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
The casualties caused by armed violence in Mali have increased fourfold between 2016 and 2019, with young people being among the most affected by the situation. Although many initiatives have been launched to prevent and counter violent extremism in Mali, there remains a gap in understanding the interplay of factors that lead persons—especially young people—to support […]
The latest publication in the Strategic Communication project, this paper details the role of citizen journalists reporting on Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. With primary source research and interviews with media, the author examines the challenges reporters in these areas face. This report is part of a wider project, led by the International Centre […]
This report offers a concise, comprehensive, and critical overview of the empirical findings available on the background and possible motivations foreign fighters. It focuses on the young Western men and women who became jihadist foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. The analysis compares thirty-four reports and academic articles published between 2014 and 2019. The analysis […]