Rik Coolsaet
Rik Coolsaet, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Ghent University (Belgium) and Senior Associate Fellow at Egmont–Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels).
He was appointed a member of the original European Commission’s Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation (established 2006) and the subsequent European Network of Experts on Radicalisation (ENER).
From 2002 to 2009 he served as Director of the ‘Security & Global Governance’ Program at Egmont–Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels). He has held several high-ranking official positions, such as deputy chief of the Cabinet of the Belgian Minister of Defence (1988–1992) and deputy chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1992–1995).
He has been coordinating research on terrorism and radicalisation, which has resulted in several publications. His Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge. European and American Experiences was published by Ashgate in 2011. This volume was included in the 2012 ‘Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism’, established by the academic journal Perspectives on Terrorism. His analysis on the impact of 9/11 on Europe was published in 2013 in a volume edited by Mohammed Ayoob and Etga Ugur of Michigan State University (‘Europe: Reinforcing Existing Trends’, in: Assessing the War on Terror. Lynne Rienner, 2013, pp. 137-159). His latest research dealt with the push and pull factors that boosted today’s foreign fighters phenomenon, the origins and drawbacks of the novel concept of ‘radicalisation’ and the post-Daesh landscape. This research was published by Egmont–Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels).
In 1998, he published the first comprehensive study on the history of Belgian foreign policy (Belgium and its foreign policy 1830-1990, in Dutch and partly in French). The latest revised edition, released in September 2014, pursues this history until 2014 (published only in Dutch). Two other major studies on Belgian foreign policy deal with Dutch-Belgian bilateral relations since 1945 (Nederland-België. De Belgisch-Nederlandse betrekkingen vanaf 1940, Boom, 2011, with Duco Hellema and Bart Stol) and with the history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Les Affaires étrangères au service de l’Etat belge, de 1830 à nos jours (Mardaga, 2014) and, in Dutch, Buitenlandse Zaken in België. Geschiedenis van een ministerie, zijn diplomaten en zijn consuls van 1830 tot vandaag (Lannoo, 2014), with Vincent Dujardin and Claude Roosens.
Finally, he has also written extensively on international relations, mostly in Dutch. His Macht en Waarden in de Wereldpolitiek (Power and Values in World Politics, Academia Press) provides for a yearly overview of major trends in global politics. A 2008 publication, De geschiedenis van de wereld van morgen (A History of Tomorrow’s World, Van Halewyck) attempted to analyse the long-term change patterns in international relations and the dynamics behind today's world order. Upon publication in February 2008 this book appeared on the Belgian bookshops' bestseller list for several months.
He was appointed a member of the original European Commission’s Expert Group on Violent Radicalisation (established 2006) and the subsequent European Network of Experts on Radicalisation (ENER).
From 2002 to 2009 he served as Director of the ‘Security & Global Governance’ Program at Egmont–Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels). He has held several high-ranking official positions, such as deputy chief of the Cabinet of the Belgian Minister of Defence (1988–1992) and deputy chief of the Cabinet of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (1992–1995).
He has been coordinating research on terrorism and radicalisation, which has resulted in several publications. His Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge. European and American Experiences was published by Ashgate in 2011. This volume was included in the 2012 ‘Top 150 Books on Terrorism and Counterterrorism’, established by the academic journal Perspectives on Terrorism. His analysis on the impact of 9/11 on Europe was published in 2013 in a volume edited by Mohammed Ayoob and Etga Ugur of Michigan State University (‘Europe: Reinforcing Existing Trends’, in: Assessing the War on Terror. Lynne Rienner, 2013, pp. 137-159). His latest research dealt with the push and pull factors that boosted today’s foreign fighters phenomenon, the origins and drawbacks of the novel concept of ‘radicalisation’ and the post-Daesh landscape. This research was published by Egmont–Royal Institute for International Relations (Brussels).
In 1998, he published the first comprehensive study on the history of Belgian foreign policy (Belgium and its foreign policy 1830-1990, in Dutch and partly in French). The latest revised edition, released in September 2014, pursues this history until 2014 (published only in Dutch). Two other major studies on Belgian foreign policy deal with Dutch-Belgian bilateral relations since 1945 (Nederland-België. De Belgisch-Nederlandse betrekkingen vanaf 1940, Boom, 2011, with Duco Hellema and Bart Stol) and with the history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Les Affaires étrangères au service de l’Etat belge, de 1830 à nos jours (Mardaga, 2014) and, in Dutch, Buitenlandse Zaken in België. Geschiedenis van een ministerie, zijn diplomaten en zijn consuls van 1830 tot vandaag (Lannoo, 2014), with Vincent Dujardin and Claude Roosens.
Finally, he has also written extensively on international relations, mostly in Dutch. His Macht en Waarden in de Wereldpolitiek (Power and Values in World Politics, Academia Press) provides for a yearly overview of major trends in global politics. A 2008 publication, De geschiedenis van de wereld van morgen (A History of Tomorrow’s World, Van Halewyck) attempted to analyse the long-term change patterns in international relations and the dynamics behind today's world order. Upon publication in February 2008 this book appeared on the Belgian bookshops' bestseller list for several months.
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Papers by Rik Coolsaet
But from the outset, scholars have been warning about the contentious and ambiguous nature of this new concept. This has not prevented radicalisation studies from becoming a thriving field of research, with an increasing number of scholarly disciplines involved and a widening research agenda, as well as the holy grail of many counterterrorism policies.
With hindsight, however, the new idiom has been less of a conceptual breakthrough than initially anticipated. The absence of a consensus definition of radicalisation and diverging hypotheses about the nature of its drivers have fuelled several substantial conceptual disagreements, sometimes leading to febrile scholarly debates. Inevitably, these debates have direct relevance for the elaboration of policies devised to counter radicalisation.
But from the outset, scholars have been warning about the contentious and ambiguous nature of this new concept. This has not prevented radicalisation studies from becoming a thriving field of research, with an increasing number of scholarly disciplines involved and a widening research agenda, as well as the holy grail of many counterterrorism policies.
With hindsight, however, the new idiom has been less of a conceptual breakthrough than initially anticipated. The absence of a consensus definition of radicalisation and diverging hypotheses about the nature of its drivers have fuelled several substantial conceptual disagreements, sometimes leading to febrile scholarly debates. Inevitably, these debates have direct relevance for the elaboration of policies devised to counter radicalisation.
The formula is obviously too simple to be accurate. Rules without power easily fall apart, and power without rules quickly runs into trouble - or degenerates. But the formula nevertheless contains the core of the two alternative ways of piloting world politics. In the past and now.