RESEARCH IN Education Comparative & International Democracy and Terrorism: what roles for universities?

prominent as a function of the social sciences. The purpose of this article is to examine how terrorism studies relate to university engagement in an effort to reduce violence and terrorist acts across the globe. Illustrations will be explicated from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, Tel Aviv University in Israel, and Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. The article concludes with correlating how these universities have not merely studied terrorism, but how these studies engage their students, faculty, and their communities in combating a phenomenon that is continually evident. The events of September 11, 2001 and the increasing number of reported terrorist acts have heightened the world’s awareness of terrorism and stirred up public interest in understanding the phenomenon and its multitude of implications. The public has looked to higher education to devise mechanisms for combating terrorism as well as to comprehend the motives and rationales behind these acts of destruction and killing. Accordingly, these external environmental factors have required universities to adapt to fit the needs of a post-9/11 world. Cameron (1989) describes organizational adaptation as an organization’s response to an imbalance between it and the environment; it is a mechanism by which stability is regained. The emergence of global affairs unit