Editor's Introduction: Neoliberalism and/as terror

The articles in this special issue are drawn from papers presented at a conference entitled ‘Neoliberalism and/as Terror’, held at the Nottingham Conference Centre at Nottingham Trent University by the Critical Terrorism Studies BISA Working Group on 15-16 September, 2014. The conference was supported by both a BISA workshop grant and supplementary funds from Nottingham Trent University’s Politics and International Relations Department and the Critical Studies on Terrorism journal. Papers presented at the conference aimed to extend research into the diverse linkages between neoliberalism and terrorism, including but extending beyond the contextualisation of pre-emptive counter-terrorism technologies and privatised securities within relevant economic and ideological contexts. Thus, the conference sought also to stimulate research into the ways that neoliberalism could itself be understood as terrorism, asking - amongst other questions - whether populations are themselves terrorised by neoliberal policy. The papers presented in this special issue reflect the conference aims in bringing together research on the neoliberalisation of counter-terrorism and on the terror of neoliberalism.