Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Royal Holloway, University of London

Dr. John F. Morrison is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology. He is programme director of the MSc in Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies.

John holds a BA in Psychology from University College Dublin, an MA in Forensic Psychology from University College Cork and a PhD in International Relations from the University of St. Andrews.

Prior to joining Royal Holloway in September 2018 John was a Reader in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of East London (UEL). John was also a postdoctoral researcher at The International Center for the Study of Terrorism, at The Pennsylvania State University between 2010 and 2011. In that year he managed the Violent Dissident Irish Republican research project.

John is an associate editor of two leading academic journals in terrorism studies, Perspectives on Terrorism and Behavioral Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression. He is also the host and developer of the Talking Terror podcast. On the podcast he interviews leading experts in terrorism and counter-terrorism studies.

John's research interests include organisational splits in terrorist groups, the role of trust in terrorist involvement, violent dissident Irish republicanism, the psychology of terrorism, expert-novice differences in terrorist offenders, and the social ecology of radicalisation.

Personal webpage

Recent publications

Marchment, Z., Gill, P. and Morrison, J.F. (2019). ‘Risk Factors for Violent Dissident Republican Incidents in Belfast: A Comparison of Bombings and Bomb Hoaxes.’ Journal of Quantitative Criminology, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-019-09413-0

Busher, J. and Morrison, J.F. (2018). ‘Micro Moral Worlds of Contentious Politics: A Reconceptualization of Radical Groups and Their Intersections with One Another and the Mainstream.’ Mobilization , 23 (2), pp.219-236. https://doi.org/10.17813/1086-671X-23-3-219

Braddock, K. and Morrison, J.F. (2018). ‘Cultivating Trust and Perceptions of Source Credibility in Online Counternarratives Intended to Reduce Support for Terrorism.’ Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2018.1452728

Windle, J., Morrison, J.F., Winter, A. and Silke, A. (Eds.) (2018). Historical Perspectives on Organised Crime and Terrorism. Abingdon: Routledge.

Hourigan, N., Morrison, J.F, Windle, J., and Silke, A. (2017). ‘Crime in Ireland north and south: Feuding gangs and profiteering paramilitaries.’ Trends in Organized Crime, 1-21 DOI: 10.1007/s1217-017-9312-9

Morrison, J.F. (2017). ‘Splitting to Survive: Understanding Terrorist Group Fragmentation.’ Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, 3(3), 222-232 DOI: 10,1108/JCRPP-07-2016-0013


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