS. Dubbed ‘The Beatles’ by their hostages, and subsequently the global media, this British ISIS cell allegedly became responsible for at least twenty-seven beheadings of Western hostages. Six years have since gone by and despite their capture the remaining two members […]