ABSTRACT
Sociological work in the area of terrorism and counter-terrorism cannot count on a long-standing tradition but is instead a very recent development in our discipline, which needed the momentous events of 11 September 2001 to be set in motion. Since the events of September 11, terrorism has moved to the center of public attention and has become an important subject matter in politics, law, policing, and many other social institutions. As a result, terrorism and counter-terrorism have also become central topics of research across a multitude of disciplines, including the social sciences and sociology. These new paths of sociological inquiry are potentially very promising, but, in order to ensure more than fleeting interest for the sociology of terrorism and terrorism-related phenomena, they need to proceed on the basis of proven disciplinary insights in theoretical, methodological, and thematic respects.
