The Benefits and Challenges of Classroom-Based Surveys for the Study of Radicalization and Extremism among Adolescents
Classroom-based surveys are a proven method for studying adolescents since it is relatively easy and cost-effective to obtain a large number of participants from various backgrounds. They are also beneficial for research on youth radicalization and extremism. For example, they allow us to acquire in...
Seeing through Troubled Water: Proposing a Narrow Focus on Behavioral Warning Signals for the Prevention of Terrorist Violence
Prevention strategies for terrorist attacks commonly incorporate all aspects of radicalization, aiming to deter terrorist attacks by countering radical beliefs. In this article, however, we argue that the cognitive aspect of radica lization is not necessarily interconnected with its behavioral asp...
Was the 2019 Christchurch attack a black swan event? Understanding far-right violence in New Zealand
On 15 March 2019, far-right actor Brenton Tarrant killed 51 people at the al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand. Media and politicians presented this event as an ‘end of innocence’ for New Zealand, with many wondering how such an attack could occur in an extremel...
Topics in terrorism research: reviewing trends and gaps, 2007-2016
ABSTRACT The topical focus of research on terrorism has frequently been critiqued for being too narrow, too event-driven and too strongly tied to governments’ counterterrorism policies. This article uses keyword analysis to assess the degree to which these issues remain present in the literature o...
From flowers to far-right extremists: A genealogy of ecology in terrorism and extremism studies
ABSTRACT The idea that violent extremists inhabit an “ecosystem” of interre lated online spaces has been popularised by both scholars and practitioners in recent years. Drawing from the natural sciences, terrorism and extremism studies has sought to capitalise on the conceptual potential of ...
Gender in the United Nations’ agenda on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism
The United Nations (UN) policy agenda on Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) promotes a “holistic” approach to counterterrorism, which includes elements traditionally found in security and development programs. Advocates of the agenda increasingly emphasize the importance of gend...
The etymology of “Islamic extremism”: A misunderstood term?
Dealing with Islamic extremism without considering the meaning and context of the term itself leads to a narrow understanding of the phenomenon and its implications. This has led to describing Islamic extremism in terms such as “terrorism” and “Islamic radicalisation” which require reactive ...
Bringing politics back in: the introduction of the ‘performative power’ of counterterrorism
While it is sensible that governments and academics endeavour to assess the effectiveness of counterterrorism policies, this article argues that it is almost impossible to measure arithmetically the outcome of counterterrorism efforts for a variety of reasons. How ever, this does not mean that th...
Bringing politics back in: the introduction of the ‘performative power’ of counterterrorism
Firstly, it usually holds true that in order to solve a problem, one has to know what the problem is. But the definition of the problem, in this case terrorism, is a problem in itself. There are hundreds of definitions (Schmid and Jongman 1988) and at least five major categories in which a govern...
Gender at the crossroads: the role of gender in the UN’s global counterterrorism reform at the humanitarian-development-peace nexus
Since the early 2000s, the United Nations (UN) global counterterror ism architecture has seen significant changes towards increased multilateralism, a focus on prevention, and inter-institutional coordi nation across the UN’s three pillars of work. Throughout this reform process, gender aspects ...
Determining the Role of the Internet in Violent Extremism and Terrorism: Six Suggestions for Progressing Research
T Somescholars and others are skeptical of a significant role for the Internet in processes of violent radicalization. There is increasing concern on the part of other scholars, and increasingly also pol icymakers and publics, that easy availability of violent extremist content online may have vio...
Keeping up appearances: US domestic extremist organizations and the effects of membership on domestic terrorism perpetrators
Within the broader discussion of US domestic terrorism, the impact of formal extremist groups on the behaviour of perpetrators of ideolo gically motivated crime stands as a key albeit under examined issue. Radicalization and terrorism have long been understood as group- driven processes, yet th...
Determining the Role of the Internet in Violent Extremism and Terrorism: Six Suggestions for Progressing Research
Somescholars and others are skeptical of a significant role for the Internet in processes of violent radicalization. There is increasing concern on the part of other scholars, and increasingly also pol icymakers and publics, that easy availability of violent extremist content online may have viole...
A systematic integrative review of counter messaging communication campaigns targeting terrorism or violent extremism
n response to the rise of the so-called Islamic State and its effective use of propaganda to recruit and radicalise followers, countering the communication strategies of a range of terrorist and violent extremist actors has become a significant challenge for policymakers and practitioners. Over ...
White Jihad: Fused Extremism?
arright extremist groups keep emerging and attempt to create online coali tions relying on Telegram’s permissive stance towards terrorist and extremist content. This trend created the new ecosystem on Telegram known as Terrorgram, a set of Telegram channels, communal chats, and individual accou...
Financial Extremism: The Dark Side of Crowdfunding and Terrorism
his study sheds light on the emerging threat of terrorists, particularly Hamas and other Palestinian terror organizations, leveraging online crowdfunding and cryptocurrencies. The recent events of October 7, 2023, highlight the pressing nature of this issue. A systematic case analysis reveals the...
Instrumentalising race: why critical terrorism studies continues to have a race problem
This paper interrogates how the racial logic of instrumentalisation – the intended exploitation of racialised peoples for intellectual capi tal – shapes the field of Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS). I argue that the problem of instrumentalisation highlights CTS’s limitations to advance ant...
Being resilient to radicalisation in PVE policy: a critical examination
The problematic nature of certain policies and approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism has been robustly demonstrated; it is clear that rethinking the prevention of violent extremism requires concerted attention. One response to critiques of security-driven approaches has been the ...
Exploring the role of encryption and the dark web in cyber terrorism: legal challenges and countermeasures in India
the rapid growth of digital technologies has provided new opportunities for cyber criminals, including terrorist organizations, to exploit encrypted communications and the Dark web for illicit activities. Cyber terrorism, characterized by the use of cyber-attacks to cause fear, disrupt societies, or...
Biopolitics of hope and security: governing the future through US counterterrorism communications
This article probes the relationship between hope and security, looking at how hope is appropriated and used by the US security apparatus under President Obama to pre-empt radicalisation. It looks specifically at strategic narratives designed to infuse hope within the global Muslim population – id...
Citizens, Extremists, Terrorists: Comparing Radicalized Individuals with the General Population
Empirical research on terrorism has tended to overlook the heterogeneity of the radicalized population, and how, in its heterogeneity, it differs from the general population. This study first asks how radicalized individuals, irrespec tive of the activities they participated in during their trajec...
Reconsidering Early Detection in Countering Radicalization by Local Frontline Professionals
In recent years, the fight against terrorism and political violence has focused more on anticipating the threats that they pose. Therefore, early detection of ideas by local professionals has become an important part of the preventive approach in countering radicalization. Frontline workers who oper...
‘Killing a mosquito with a hammer’: Al-Shabaab violence and state security responses in Kenya
Networked, transnational forms of violence pose a significant threat to peace and security in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. In recent years, Kenya has witnessed an expanding number of attacks involving Al-Shabaab – the Somali-based militant organisation. Kenya’s state responses to t...
Chinese Strategy for De-radicalization
China is fighting a tough battle against separatist terrorism perpetrated by militant Muslim Uyghurs in the far-western region of Xinjiang. De-radicalization is one of the policies the authorities in Xinjiang have recently taken to address the upsurge in terrorist violence. This paper consists of fi...
Return of the Lost Son: Disengagement and social reintegration of former terrorists in Indonesia
People involved in terrorism do not always survive as part of a group or fail to assimilate into society. Many former terrorists have returned to their community and even taken part in the deradicalization movement. (1) This study aims to find out: First, the background of the former terrorists’ i...
An exploratory analysis of leakage warning behavior in lone-actor terrorists
Leakage is one of the eight warning behaviors referred to in the violence risk and threat assessment literature. Previous research has highlighted the relevance and prevalence of leakage in loneactor terrorists; however, a more detailed understanding of this phenomenon is lacking. This study sets ou...
Theorising and illustrating plural policing models in countering armed banditry as hybrid terrorism in northwest Nigeria
Banditry constitutes about 40% of national insecurity in Nigeria. It is a composite crime manifesting in wanton killing, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, levying of illegal tax on farming communities, sexual violence and trafficking of arms and drugs. Through qualitative and quantitative rese...
Bystander reporting to prevent violent extremism and targeted violence: learning from practitioners
The willingness of friends or family to share concerns about an ‘intimate’ preparing to perpetrate public, mass violence, such as violent extremism or targeted violence, is considered a possible part of preventative strategies. To understand what is needed to help intimate bystanders share ...
Visible Counterterrorism Measures in Urban Spaces—Fear-Inducing or Not?
Many scholars working within the tradition of critical studies are sceptical of the presence of visible security measures in urban spaces, arguing that they cause fear and facilitate the political control of citizens. A study carried out in Denmark in 2011 sought to capture, describe, and rank facto...
The women and girls associated with Boko Haram: How has the Nigerian government responded?
Following the Chibok abductions of April 2014, the involvement of women and girls in the Boko Haram insurgency has increased, as has the subsequent analysis of them in both the academic and the grey literature. Contributions have mainly focused on how women and girls have been incorporated into – ...
Where do ‘mixed, unclear, and unstable' ideologies come from? A data-driven answer centred on the incelosphere
In Europe and North America, an increasing proportion of individuals who are referred to de-radicalization programmes, arrested for terrorism offences, or involved in politically motivated violence, present a ‘mixed, unclear, and unstable’ (MUU) ideological profile instead of holding a single, c...
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s use of criminal intermediaries for extraterritorial assassinations and covert violence: a gray zone strategy of outsourced repression
The Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) has employed assassinations and proxy violence as tools of statecraft. Dissidents in exile have been killed, targeted, or systematically threatened, while Israeli-linked entities across Europe have faced repeated attacks. In recent years, Tehran has increasingly ou...
The banality of counterterrorism “after, after 9/11”? Perspectives on the Prevent duty from the UK health care sector
Since 2015, the UK healthcare sector sector has (along with education and social care) been responsibilised for noticing signs of radicalisation and reporting patients to the Prevent programme. The Prevent Duty frames the integration of healthcare professionals into the UK’s counterterrorism effor...
Peace Process and Anti-terrorism: Dual Challenges Facing Obama Administration’s Middle East Policy
The negative interaction between the prioritization of anti-terrorism and the marginalization of the peace process forms a heavy heritage of Bush Administration’s Middle East policy. Therefore, the Obama Administration now is confronted with a very serious test: how to establish and maintain compa...
Transforming Pacifists into Warmongers? Separatist Movement, State Repression, and the Politics of Framing Terrorism in Nigeria: Evidence from IPOB and Yoruba Nation’s Freedom Frontiers
While the post-9/11 event has animated how state actors frame terrorism, contemporary studies have failed to address the politics inherent in proscribing, repressing, and labeling separatist movements as terrorists. This paper explores the politics of framing terrorism using the contemporary selfdet...
Bystander reporting to prevent violent extremism and targeted violence: learning from practitioners
T The willingness of friends or family to share concerns about an ‘intimate’ preparing to perpetrate public, mass violence, such as violent extremism or targeted violence, is considered a possible part of preventative strategies. To understand what is needed to help intimate bystanders shar...
Logics of care and control: governing European “returnees” from Iraq and Syria
This article examines how European “returnees” from the conflict in Iraq and Syria are managed by European governance and screening, prosecution, reintegration and rehabilitation (SPRR) processes. It explores the contestations and dynamics among professionals and practitioners involved in SPRR, ...
An Attack against Us All? Perceived Similarity and Compassion for the Victims Mediate the Effects of News Coverage about Right-Wing Terrorism
Right-wing terrorism (RWT) poses an increasing threat to Western societies, with perpetrators targeting diverse members of society. We investigated the affective and attitudinal outcomes of exposure to news about RWT, depending on the victims’ religious affiliation (Christian vs. Muslim). Results ...
The evolution of information-sharing in EU counter-terrorism post-2015: a paradigm shift?
Despite the instruments in place to facilitate policy and operational cooperation, until 2015 gaps in EU CT governance and operational inefficiency decreased the capacity for prevention and response. The paper will analyse the aftermath of the critical juncture brought by the attacks in Paris and Br...
Structural Influences on Involvement in European Homegrown Jihadism: A Case Study
This article empirically assesses the applicability of structural-level hypotheses for involvement in terrorism within the context of European homegrown jihadism. It uses these hypotheses to study how structural factors influenced involvement in the Dutch “Hofstadgroup.” Structural factors enabl...
Assessing the Effectiveness of the Carrot and Stick Counter-terrorist Measure: A Comparison of Algeria and Yemen
This article seeks to explain the differing counter-terrorist effects in Algeria and Yemen over the past two decades. While terrorism peaked in both countries in the late 1990s and incumbents in both countries responded with “carrot and stick” strategies, the results have been entirely different...
The invention of ‘terrorism’ in Somalia: paradigms and policy in US foreign relations
The article first traces events in Somalia since 9/11: the rise of the Islamic Courts, the Ethiopian occupation, the recalibration of the interim government and the alShabaab insurgency. A second layer of analysis brings into focus three fluctuations in the external perception of the Somali crisis: ...
Press F to Pay Respects”: An Empirical Exploration of the Mechanics of Gamification in Relation to the Christchurch Attack Suraj Lakhani & Su
There has been a long-standing yet largely unreported intersection between video-gaming and violent extremism, spanning across jihadist, far-right, and other types of ideologies. Within this framework, until late, scant attention has been paid to the concept of “gamification”; i.e. the applicati...
Data Collection in Online Terrorism and Extremism Research: Strengths, Limitations, and Future Directions
There has been a growing interest among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers to analyze the online activities of extremists and terrorists. As studies in this research area have increased, various data collection techniques have emerged to address key research ques tions, ranging from man...
Deradicalization through Double-Loop Learning? How the Egyptian Gamaa Islamiya Renounced Violence
The transformation of the Gamaa Islamiya can be understood by analyzing it against Argyris and Schon€ ’s double-loop learning model. This paper bases the analysis on five books published by the Gamaa Islamiya, which include comprehensive elaborations on internal reflections and criticism of Al-Q...
Ideological Transmission in Extremist Contexts: Towards a Framework of How Ideas Are Shared
Despite their centrality in academic and policy debates about radicalization and political violence, ideologies have been conceived narrowly, as cognitive, top-down, coherent and systematic. In general, those who have used the concept of ideology have failed to draw on ideological theory or on recen...
Protection in Peril: Counterterrorism Discourse and International Engagement in Sri Lanka in 2009
There is often tension between counterterrorism and human rights compliance. This particularly applies to international engagement aimed at the protection of fundamental human rights in armed conflicts. This article traces international diplomacy and disputed issues regarding norms of protection in ...
Bad Men, Good Men, and Loving Women: Gender Constructions in British State Messaging on Counterterrorism, Countering Violent Extremism and Preventing Violent Extremism
The United Kingdom presents itself as a leader in counterterrorism (CT), coun tering violent extremism (CVE) and preventing violent extremism (PVE). The Action Counters Terrorism Campaign is a public-facing campaign of the U.K. government aimed at raising the public’s awareness of how it can s...
The Ethical Limits We Should Place on Intelligence Gathering as Part of an Integrated CT Strategy
The Ethical Limits We Should Place on Intelligence Gathering as Part of an Integrated CT Strategy
From Prevent to Protect and Prepare: The Manchester Arena Attack and Shifting Priorities in the United Kingdom’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy (CONTEST)
This article analyses the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST from a Disaster Management perspective. The article argues that since the Manchester Arena attack in May 2017, there has been a reorientation in CONTEST away from a primary focus on Prevent towards a greater concern with Protect and...
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