Prof. Ronald Crelinsten
Ronald Crelinsten received academic degrees in genetics (Hon. B.Sc., McGill University) and biopsychology (M.Sc., The University of Chicago) before he began working in the area of terrorism and political violence in the mid-1970s. From 1975-80, he was principal researcher for the International Centre for Comparative Criminology at the University of Montreal, where he organized a series of international seminars dealing with the problems that terrorism poses for democratic states. These seminars attracted many of the leading terrorism experts of the time, many of whom are still active today. He began doctoral studies in criminology during this period, looking at how Canada dealt with the threat of Quebec nationalist terrorism around 1970. He was invited to join the Department of Criminology at the University of Ottawa in 1982, received his doctorate in criminology in 1985, and became a Full Professor in 1994.
In 1992-3, Prof. Crelinsten was Principal Researcher for a research project on gross human rights violations at Leiden University in The Netherlands, including site visits in the UK and Denmark, an international workshop in Budapest (1993) and the publication of The Politics of Pain: Torturers and Their Masters (Westview, 1995, with Alex Schmid). From 1999 to 2002, he was Visiting Professor in the Department of International Relations and the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He is a founding member of the editorial board of Terrorism and Political Violence, the leading academic journal on terrorism studies. He is also on the Advisory Board of the electronic journal, International Journal of Conflict and Violence.
Prof. Crelinsten took early retirement from the University of Ottawa at the end of 2004 in order to devote more time to research and writing in the area of terrorism and counterterrorism. From 2005-8, he worked and travelled mostly in Europe, speaking at conferences and workshops and producing two books: Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism in a Multi-Centric World (2006), published by the Swedish National Defence College, and Counterterrorism (2009), published by Polity Press. An Arabic version of Counterterrorism was published in 2011. In January 2005, he was also invited by the Director of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria to become a Senior Research Associate (non-resident). At the end of 2008, he relocated to Victoria, British Columbia and retained his affiliation with this Centre. In June 2010, he was appointed Adjunct Professor in the Doctor of Social Sciences Program of the Faculty of Social and Applied Sciences at Royal Roads University in Victoria.
Prof. Crelinsten has organized and participated in conferences and workshops all over the world. As early as 1977, he was an invited participant at one of the FBI Academy’s influential national symposia on terrorism, held in Quantico, Virginia. In 1997, he was invited by then US Vice-President Al Gore to the International Conference on Aviation Safety and Security in the 21st Century organized by The White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security and The George Washington University, where he talked about crisis management in the electronic age. In 2002, he was keynote speaker at the Central Asia, Caucasus and Afghanistan Counterterrorism Conference, organized by the US State Department’s Office of the Coordinator on Counterterrorism, held in Ankara, Turkey. In 2005, he was a consultant on an EU project on citizen resilience, based in Amsterdam.
Prof. Crelinsten’s research interests include the terrorism-counterterrorism nexus; terrorist career paths, including radicalization to violent extremism; terrorism, violence and the media (old and new); human rights and the prevention of gross human rights violations; security and defence policy; and democratic and global governance. Some of his other publications include Western Responses to Terrorism (Frank Cass, 1993, with Alex Schmid), Hostage-Taking (1979), and Terrorism and Criminal Justice (1978). He has participated in many international research projects and contributed to important edited volumes,¬ including Who Is Afraid of the State? Canada in a World of Multiple Centres of Power (University of Toronto Press, 2001), The Future of Terrorism (Frank Cass, 2000), European Democracies Against Terror¬ism (Ashgate/Dartmouth, 2000), Perspectives on Terrorism and the Media (Sage, 1992), Democratic Responses to International Terrorism (Transnational Publishers, 1991), Inside Terrorist Organizations (Frank Cass, 2001; Frank Cass/Columbia U. Press, 1988), and Contemporary Research on Terrorism (U. of Aberdeen Press, 1987).