Policies aimed at preventing (further) radicalisation or aimed at de-radicalisation are required to be ‘evidence-based’. This suggests that evaluators should apply rigorous empirical methodology and measurement techniques. However, it is often unclear what this evidence should consist of and how it should be gathered. In the present paper we present…
On the 24th of December 2015, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon created the Plan of Action to Prevent Violent Extremism which he presented in his report (A/70/674) for the General Assembly to consider. The plan emphasises the need to act to prevent the further spread of violent extremism by addressing…
This article analyses how education is positioned in the current concerns about security and extremism. This means firstly examining the different meanings of security (national, human and societal) and who provides security for whom. Initially, a central dilemma is acknowledged: that schooling appears to be simultaneously irrelevant to the huge…
As it conquered territory throughout Syria and Iraq, the Islamic State (IS) has appeared to focus on governance, providing everything from education and healthcare, to municipal services like sewage and trash collection. And the Islamic State’s social service provision seems to be something the group cares about. IS uses its…
How closely entwined are the drug trade and global terrorism? In December, 2009, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abdelrahman, smugglers from northern Mali, walked through the doors of the Golden Tulip, a hotel in Accra, Ghana. They were there to meet with two men who had offered them an opportunity to…
Since the 7/7 bombings of July 2005, Britain has experienced a domestic terror threat posed by a small minority of young Muslims. In response, Britain has initiated ‘Prevent’, a preventative counter-terrorism programme. Building on previous, general critiques of Prevent, this article outlines and critically discusses the ways in which Prevent…
Within democratic societies, counter-terrorism is almost exclusively about crime prevention. A broad and holistic approach to preventing terrorism can be based on nine preventive mechanisms: building normative barriers against terrorism, reducing radicalisation and recruitment, deterrence, disruption, incapacitation, protecting vulnerable targets, reducing benefits to terrorists, reducing harm, and facilitating disengagement from…
Despite widespread recognition that the use of counternarratives is an important strategic component of countering violent extremism, to date, there are no comprehensive guidelines on how to develop and distribute counternarratives to effectively reduce support for terrorism. To redress this, we offer communication and psychology theory-based procedures for (1) analyzing…
Link to the official UN Security Council Resolution 2250.
22nd OSCE Ministerial Council, Belgrade, 3 – 4 December 2015
This paper is intended to update the numbers of foreign fighters traveling to join the so-called Islamic State and other violent extremist groups in Iraq and Syria provided by The Soufan Group (TSG) in June 2014. Since then, other reports have emerged, including in September 2015 when United States intelligence…
WHILE NOT AS LARGE as in many other Western countries, ISIS-related mobilization in the United States has been unprecedented. As of the fall of 2015, U.S. authorities speak of some 250 Americans who have traveled or attempted to travel to Syria/Iraq to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria…
