Laureation Address: Professor Bruce Hoffman
Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters
Laureation by Professor Ali Watson OBE School of International Relations
Tuesday 30 June 2026 – afternoon ceremony
Chancellor, it is my privilege to present for the Degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, Professor Bruce Hoffman.
Many of you sitting here today will have read Bruce Hoffman’s work. His book Inside Terrorism, first published in 1998, has become the foundational text for the study of terrorism, described by Columbia University Press as one of the 25 most notable books published by them since their founding in 1893. Now entering its fourth edition Inside Terrorism is, nevertheless, only one part of a highly significant, and still growing, body of scholarship that includes single author, co-authored and co-edited books, numerous peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, review articles, reports, opinion pieces and congressional testimonies. Taken together this work has provided the roadmap for the development of Terrorism Studies for over four decades, including charting the rise of far-right extremism which began with his first professional publication released in 1982, and which came full circle with his most recent book God, Guns and Sedition, an award-
winning examination of far-right terrorism in America which he co-authored with Jacob Ware in 2024.
What you may not know about that first edition of Inside Terrorism was that it was written here in St Andrews. Bruce joined the then Department of International Relations in the summer of 1994, first as Senior Lecturer and then Reader, beginning a deep and abiding association with St Andrews that continues to this day. Very soon after his arrival Bruce was elected Head of Department, and that same year became founding Director of the School’s Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. Bruce returned to the US in 1998, first to the Rand Corporation, as both Director of its Washington DC office and their Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency, before returning to academia full time in 2006 when he became a full Professor in Georgetown’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, a position that he still holds today.
This stellar academic career has run alongside a significant record of public service, including his 2013 Congressional appointment to the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization where he served as a lead author of the commission’s final report. This service has been recognised throughout his career including his 1994 receipt of the US Intelligence Community Seal Medallion, the highest level of commendation that can be awarded to a non-government employee by that community.
There is so much more that I could say, but I will end with this. When God, Guns and Sedition won the Airey Neave Memorial Book Prize in 2025, one of the judges noted that the authors “are to be congratulated not just for the book but for the courage to write the book”. That courage is a quality that stands out not only in Bruce’s scholarship but in his academic practice. He has always been the first to step forward in support of others, whether that’s championing the careers of female academics, ensuring younger scholars get the recognition they deserve, or in the central role he played in helping to evacuate Afghans to safety following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. For Bruce, nothing is more important than acting with honour, integrity, and kindness.
Chancellor, in recognition of his significant contribution to the study and development of International Relations at St Andrews, and to his scholarship and service within the field of terrorism and political violence, I ask you to confer the degree of Doctor of Letters, honoris causa, on Professor Bruce Hoffman.