Rachel Monaghan is Professor of Peace and Conflict at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations. She joined Coventry University in March 2020. She has been researching political violence for over 25 years and has examined single-issue terrorism, informal justice and loyalist paramilitary violence. More recently she has been looking at counter-terrorism measures involving technology and also criminal justice approaches. Her research findings have been published in key international journals including Terrorism and Political Violence and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. She is the current President of the Society for Terrorism Research – an international, multi-disciplinary organization of theoretical and empirical researchers in behavioural sciences such as anthropology, biology, economics, political science, psychology, psychiatry, sociology, and others. Its mission is to enhance knowledge and understanding of terrorism and political violence. Professor Monaghan is also Joint Editor-in-Chief of the Society for Terrorism Research’s Journal, Behavioral Sciences in Terrorism and Political Aggression and is a member of the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism.

Before joining CTPSR, Professor Monaghan was a senior lecturer in Criminology at Ulster University. She completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Reading. She holds a MA degree in International Studies from Reading and a BA (Hons) in Peace and Conflict Studies from Ulster University.

Informal justice; restorative justice; terrorism; counter-terrorism; and political violence

I am a criminologist interested in terrorism and political violence. My research interests lie in the realm of informal justice in divided societies, paramilitary violence in Northern Ireland, single-issue terrorism and counter-terrorism. My PhD thesis focused on the use of political violence by single-issue groups. I specifically looked at the use of political violence by animal rights and women’s suffrage groups in the United Kingdom. Following my PhD, I was involved in an ESRC-funded research project examining informal justice in Northern Ireland and South Africa before becoming a lecturer. In recent years, I have been looking at the potential role of technology and also criminal justice approaches in counter-terrorism. My research aims to enhance our understanding of the various measures which may reduce the occurrence and impact of terrorism and political violence.