Researcher
Rita Augestad Knudsen
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Summary
Rita Augestad Knudsen is a Senior Researcher at NUPI’s research group for Security and Defence. She currently works especially on counterterrorism, in particular prevention, as well as cyber, and on the intersection between political and legal discourse on different aspects of international security. She is the managing director of the Consortium for Terrorism Research and affiliated with C-REX (Centre for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo)
Rita Augestad Knudsen’s publications include current and historical analyses of terrorism-related risk assessment, mental health, criminal responsibility legislation and frameworks, legal/political discourse and ideational formation on various issues of international security, including radicalization, self-determination, freedom, international sanctions and international statebuilding. Geographically, her main focus is the UK (including Scotland), as well as other parts of Europe.
Expertise
Aktivitet
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Clear all filtersThe Fight Over Freedom in 20th- and 21st-Century International Discourse Moments of ‘self-determination’
This book shows how international discourse citing ‘self-determination’ over the last hundred years has functioned as a battleground between two ideas of freedom: a ‘radical’ idea of freedom, and a ‘liberal-conservative’ idea of freedom. The book offers new insights into the historical times in which ‘self-determination’ was prominently cited internationally since the early 20th century; it also offers a recasting and renewal of international debates on freedom in international discourse.
Localising ‘radicalisation’: Risk assessment practices in Greece and the United Kingdom
This article juxtaposes anti-radicalisation policy in the United Kingdom, one of the pioneers in the field, with Greece, one of the latecomers. Drawing on localisation theory, our aim is to understand how ‘common knowledge’ of radicalisation and counter-radicalisation has materialised in the United Kingdom and Greece by exploring the development and use of radicalisation-related risk and vulnerability assessment tools. We argue that the radicalisation ‘knowledge’ was localised more seamlessly in the United Kingdom, which can be attributed to the country’s ‘norm producer’ status on the field of European counter-radicalisation. By contrast, the ‘knowledge’ was subjected to significant ‘re-framing’ and ‘stretching’ to fit with the Greek context. This is associated with the country’s ‘norm adopter’ status on the field of European counter-radicalisation, as well as with a ‘spill-over effect’ from a national context of deeply polarising and contentious counter-terrorism policies. We maintain that these localisation processes reveal two distinct assemblages of governing radicalisation.
Between vulnerability and risk? Mental health in UK counter-terrorism
The relationship between terrorism and mental health has been a scholarly concern for decades. So far, the literature has concentrated on the relationship between terrorism and diagnosable disorders, and the prevalence of certain psychological traits among terrorist offenders. Meanwhile, the incorporation of perspectives regarding mental health in the operational space of counter-terrorism has been largely ignored. This article explores three current approaches to individual mental health in UK counter-terrorism: the use of ‘appropriate adults’ in terrorism-related cases; the ‘mental health hubs’ introduced in 2016; and counter-terrorism-related risk and vulnerability assessments. The article argues that in light of the UK’s new counter-terrorism strategy, these practices show an increasing merger between conceptualisations of vulnerabilities and risks in how UK counter-terrorism approaches mental health.
Theory Seminar: Lacanian psychoanalysis and the fascination with ISIS in Euro-US security discourse’
Charlotte Heath-Kelly will present her work on how Lacanian psychoanalysis can inform our understanding of the Western need for enmity, and its obsession with enemy entities such the Islamic State.
Preventing terrorism through risk assessments – a UK perspective
How does the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy play out in in real-life, and what's the (potential) role of risk assessments in the prevention of terrorism? Marek Hubert, former academic and a current Police Officer, visits NUPI to talk about these issues.
Critical approaches in terrorism research: Power, pre-emption and preventing violent extremism
What is a critical methodology? How and when are critical methodologies useful in terrorism research?
Measuring radicalisation: risk assessment conceptualisations and practice in England and Wales
Individual ‘radicalisation’- extremism- and terrorism-related risk assessment tools have become increasingly central instruments of counter-terrorism. The scholarship on such tools, however, is still its infancy, and remains concentrated on methodological issues and on identifying the ‘best’ indicator list for carrying out assessments. This article takes a different approach, and examines England and Wales’ main counter-terrorism relevant risk and vulnerability assessment tools: the Extremism Risk Guidance (ERG22+) and the Vulnerability Assessment Framework (VAF), concentrating on their shared 22 risk indicators and their uses in counter-terrorism. The article explores the ideas of ‘radicalisation’ emerging from these indicators and from their use at two different ‘ends’ of England and Wales’ counter-terrorism; to assess sentenced terrorism offenders in prison, and to assess non- criminal individuals referred over concerns over their possible ‘radicalisation’. The article hence clarifies the ideas of ‘radicalisation’ underpinning counter- terrorism policies in England and Wales, and considers the operational utility of the tools' present uses. The article finds that the tools' shared indicators suggest a conceptualisation of radicalisation associated with individual psychology and ways of thinking, and do not in and of themselves open for sufficient incorporation of relevant context. While not rejecting the possible value of specialised terrorism-related individual risk assessment tools, the article finds that the ideas underpinning the tools’ uses make their present counter-terrorism roles questionable. It concludes by stressing that any benefit associated with risk and vulnerability assessment tools in the counter-terrorism space would seem conditioned on them being reserved for the uses, target groups and assessors they were originally created for, and on them being used as only one component of a broad, contextual assessment of individuals about whom there is an evidence-based terrorism-related concern.
Violent extremism and the role of mental disorder
To what degree can mental illness explain terrorism, and is there a marked difference between the lone actor and the group-based extremist?
Understanding the foreign fighter phenomenon in the Balkans: insights from Kosovo and Bosnia
Three researchers are visiting NUPI to talk about why the assumption we have about foreign fighters often is incorrect.
CANCELLED: Lunch seminar: Hacking for the Homeland: Palestinian resistance in the digital era
Event cancelled due to unforeseen events.