Lee Jarvis

I am a Professor of Security and Society at Adelaide University (Australia), an Honorary Professor at the University of East Anglia (UK), and a Visiting Professor in International Politics at Loughborough University (UK). My research focuses on how security challenges such as terrorism, radicalisation, cyber-threats, and pandemics are constructed, communicated, and addressed, and the implications of this for democracy, citizenship, communities, and policy. I have published ninteen books, eight special issues, and over sixty-five journal articles on these topics. My work has appeared in journals including Review of International Studies, International Studies Quarterly, International Political Sociology, Security Dialogue, and Terrorism and Political Violence. My books include research monographs with Manchester University Press and Palgrave, and the award-winning Terrorism: A Critical Introduction. With Michael Lister and Alex Powell I was awarded the 2026 Crick Prize for the Best Paper published in Political Quarterly, for our article Stop in the Law of the Name! My work has been funded by various external organisations including the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council (ESRC), the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), the Australian Research Council (ARC), NATO, and the U.S. Office for Naval Research. I co-edit the academic journal Critical Studies on Terrorism, and have founded and directed research networks including the multinational, multidisciplinary Cyberterrorism Project. Much of my research is explicitly interdisciplinary, and I have coauthored, coedited, and otherwise collaborated with scholars in disciplines including Law, Media Studies, Engineering, Criminology, Political Science, and International Relations. In my research I work with a range of non-academic partners, including policymakers, parliamentarians, police forces, advocacy groups, and local communities. A recent project, for instance, culminated in a screening of original films on 'British [Muslim] Values' produced by participant researchers from Muslim communities in Eastern England. I sit on the Peer Review Colleges for the ESRC and the UK’s Global Challenges Research Fund, and have reviewed grant applications, monographs, or articles for over forty-five organisations. From 2023-2025 I served as an elected trustee of the British International Studies Association, chairing the Susan Strange Best Book Prize for an oustanding book published in the field of International Studies. My PhD was awarded in 2008 from the University of Birmingham. Since then I have supervised ten research students to completion, and examined eighteen theses including for universities in Australia, Italy, New Zealand and the UK. I have taught modules at undergraduate and postgraduate level on a range of themes including terrorism, counter-terrorism, security studies, International Relations theory, philosophy of social science, and research methods. Prior to my current appointment, I held posts at Oxford Brookes University, Swansea University, the University of East Anglia, and Loughborough University. I served as Director of Loughborough's Centre for Security Studies, and as Associate Dean for Research for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at UEA, with responsibility for leading, developing and implementing Faculty strategy with respect to research across four large Schools and an Interdisciplinary Institute. That role built on four years of service as Research Director for the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies. Other leadership positions I have held include Course Director, and Director of Undergraduate Admissions. My research is situated within critical approaches to Security Studies, International Relations and Politics. It tends to focus on the communication of, and response to, security threats such as terrorism, radicalisation, extremism, cybersecurity challenges, and global pandemics. Specific interests and projects include: 1. The politics of counter-terrorism. 2. Critical terrorism studies and critical security studies. 3. Social constructions and memories of terrorism. 4. Cybersecurity.

2026 - Jarvis, L. (2026). Beware! Here (might) be terrorists: Constructing the threat of terrorism in foreign travel advice. European Journal of International Security, 1-21. 2026 - Jarvis, L., Lister, M., & Oyawale, A. (2026). INTRODUCTION. Vernacular Security Studies Concepts Cases and Critiques, 1-12. 2026 - Jarvis, L. (2026). From having to doing vernacular security: Below-the-line commentary on the politics of extremism. British Journal of Politics and International Relations, 1-22. 2026 - Jarvis, L., Lister, M., & Whiting, A. (2026). The New ‘New terrorism’?: Continuity and Change in Temporal Constructions of Violence in the US and UK. Terrorism & Political Violence, 1-18. 2025 - Jarvis, L., Lister, M., & Powell, A. (2025). Stop in the Law of the Name! Nominative Lawmaking, Populism