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Terrorism and government: Between history and criminology

Incontestably the decade since 9/11 has been the age of terrorism. Or has it? In this lecture we consider terrorism as an object of government and of academic research. In arguing that law and criminology have been the pre-eminent disciplines attending to governmental responses to terrorism we note that their interventions have been significant in both their critical stance and in their impact in shaping discourse about the tactics and limits of counter-terrorism, particularly legislation and its uses. But what understanding of the broader role of government in responding to terrorism emerges from such a literature? And what histories are available to inform such an understanding? Existing historical accounts of Australian security and intelligence as a response to political violence and terrorism are for the most part dominated by Cold War politics and ideology, especially through their preoccupation with the politics of intelligence organisations. Increasing availability of security archives, together with a more international view of the context of Australian counter-terrorism histories, provide a sounder base for assessing the emergence of terrorism as an object of government attention since the 1970s.