Charlotte Heath-Kelly

Professor of Politics and International Studies

PhD in International Politics (Aberystwyth, 2012); MscEcon Political Theory (Cardiff, 2008); BA Politics and Philosophy (Cardiff, 2005)

Email: c.heath-kelly@warwick.ac.uk
Room: D1.19

Advice and feedback hours: by appointment only (email me).

Profile

I am currently running a pilot study into the work of 'Data Guardians' across UK policing, healthcare, and social care organisations. These professionals play a unique and under-explored role in information governance across the UK, and I am exploring whether comparable professional fields exist in Europe.

Previously, I led a large ERC funded study of counter-radicalisation practices in Europe which explored how states (and municipalities) implement counter-terrorism through their social welfare and health sectors. For more information, please see our book with Oxford University Press or our project website. On the UK intersection between health and counterterrorism, I collaborated with MedAct on a report into psychiatric involvement in UK counter-terrorism policing, focusing on the racialised and ableist metrics of suspicion implemented in the 'Vulnerability Support Hubs' project. When the 'hubs' project was later nationalised, I conducted a follow-up study on the Counter Terrorism Clinical Consultancy Service, which can be found here. I actively work with civil society organisations on the issues raised by profiling based on personal data, especially medical information. Across the broader NHS, I've studied the introduction of Prevent Duty safeguarding - and my research was covered by the Guardian covered here and here. The Institute of Race Relations have also covered my findings here.

Historically, my research focused on Terrorism Memorials and Collective Memory. The British International Studies Association filmed a roundtable discussion of the 'Curating Conflict' project here, and interviewed me about Spanish terrorism victims associations and commemoration here.

Recent Publications

Books

• (2025) The Politics of Preventing Violent Extremism: Liberal Democracy, Civil Society and Countering Radicalisation (Oxford University Press). Co-authored with Sadi Shanaah.
• (2023) Vulnerability: Governing the Social through Security Politics (eds. Charlotte Heath-Kelly & Barbara Gruber) (Manchester University Press).
• (2016) Death and Security: Memory and Mortality at the Bombsite (Manchester University Press). Reviewed in Critical Studies on Security; response to reviewer comments available here.
• (2013) Politics of Violence: Militancy, International Politics, Killing in the Name (Abingdon: Routledge). Shortlisted for 2014 Susan Strange Book Prize, reviewed in Critical Studies on Terrorism journal here. The Ted talk I gave on this project can be viewed here.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• (2025) ‘Social defence’ and the resilience of the domestic war on terror: A genealogy of social security, national security, and defence', European Journal of International Security, 10(1), pp.9-26.
• (2024) 'Multi Agency Counter-Terrorism in Britain and Norway: Intelligence Agencies and the Distribution of Welfare', Security Dialogue, 55(4), 2024, pp.386-403

• (2024) ‘Devolution and the Prevent Strategy in Scotland: Constitutional Politics and the Path of Scottish P/CVE’, Parliamentary Affairs, 77(2), pp.350-70.

• (2023) 'Rehabilitation within Pre-crime Interventions: The Hybrid Criminology of Social Crime Prevention and Countering Violent Extremism', Theoretical Criminology 27(2), pp.183–203. Co-authored with Sadi Shanaah.
• (2022) 'What Drives Counter-Extremism? The Extent of P/CVE Policies in the West and their Structural Correlates', Terrorism and Political Violence. Co-authored with Sadi Shanaah.
• (2022) 'The Long History of Prevention: Social Defence, Security and Anticipating Future Crimes in the Era of 'Penal Welfarism', Theoretical Criminology, 26(3), pp.357-76. Co-authored with Sadi Shanaah.
• (2022) 'Cold War Psychiatry, Extremism and Expertise: The 'Special Committee Against the Political Abuse of Psychiatry', International Political Sociology, 16(1), pp.1-18.
• (2022) 'Fighting terrorism at the local level: the European Union, radicalisation prevention and the negotiation of subsidiarity', European Security, 31(2), pp.313-33. Co-authored by Francesca Melhuish & Charlotte Heath-Kelly.
• (2022) 'A Moral Education? British Values, Colour-Blindness, and Preventing Terrorism’, Critical Social Policy 42(1), pp.85-106. Co-authored by Christine Winter; Charlotte Heath-Kelly; Amna Kaleem & China Mills.

For a list of publications, please click here.