Terrorism in the textbook: a comparative analysis of terrorism discourses in Germany, India, Kenya and the United States based on school textbooks

Abstract

This study traces the (geopolitical) knowledge on terrorism circulating in Germany, India, Kenya, and the United States based on an analysis of school textbooks. It contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it transcends the Western-centrism of International Relations by analysing discourses from the Global North and the Global South. Second, it introduces school textbooks as a crucial object of research in constructivist terrorism studies and International Relations. School textbooks indicate the (geopolitical) knowledge deemed essential in a given society, but are also widely distributed among young people. Third, I address the debate about a presumed homogenization and internationalization of terrorism discourses in recent years. Results show that all four discourses depict terrorists as evil, focus on external non-state groups as perpetrators and associate terrorism with Islam. But there are also considerable differences regarding the relative importance of terrorism as a security threat, the referent object affected and the countermeasures deemed appropriate.