Dr Jeffrey Murer
Associate Member
Jeffrey Murer joined the School of International Relations in the autumn of 2007 as the new Lecturer on Collective Violence. His appointment is to both IR and the School of Psychology; he is also a Research Fellow to the Centre for the Study on Terrorism and Political Violence and the Scottish Institute for Policing Research. Prior to coming to St. Andrews he was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Swarthmore College in the United States. Dr. Murer received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he won the Annual Graduate Dissertation Prize in 2000. He has also held visiting positions at Haverford and Providence Colleges, was a Visiting Researcher to the Central European University in Budapest, and was a Guest Lecturer at the Volgograd Academy for State Service in Russia.
Dr. Murer’s research explores processes of collective identity formation and their relationship to enactments of violence. He examines how shifts in material conditions, or anxiety about potential alterations in material conditions, can be experienced by many within a given polity as trauma, and how the various reactions to the experience of trauma can lead to ethnic conflict, civil strife, or ethnic chauvinism. He has explored these phenomena in the context of the resurgence of anti-Semitism in Central Europe – particularly Hungary – in the aftermath of the collapse of Realized Socialism; extremist nationalism in Post-Communist Romania; ethnic conflict in wars of the Former Yugoslavia; and in the violent clashes in Chechnya and the Northern Caucasus. His latest research examines the challenges of absorbing new immigrant populations into Western European polities in the context of the retreating welfare state and shifting economic infrastructure. He has pursued his interest in the collective psychological effects of changing political economies as an Associate Research Fellow to the University of Paris, an Academic Fellow to the Psychoanalytic Center of Philadelphia, and a National Fellow to the American Psychoanalytic Association.
E: [email protected]
T: (0)1334 461924
Selected Publications
“Suspension, Exception, Silence: Anti-terrorism discourses and the challenges to human rights from state security” in Human Rights, Human Security, State Security, Saul Takahashi, ed., Praeger 2014, forthcoming.
“Understanding collective violence: The communicative and performative qualities of violence in acts of belonging” in International Criminal Law and Criminology, Ilias Bantekas, ed, Cambridge University Press, 2014, forthcoming.
“Ethnic Conflict: Communal Violence as Expressions of Identity” Terrorism and Political Violence Vol. 23 (4) 2012, pp.
Listening to Radicals: Attitudes and Motivations of Young People Engaged in Political and Social Movements Outside of the Mainstream in Central and Nordic Europe, British Council, March 2011
“Terrorist or Freedom Fighter? Tyrant or Guardian?” co-authored with Derek S. Reveron, in Pirates, Terrorists, and Warlords: The History, Influence, and Future of Armed Groups Around the World; Jeffrey Norwitz (ed); Skyhorse, 2009; 311–322.
“Security, Identity, and Discourse of Conflation in Far-Right Violence” On-line Journal of Terrorism Studies, Vol. 2 (2) 2011, pp. 15–26.
“Institutionalizing Enemies: The Consequences of Reifying Projection in Post-Conflict Environments”; Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society; 15(1) 2010, pp. 1–19.
“Overcoming Mixed Feelings about Mixed Methodologies: Complex Strategies for Research Among Hidden Populations”; eSharp Special Volume: Critical Issues in Researching Hidden Communities; Autumn 2009 (14):99–130.
“Constructing the Enemy-Other: Anxiety, Trauma and Mourning in the Narratives of Political Conflict”; Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society,; Summer 2009 14(2):109–130.
Flashpoints in the War on Terrorism, Reveron, Derek and Jeffrey Murer eds., (Routledge 2006)
“La terreur des opprimés – Un examen comparatiste des réponses au terrorisme” in Topique: Revue Freudienne, 2003, Number 83, pp. 13–22 (Translated into French by Thamy Ayouch)
Lecturer on Collective Violence, School of International Relations and School of Psychology, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, 2007-present
Member of the Young Academy of Scotland, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 2011–2015
Research Fellow, Scottish Institute for Policing Research, 2007 – present
Research Fellow, Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, University of St. Andrews, Scotland 2007- present
Programme Board and Lecturer, Scottish Institute for Policing Research, Masters’ Degree Programme in Policing Studies, 2009 – 2014
Principal Investigator, European Study of Youth Mobilisation, 2008–2011
British Council’s Intercultural Navigators Projects
National Fellow, 2006–2007 American Psychoanalytic Association; New York, USA
Academic Fellow, 2004–2006, Philadelphia Psychoanalytic Center; Philadelphia, USA
Associate Research Fellow, 2003–2005
Human Clinical Sciences Department, University of Paris VII (Denis Diderot); Paris, France