Terrorism Research Initiative Pakistan

Journals

Abstract

This resource collection lists journals that are deemed to be most helpful for serious researchers. It contains both subscription-based and open-access journals, most of them peer-reviewed. These journals were identified by a variety of techniques, including citation analyses, to optimize results.

Introduction

The following up-to-date (end of March 2013) resource collection lists one hundred core and periphery journals that are likely to be of significant importance for students, researchers, and professionals in the field of terrorism and counter-terrorism studies. A core journal – as defined by Avishag Gordon – is “a mainstream journal in a discipline, [that] is dedicated to the central themes of the specific scientific field.

It carries the name of the field in its title (in most cases).”[1] Core journals produce a substantial percentage of the total amount of literature available in any given field. In contrast, a periphery journal “occasionally publishes articles about terrorism but is dedicated mostly to another field of study.

This type of journal could be a mainstream publication in a discipline such as economy or sociology; and because it publishes material about terrorism from time to time it is considered a peripheral journal for terrorism subject-area.”[2]
Studies have shown that terrorism research has a large research periphery.[3] Therefore, relevant resources are scattered over a broad spectrum of academic journals. This makes efforts to retrieve them more laborious. The listed journals - most of them are peer-reviewed - were identified by using keyword searches on publisher homepages, scanning journal lists, bibliographies and reference lists as well as engaging in citation analyses.

In addition to the division into core and periphery journals, the list is further split into subscription-based and open-access (i.e. freely available) journals. Like every hand-searched resource collection, this one reflects subjective choices. Since the information requirements of researchers differ, the present resource list should not be used as single source for journal retrieval in the wide interdisciplinary field of terrorism studies.

Especially for disciplinary sub-topics, researchers are advised to search for additional journals tailored to their specific needs. The reader should keep in mind that this list is largely confined to English-language publications. However, there is a sizeable literature written in other languages; it is growing in importance and offers a valuable counter-weight to the dominance of the Anglo-Saxon literature.

 

Core Journals for Terrorism Research

Open-Access Journals

Perspectives on Terrorism 

Subscription-Based Journals

Open-Access Journals

Periphery Journals for Terrorism Research

Subscription-Based Journals