After terrorist attacks, independent government commissions are usually appointed to do an inquiry of what happened before, during and after the attacks, why it happened, and whether the attacks could have been prevented. These reports, along with media coverage and political debate, provide a rich source for identifying current and evolving narratives of the preventability of terrorist attacks.
In my paper, I will analyse narratives of preventability as they are presented in the reports after the terrorist attacks in Oslo and Utøya (Norway) in 2011, Copenhagen (Denmark) in 2015 and Stockholm (Sweden) in 2017.
The aim is to contribute to the evolving scholarship on the emergence of pre-crime, pre-emption and precaution in counter-terrorism discourse and policy with an analysis of whether there is a specific Nordic dimension to this development.