23 Last checked 25th January 2023

1756 Google Scholar Citations

Jim McAuley is Professor of Political Sociology and Irish Studies. He has taught in various guises in a multidisciplinary Social Science setting for many years. He has been a visiting research scholar at several institutions in Sweden, Canada and the USA. Awarded his BSc from the University of Ulster in 1983, and a PhD in 1998 from the University of Leeds (a study the impact of political violence on community identity), he has continued to write extensively issues around political conflict and division.

He over 30 years of experience researching into political violence and terrorism, largely in the context of Northern Ireland. His major approach is to analyse the organizational structure of organizations engaged in political violence and their relationships over time. As such he has researched those involved in interactions with such organisations and the social movement sector closely. He has studied all aspects of the cycle of those engaged in political violence – engagement, involvement and disengagement, again mainly in the context of Northern Ireland, including the role of religion in motivating terrorism that is grounded in an ideological and socio-political framing.

• Northern Irish politics and society
• Britishness and Unionism
• Social Movements
• Popular Cultures
• The Politics and Culture of Diaspora