Journal for Deradicalization
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One Size Does Not Fit All: Exploring the Characteristics of Exit Programmes in Europe
Get PDFThis paper presents findings from semi-structured interviews with 17 practitioners representing 14 exit interventions in 7 European countries. Drawing from the literature, the study identified analytical dimensions that provided the semi-structured interview script’s analytical framework (e.g., programme characteristics, implementation team, type of intervention, contact approach, programmes’ duration, the use of risk and needs assessment tools, follow-up/monitoring strategies/aftercare procedures). Results suggest that the goals, role of ideology and contact approach differ considerably across exit programmes. The use of risk and needs assessment tools is inconsistent across the programmes. The programmes’ evaluation was unstructured and primarily qualitative. The study has practical implications, namely the significant effort required to train exit practitioners in risk and needs assessment tools. A multi-agency approach will help improve the follow-up and aftercare practices.
Acknowledgment
This research was partially funded by the European Union Internal Security Fund (ISF) – Police, Grant Agreement: 823690 — Integrated Exit Programme for Prison and Probation (WayOut
Radicalisation and travelling to Syria among delinquent youths: A case study from the Netherlands
Get PDFAlthough many studies have investigated the backgrounds of people who went to Syria to join jihadist groups, much remains unclear about the underlying radicalisation processes. Many authors have noted that radicalisation and terrorism are associated with involvement in crime (the crime-terror nexus), in particular with membership of delinquent groups. However, it is unclear how this relation can be explained. This study was designed to increase insight into how the actual radicalisation process took place in one specific youth network in the Netherlands with a high prevalence of crime, and what triggered young people from this network to get involved in travelling to Syria. Based on police records, documents and interviews, we conducted a case study in a Dutch city in which twenty people went to Syria to join jihadist groups in early 2013. Most of them were involved in a troublesome youth group in a deprived multi-ethnic neighbourhood. We trace how a subgroup of this youth group radicalised, and how they made a connection with the jihadist network in the larger region. The results suggest that not only experiences of deprivation contributed to the radicalisation process but also the presence of persons with earlier ties to the jihadist network, as well as trigger events that led to existential questions and elevated susceptibility. Marriages with radical young women involved in the sister network also seem to have contributed to an overlap between this local youth group and a wider jihadist network. Furthermore, relatively criminal members gained status in the youth group by getting involved in jihadism. The results suggest that maintaining contact with youths at risk of radicalisation should be central to local prevention efforts. Radicalisation through trigger events and recruitment by jihadist propagandists could be prevented with specifically targeted interventions
Jumanji Extremism? How games and gamification could facilitate radicalization processes
Get PDFWhile the last years have seen increased engagement with gaming in relation to extremist attacks, its potential role in facilitating radicalization has received less attention than other factors. This article makes an exploratory contribution to the theoretical foundations of the study of gaming in radicalization research. It is argued that both top-down and bottom up gamification have already impacted extremist discourse and potentially radicalization processes but that research on gamification in other contexts points to a much wider application of gamification to extremist propaganda distribution tools in the future. The potential influence of video games on radicalization processes exceeds the transfer of the popular argument that exposure to violent media leads to desensitization to the context of radicalization and includes the exploitation of pop culture references, increases in self-efficacy regarding violence, and the direct experience of retropian visions through the content of games
Realising Violent Extremist Risk Assessments in Indonesia: Simplify and Collaborate
Get PDFEvaluations aiming to assess the risk posed by individuals suspected or convicted of violent extremist activity have developed rapidly since the late 2000s. Largely based on a process known as structured professional judgement, terrorist risk assessments have drawn upon decades of research on those used for non-ideological violent criminals, and inserted contemporary understandings of what may drive extremist violence. While uncertainty over precise risk factors presents ongoing challenges, the primary problem is that risk assessment instruments tend to be time consuming and complex, thus requiring a level of practitioner expertise not always readily available. Over the past several years, Indonesia has been experimenting with strategies to evaluate risk among individual extremist prisoners, but disagreements over suitability and human resource constraints have hindered progress. One way forward could be the establishment of a more simplified assessment system shared by relevant government stakeholders, from law enforcement to prison authorities to social service providers. While an abridged judgement process would hold limited capacity for prediction, a collaborative approach would add clarity and much needed inter-agency coordination to the management of convicted extremists in Indonesia
Countering extremism(s): Differences in local prevention of left-wing, right-wing and Islamist extremism
Get PDFPolicies to prevent radicalization and violent extremism (PRVE) frequently target a number of social movements seen as threats to national security. Often, this includes militant Islamist, right-wing and left-wing extremist milieus. In this article, we ask what distinguishes the ways in which local practitioners perceive and respond to these three milieus. Based on in-depth interviews with public servants in Sweden, we show how the milieus are seen to represent different types of threats, hold core values that resonate differently with dominant values in mainstream society and require responses that challenge public servants in diverging ways. Building on our analysis, we introduce a multidimensional model that clarifies why practitioners relate differently to each milieu. By including the rarely examined left-wing milieu, we are able to showcase the complexity of local PRVE work. Our study sheds new light on the challenges experienced by practitioners who are tasked to implement PRVE policy and demonstrates the problems of approaching “violent extremism” as a uniform phenomenon
“They think of us as part of the problem instead of part of the solution” - Swedish civil society and faith based organizations in resilience building and prevention of radicalization and violent Islamist extremism
Get PDFRadicalization and violent extremism are pressing issues on the Swedish political agenda. The local level has been identified as pivotal when it comes to preventive work and local public actors are encouraged to cooperate with civil society in efforts to promote local resilience. However, the Swedish debate on the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) and faith based organizations (FBOs) in resilience building and prevention is heated. Based on 14 interviews with representatives for secular, Christian and Muslim CSOs and FBOs, we have explored and analysed how they perceive their role in resilience building and preventive work. We have asked how they interpret local resilience against radicalization and violent extremism and what they think is needed in order to promote it. Findings are mirrored against a recent literature review on local resilience. In the interviews, there is a strong emphasis on work to strengthen social support networks, enhance community resources and build collective identity. In relation to the literature review, there are significant similarities with how resilience is defined and said to be promoted
Entertainment-Education Versus Extremism: Examining Parasocial Interaction among Arab Viewers of Anti-ISIS TV Drama
Get PDFRadicalization amongst youth is a challenge facing the Arab world. Recent reports indicate that over 20,000 Arab fighters traveled to join ISIS in Iraq and Syria and another 5-15 percent of millennials across seven Arab countries consider some violent extremist groups to be on the right path. In response, Arab countries have experimented with entertainment-education (E-E) by using anti-extremism narratives in popular culture to address radicalization at the societal level. This study explores whether those narratives can elicit viewers’ parasocial interaction (PSI)—pseudo friendships with or animosity toward mediated personas that can catalyze persuasion—with fictional characters. Using qualitative and quantitative content analyses of more than 8,600 YouTube comments, this study explores Arab viewers’ responses to a recent E-E project, al-Siham al-Marika (The Piercing Arrows) drama series, that portrays life under ISIS’s control. The findings identify recurrent themes in the pool of comments, such as show debates, religious contestations, political disputes, empathy for victims, and engagement with plotline/characters. More importantly, they reveal at least one out of six comments (n=1477) exhibits PSI with fictional characters, addressing them as part of their social milieu. The study further traces the variations in the nature of PSI in relation to mediated positive role models, negative role models, and transitional characters in the narrative. It concludes with a discussion of E-E’s potentials as an anti-extremism messaging strategy and PSI’s role as a useful metric in assessing such narratives
Preventing Terrorist Recruitment through Early Intervention by Involving Families
Get PDFPreventing terrorist recruitment is one of the most effective and less lethal methods of countering terrorism, and yet it is often overlooked. This article describes a program designed and administered by the author to prevent terrorist recruitment through early intervention, by promoting the involvement of the families of potential recruits in their children's activities and in a counterterrorism program that was developed and implemented in Sanliurfa, Turkey, for four years, from 2010 to 2014. The article details the concept and structure of the program, provides insights on how it was developed and administered, and presents the data, an analysis, and the findings. In addition, this article reports on the outcomes of the program and offers insights into why the youth in Sanliurfa were struggling to break their ties with terrorist organizations
Research Note: “When ‘Childsplay’ Gets Lethal”: ‘Ludic Terrorism’ and its Ambivalent Relationship with Postmodernism
Get PDFThe research note offers an intuitive insight into a peculiar type of terrorist behaviour. It does so by combining the concept of ‘ludic’ with terrorism, which is not entirely new (see Shane McCorristine’s work on 19th century anarchism as ‘ludic terrorism’ and its representations in Edwardian literature). But the object of this work is to explore the ‘ludic’ concept both methodologically (by exposing the linkage between ‘ludic’ themes of playing, tricking and irony and the theory of postmodernism) and historically by highlighting two serious yet apparently unrelated mainstream cases – Anders Behring Breivik and Elliot Rodger. It is important to note that the study is multi-disciplinary by nature. It draws on philosophy and cultural theorists as well as novelists and film media in order to get to grips with real life traumas experienced by millions of human beings and externalise the dangerous alter egos and apocalyptic pipedreams which are born as a result
The Significance of the Superordinate: Linking (Dis-)Embedded Identity to Non-Normative Ends and Means
Get PDFIn this article, we examine the significance of a superordinate identity of citizens in plural democratic societies with a focus on the combinations of the identification with a particular societal subgroup and the (dis-)identification with society as the superordinate group. We develop these combinations into the conceptions of embedded identity and dis-embedded identity. Embedded identity derives from the acknowledgment that one´s particular ingroup membership at a given level of ingroup-outgroup categorization is embedded in a higher-level group membership. In contrast, dis-embedded identity derives from the accentuation and prioritization of one’s particular ingroup membership at the expense of one’s membership in the superordinate group. Articulating Turner´s self-categorization theory with theoretical reasoning about normative frameworks, we hypothesized that embedded identity diminishes sympathy for non-normative ends and means, whereas dis-embedded identity fosters sympathy for non-normative ends and means. Two experiments, conducted with young people in Germany as research participants, supported these hypotheses: Embedded identity was unrelated or even negatively related to sympathy for non-normative ends and means, whereas dis-embedded identity was positively related to sympathy for non-normative ends and means. We highlight the contribution of our present research and that of social psychological research, more generally, to the understanding of (de)radicalization processes in plural democratic societies