Peter Lehr

Peter Lehr is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence (CSTPV), School of International Relations, University of St Andrews, which he joined in September 2004, initially as a Research Fellow tasked with exploring the nexus between piracy and maritime terrorism. Prior to that, he taught Political Science of South/Southeast Asia at the South Asia Institute (SAI), University of Heidelberg, where he also received his Magister Artium (September 1996) and his Dr. rer pol in Political Science (PhD, February 2004).

He is a regional expert on the Indo-Pacific, with a special research interest in violent ‘grey area phenomena’ such as terrorism, political violence, and organized crime – in particular, in maritime terrorism and piracy (as sea-borne organized crime); and in religious violence (with a focus on militant Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism). His current research is on militant (Theravāda) Buddhism, Buddhist Nationalism and Buddhist Vigilantism – manifestations of Buddhism that I like to call ‘Enraged Buddhism’ as opposed to the better-known ‘Engaged Buddhism’ in the shape of Buddhist environmentalism or social activism.