Dilemmas of Terrorism

Moderated by Klaus Schlichte


Neil Smelser will identify recurrent and possibly insoluble issues in defining, explaining, and defending against contemporary terrorism. He will also explore a number of special „entrapments“ in our response to terrorism, including the role of the mass media, the tension between security and civil liberties, and the tension between the tendencies toward national unity and partisanship in the face of terrorist threats and attacks.

Neil Smelser is a University Professor Emeritus of Sociology and former director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. His research has focused on what he calls the „macroscopic social structural level“ of collective behavior, including economic sociology, social change, and the sociology of education. He is a former president of the American Sociological Association, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. He joined the UC Berkeley faculty in 1958 and has authored fifteen books, including The Theory of Collective Behavior (1962, and The Faces of Terrorism - Social and Psychological Dimensions (2008).

Klaus Schlichte is professor for international relations at the Institute of Political Science at the University Magdeburg.