| Abstract: | The journal Terrorism and Political Violence recently published a special issue looking at why particular communities of intellectuals purportedly support terrorism, which, due to its politically partisan nature, is potentially damaging for terrorism studies. Showing that several articles within the special issue use the twin processes of accusing intellectuals of supporting terrorism and of being psychologically disturbed as a form of delegitimisation, three fundamental flaws in the special issue will be examined. In explaining these flaws, this paper draws attention to the way that this special issue forms an “epistemic community” at both the micro and the macro level, where certain assumptions on power and legitimacy are unquestioned. As a result, the special issue gains and performs an ideological function in censuring criticism of Israeli foreign policy. |
