John Horgan (political psychologist)
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Dr. John Horgan (born 1974) is an Irish applied psychologist and expert on the psychology of terrorism. He is the Director of the International Center for the Study of Terrorism at the Pennsylvania State University. A Chartered Psychologist, he was previously Senior Research Fellow of the University of St Andrews' Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV) in Scotland. Before moving to St Andrews, John Horgan taught at the Department of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, from which he was awarded his PhD (Applied Psychology) in 2000. While in Ireland, he spent several years conducting detailed research on Irish Republican movements, and published several noted articles on the fundraising activities of the Provisional IRA. He is now engaged in extensive research on involvement and engagement in terrorism, and his current research projects focus on issues of disengagement and de-radicalization from non-state terrorist movements. His books include The Psychology of Terrorism (2005), and The Future of Terrorism (1999, with Max Taylor). His latest book Walking Away from Terrorism: Accounts of Disengagement from Radical and Extremist Movements will be published by Routledge (New York and London) in 2008, and presents detailed fieldwork interviews Horgan has conducted with former members of radical and extremist movements in several countries. Horgan is involved in a long-term project on understanding the psychology of terrorist behavior. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Terrorism and Political Violence, Terrorism Research, and the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, and is the recipient of an Airey Neave Trust Fellowship Award.
