#613 overall
Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice
Coursera
1 recommender · 1 thread · recommended in 1 year, 2020 · score 0.8
A Coursera course taught by Edwin Bakker that compares theoretical models of terrorism with how terrorism and counterterrorism are practiced. It covers definitions, causes, and policy responses.
Commenters mention it as a recommended Coursera course, pointing to Edwin Bakker's expertise as the instructor and to the link between theory and practice.
Humanities & Social Scienceintermediatefreevideo lectures#terrorism#counterterrorism#political violence#bakker#security studies
Recommendations by year
20062026
It is recommended often because Learning How To Learn is a very fundamental part of your skill set which, sadly, many people either lack or do sub-optimal. Precisely because of that it can contain "obvious" device; because you are already (partly) familiar with it. I find it rather arrogant to say its useless for everyone. Its a fairly quick course, where you can spend more time on aspects if you desire.
This topic about the top Coursera courses or which ones you recommend comes up regularly here on HN.
On top of the mentioned Learning How To Learn I can recommend the following:
Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice by Edwin Bakker [1]
Securing Digital Democracy by J. Alex Halderman [2]
Cryptography I by Dan Boneh [3]. I didn't finish this one, but its very good...
[1] https://www.coursera.org/learn/terrorism
[2] https://www.coursera.org/learn/digital-democracy
[3] https://www.coursera.org/learn/crypto
Terrorism is well defined, by Alex P. Schmid in 1988:
Schmid and Jongman (1988): "Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby - in contrast to assassination - the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought".
As well as by "The Revised Academic Consensus Definition of Terrorism (2011)" by Alex Schmid available at [1]
The problems derive from definition being complex. Examples: laymen don't have the analytical power, powers that be have a conflict of interest as you describe. However that is certainly not the same as terrorism being an ill-defined term.
The revised definition is used world wide by terrorism experts such as Prof. Dr. Beatrice de Graaf and Prof. Dr. Edwin Bakker.
If this subjects is of interest to you I recommend the Coursera course "Terrorism and Counterterrorism: Comparing Theory and Practice" [2] by Prof. Dr. Edwin Bakker.
[1] http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/vi...
[2] https://www.coursera.org/learn/terrorism