Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses - ICPVTR 20 ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION

For instance, ICPVTR lent its expertise to the creation of the Afghan research outfit, the Centre for Conflict and Peace Studies (CAPS), in 2006, and to the development of a training programme on capacity development and conflict management. [...] Notwithstanding the operational challenges it faces with the return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan in 2021, CAPS continues to offer insights on developments in the country and the region. [...] In 2002, scholars from the then Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies48 argued that to deal with the “new”, religiously- motivated terrorism represented by AQ, it was important to not merely deal with the terrorist cells and leaders themselves, but at the same time, address the underlying political, economic, social and ideological causes that gave rise to the former in the first place. [...] As such, scholars writing within critical terrorism studies have pointed out that the field “continues to perpetuate the reproduction of Eurocentric research and the exclusion of non-Western voices”.22 The loss of these indigenous voices and contributions from the Global South then hampers the addition of further nuance and rigour into existing discourses on terrorism research.23 The potential con. [...] Alongside the issue of retaining researchers in the field, there remain the issues of the “invisible college” and groupthink, in which the lack of valuable contributions by emerging researchers then leads to the ossification of knowledge.