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Alex P. Schmid

Alex Peter Schmid (born 1943) is a scholar in terrorism studies, who from 1999 to 2005 was Officer-in-Charge of the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Vienna. He is particularly known for his work on the definition of terrorism.

Schmid has lived and worked mostly in the Netherlands, and as of 2021, he is research fellow at the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in The Hague, and among his many other roles, is a director of the Terrorism Research Initiative and editor-in-chief of its journal, Perspectives on Terrorism.

Early life and education[edit]

Alex Peter Schmid[1] was born in Chur, Switzerland, in 1943.[2] He studied history at the University of Zürich[3] and was awarded a PhD from that institution.[2]

Recognition[edit]

The first edition of Political Terrorism (1984) won a national award for the best book in political science.[23][24]


Schmid has been described as "a leading orthodox terrorism scholar".[25]

Violence as communication insurgent terrorism and the Western news media, London Sage, 1982,  978-0-8039-9772-1 (Co-authored by Janny de Graaf)

ISBN

Social defence and Soviet military power : an inquiry into the relevance of an alternative defence concept : report, Center for the Study of Social Conflict (C.O.M.T.), State University of Leiden, 1985,  978-90-346-0738-6 (Co-authored by Ellen Berends)

ISBN

Political Terrorism, co-authored with A. J. Jongman, first published in 1984 subtitled A research guide to concepts, theories, data bases, and literature; revised editions published in 1988 and 2005, subtitled A new guide to actors, authors, concepts, data bases, theories, and literature.

[9]

Western responses to terrorism, F. Cass (published 1993), 12 November 2012,  978-1-136-29746-5 (Editor, co-edited by Ronald D. Crelinsten)

ISBN

Thesaurus and glossary of early warning and conflict prevention terms, Synthesis Foundation, ; London: Forum on Early Warning and Early Response, 2000, ISBN 978-0-9539328-0-1 (Co-authored with Sanam B. Anderlini)

Erasmus University

The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research (2011), edited by Schmid and including his revised consensus definition of terrorism, is a much-cited resource.

[7]

Handbook of Terrorism Prevention and Preparedness, an open-access publication edited by Schmid, has been issued since November 2020 on the ICCT website, with a chapter published each week.

[22]

Schmid has authored and edited over 200 publications,[11] including:

Official bio at ICCT