University of St Andrews

Key information

SCOTCAT credits : 5

ECTS credits : 2

Level : SCQF level 8

Semester: 2

Availability restrictions: This module is not open to students matriculated on a University degree programme.

Planned timetable: N/A

This module focuses on some well-documented individual case studies that help students explore lone actor violence. It does so by considering both the attacker’s own thought-world: and what sense contemporaries made of their surprising and violent intervention into political life. But from this close up focus, it will also step back to consider much wider questions : What is the relationship of lone attackers to wider society? How did this phenomenon spread from Europe to become global? What role does ‘toxic masculinity’ play in creating lone attackers? And how have communications improvements encouraged them? These topics are given further thought to help students understand the lone attacker phenomenon and its historical development.

Learning and teaching methods and delivery

Weekly contact: N/A

Scheduled learning hours: 0

Guided independent study hours: 51

Assessment pattern

As used by St Andrews: Coursework = 100%

As defined by QAA
Written examinations : 0%
Practical examinations : 0%
Coursework: 100%

Re-assessment: Coursework = 100%

Personnel

Module coordinator: Dr T K Wilson
Module teaching staff: Dr Timothy Wilson
Module coordinator email tkw2@st-andrews.ac.uk

Intended learning outcomes

• Critically assess the concept of the ‘Lone Wolf’ as applied to assassins and terrorists
• Understand the key insights of social psychology on forces driving individual radicalisation
• Explain, through case study examples, how individuals become lone wolves
• Identify the historical macro-conditions that encourage the proliferation of lone actor attackers
• Understand why so few women become lone wolves: and the role of toxic masculinity as one driver of lone actor terrorism
• Explain the role of extreme ideologies in motivating attackers