Delve into the research behind terrorism as you unpack the assumptions and impacts of both terrorism and counterterrorism. Terrorism has arguably been one of the defining factors of our age. It frequently makes headlines, threatening or attacking governments, private businesses, and ordinary citizens. In many parts of the world, it has been one of the most important threats to peace, security, and stability – but what does this mean exactly? On this six-week course from Leiden University, you’ll explore the essence of terrorism and discover why it is so difficult to define. Unpacking its history and the theory of the waves of terrorism, you’ll analyse both the theoretical approaches and practical applications of terrorism and counterterrorism in the real world. There are many assumptions that cloud the subjects of terrorism and counterterrorism. These myths are often created and intensified by individual bias, the government, and the media. On this course, you’ll discover different assumptions about terrorist identities and motivations, as well as the efficiencies of various counterterrorism efforts. You’ll then compare this with academic research to investigate the truth behind these assumptions. In your exploration of the impact of terrorism, you’ll delve into the culture of fear created by terrorism, as well as the success of counterterrorism policies to limit and manage its impact on society. In the final stage of this course, you’ll reflect on trends and developments in terrorism and counterterrorism. You’ll assess current academic research as well as what could be studied in the future to help.
OC
The course is good and offers some interesting insights into the current state of things regarding terrorism, as well as a glimpse in the mindset of the terrorists and terrorist organizations.
MK
it is a very useful course for the beginners. this course might be improved by adding one week for talking about the empirical literature on terrorism in political science field.
KC
A lot of reading is needed which, on one hand, is beneficial to the students but on the other can be exhausting as well. Anyway, I had a great time and gain a better perspective on terrorism.
JM
Very informative and thorough overview of the Terrorism-Counterterrorism literature. The literature is presented in a well organized manner making it easy to follow from the assigned readings.
YM
Thank you for this extensive and very accessible overview of the field of terrorism studies. I particularly appreciated the variety of recommended articles and sources.
DW
This course is by far the most professional, extensive online MOOC course I have ever had the pleasure to take. I look forward to continuing my studies in Terrorism and CT.
GI
Excellent! Accessible, yet detailed, well researched and presented, thought provoking. A good glimpse into what security studies/terrorism academia can be like. I wish there were more!
RM
It is a great experience and has been developed very efficiently to provide a valuable tool for the insight and education of a very important phenomenon in the global community.
MS
Loved the time I spent studying this course, if I was going to evaluate it on terms of the title sayings "it's all and more"How is it more? I am already hungry for more :D
JS
This course was very informative and helped to solidify the knowledge that I had coming into the course. I would recommend this course to anyone from novice to expert.
LZ
This excellent, balanced course uses a great combination of concise videos and additional reading. I enrolled hoping to better understand this hot-topic and Prof. Bakker's course was perfect.
JH
This class was very informative and gave balance to the sensationalistic reporting of the media. I think the world would be a better place if more people took this course.
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didn't get my certificate just because i passed the deadline
This course is simply great. I am myself an expert in security studies, but I admit that I have leaned a lot. This course has helped to update my knowledge in my major :International Security. The lecturer is actually a professional who explains things, concepts and phenomena with accuracy. The skills I have acquired with this course will undoubtedly help me in my career as a security expert as I shall soon start my new position as an intelligence analyst with the police.
Great course, just one little problem : the "anglo-saxon" oriented theories on wich this course is based (nothing about the french scholars and studies, although France knows a lot - and a lot more than US scholars for example - about terrorism and specially jihadist terrorism that we unfortunately know since the middle of 80's. Some names : Gilles Kepel, Olivier Roy, Mathieu Guideres). Some assumptions about history of terrorism are factually wrong too: Narodnaïa Volia was not an anarchist movement, but a nihilist (Tchernytchevsky, Netchaiev) one. Militants came from russian aristocracy and their ideology was based on the education of the peasant people of russia when anarchists thank that the revolution would come from the workers and the new proletarian class. And anarchy came first from France (Proudhon, Fourier, etc…) and moved after to Russia. Finally, the role of PFLP in the history of terrorism is much more important than PLO (new modus operandi - plane high jacking and hostages, collusion with left-wing AND right wing movements) : of course I don't talk there about political influence but about history of terrorism, movements and modus operandi.
Check out the great book "Histoire du terrorism" - Gilles Ferragu, Paris, 2014.
Anyway i enjoy very much this course. Many thanks from a parisian student !!!
El curso es excelente, sin embargo la calificación es desastrosa. Coursera debería crear un sistema distinto de calificaciones para no depender el "buen ánimo" de nuestros compañeros de clase. Tuve inconvenientes con la presentación de mi trabajo escrito dado que no hablo inglés y tuve que recurrir a traductores y a mi poco conocimiento en la escritura del idioma para finalizar mi ensayo. El resultado fue que muchas personas no entendieron bien mi trabajo y me han calificado con la nota más baja. Eso hace que el esfuerzo y el intelecto de personas que no escriben en inglés (pero que si pueden entenderlo), se vea afectado y no sea reconocido. Espero que puedan idear otra forma de evaluación más pertinente y acorde con las necesidades de los estudiantes.
This excellent, balanced course uses a great combination of concise videos and additional reading. I enrolled hoping to better understand this hot-topic and Prof. Bakker's course was perfect.
Interesting course but:
1) The transcripts for each week are appalling. Here is a copied and pasted example: "Separatist groups remained active in almost 90% of decapitation cases where only a third of ideologically ideological organizations such as left wing and right wing organizations. Are damaged by it. And then, in general, in 17% of the cases. So 7% of the cases, decapitation led to the collapse of an organization." How are those that are hearing impaired meant to understand what the course leader is communicating? It took me so long to understand the transcript that I may as well have listened instead. The subtitles option reads the same as the transcript - not much good for anyone with anything but perfect hearing.
2) The estimated timings for each activity are somewhat optimistic. '10 minutes' is the recommended reading time for each week's reading content. Within this reading list are, on average, 8 articles, some of which amount to over 70 pages - if each article is roughly 25-40 pages on average, and there are around 8 articles, how will this reading activity take the student only '10 minutes' to complete?
Apart from that, I did really enjoy the course!!
In general good, but not updated - seems from around 2013, so the new developments are not mentioned.
Interesting and informative, but the material seemed dated. The paper on Jihadi terrorists in Europe is from 2006, and information from the global terrorism database is from 2010, for example. Some of the lecture content also seemed years behind the times -- like the omission of any mention of the increase in terrorist attacks in Western Europe. (Yes, the lecture on foreign fighters was more current.)
Maybe it's there somewhere, but all MOOCs should disclose when the lectures were recorded.
Good review of the theory but course is outdated given the number of events in the last 2 years that relate to the information provided in the course -- particularly as it relates to attacks
Some readings were not up to date anymore
Among the most informative courses i have taken, the material and videos provided are so detailed and specific to this field. I would recommend it to anyone with an interest matters terrorism.
Useful and well done. This course is an example how to boost resilience in our society with knowledge. At the end of the day is a brick of our holistic counter terrorism actions. Thank you.
Excellent! Accessible, yet detailed, well researched and presented, thought provoking. A good glimpse into what security studies/terrorism academia can be like. I wish there were more!
excelente tema, me gustaría tomar un curso más actualizado por ejemplo un análisis del terrorismo mundial entre el 2018 y el 2019
Excelente curso, diseñado de forma estratégica para envolverte en el tema.
Altogether a useful introduction to an interesting topic -- despite the generalizing approach and the sometimes conservative instead of neutral presentation.
Necesito la traducción en Español de todo el Curso. Gracias de antemano por su atención.
The Quizzes are more about the text that you will read, some of them wrote by the teacher, and inferred that the accessibility is by purchasing some since links lead you to the sales page. Besides it, the mentioned quizzes are just word tricks. They do not intend to measure your general knowledge about the subject, but about details. I conclude it just because it is not my position to back down, and I was approved.
You can do better reading by yourself, the recommended paper. Knowledge does not need someone to gratify it by contrivance.
A very good and thought provoking course.
It is a re-run of an archived course and sadly a number of reference materials that had been on the dashboard are not reposted with it. Also there are references to discussion forums that don't exist. If the missing material and content were up to date it would be a strong and complete course.
more about the study of terrorism than about terrorism