Dr. Silvia D’Amato is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), part of the research groups Terrorism and Political Violence and War, Peace and Justice. Silvia is also Secretary General of the European Initiative for Security Studies (EISS).

More information about Silvia D'Amato

Dr Silvia D'Amato is Associate Professor of Political Science and Academic Coordinator of the MA in European Union Policy Studies at James Madison University's Florence campus, and a Research Associate at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs (ISGA), Leiden University, where she previously held an Assistant Professorship within the Terrorism and Political Violence and War, Peace and Justice research groups. She is also Secretary General of the European Initiative for Security Studies (EISS).

D’Amato holds a PhD (cum laude) in Political Science from the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, an MA in International and Diplomatic Science from the University of Bologna (cum laude, 2013), and a BA in International Studies from the University of Florence (2010). During her doctoral studies she was visiting fellow at the University of Amsterdam and at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique in Paris. Prior to Leiden, she held a Max Weber Fellowship at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies of the European University Institute (EUI), served as Adjunct Professor and interim Academic Coordinator of the JMU EUPS programme in Florence, and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Florence within the H2020 RESPOND project on migration governance.

Her research lies at the intersection of international relations, security studies, and area studies, with sustained concentrations on terrorism and counterterrorism, European security and foreign policy, military interventions, and the politics of the Sahel. She is the author of Cultures of Counterterrorism: French and Italian Responses to Terrorism after 9/11 (Routledge, 2019), and has co-edited two further volumes: International Relations and Area Studies: Debates, Methodologies and Insights from Different World Regions, with Matteo Dian and Alessandra Russo (Springer, 2023), and Security in Transnational Spaces: Legal and Political Perspectives across Europe, with Athina Sachoulidou (Routledge, 2023).

Recent peer-reviewed articles include "Borderless Interventionism: The International Disaster Response in the Libyan Civil War", with Andrea Bartolucci and Alessia Tortolini (Global Studies Quarterly, 2026); "Transnational Counterterrorism Assemblages: The Case of Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism in Mali", with Edoardo Baldaro (Territory, Politics, Governance, 2023); "Strategic European Counterterrorism? An Empirical Analysis", with Andrea Terlizzi (European Security, 2022); "Patchwork of Counterterrorism: Analyzing European Types of Cooperation in Sahel" (International Studies Review, 2021); "European Transnationalism between Successes and Shortcomings: Threats, Strategies and Actors under the Microscope", with Athina Sachoulidou (Journal of Contemporary European Studies, 2021); "Reaching for Allies? The Dialectics and Overlaps between International Relations and Area Studies", with Matteo Dian and Alessandra Russo (Italian Political Science Review, 2022); "Islamization of Criminal Behaviour: The Path to Terrorism? Terrorist Threat and Crime in French Counterterrorism Policy-Formulation"(European Journal of Criminology, 2019); "From BR to ISIS: The Italian Domestic and International Response to Terrorism" (European Politics and Society, 2018); "Can You Hear Me Major Tom? News, Narratives and Contemporary Military Operations: The Case of the Italian Mission in Afghanistan", with Fabrizio Coticchia (European Security, 2018); "Terrorists Going Transnational: Rethinking the Role of States in the Case of AQIM and Boko Haram" (Critical Studies on Terrorism, 2017); and "Does Rentierism Have a Conditional Effect on Violence? Regime Oil Dependency and Civil War in Algeria", with Gianni Del Panta (Extractive Industries and Society, 2017). Two further co-authored articles in The International Spectator (2019)—"Talking Migration: Narratives of Migration and Justice Claims in the European Migration System of Governance" with Sonia Lucarelli, and "The Migration Triangle: Narratives, Justice and the Politics of Migration in France" with Anna Lavizzari—anchor her contribution to the RESPOND research programme.

Recent contributions to handbooks and edited volumes include "Terrorism", with Jake Wright, in S. Lucarelli and J. Sperling, eds., Handbook of European Union Governance (Edward Elgar, 2025); "Transnational Terrorism as a Threat", with Jake Wright, in K. P. Balomenos, A. Fytopoulos, and P. M. Pardalos, eds., Handbook for the Management of Threats (Springer Optimization and Its Applications, 2024); and "Changing Threats and Challenges in International Relations: Debating (In)securities and Ways to Manage Them", with Tochukwu Omenma, in M. Gill, ed., The Handbook of Security (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022).

D’Amato is an active commentator on European security and the Sahel, with policy and analytical writing for the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (where she has also served on the Editorial Board), the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), and The Conversation. At ISGA she is associated with research projects including GLOBALINT (Intelligence in the Global South) and Countering Violent Extremist Content Online: A Multidisciplinary Approach, and continues to supervise doctoral candidates at Leiden. A consolidated record of her work is available via her ORCID and Leiden University publications pages.

Activities