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La radicalización como elemento vertebrador de la política antiterrorista: una aproximación crítica
Abstract
RESUMEN: Los autores de este articulo examinan la validez de la radicalización para constituirse como uno de los elementos vertebradores de la lucha contra el terrorismo de inspiración yihadista en la actualidad. En este sentido, se argumenta que no solo se trata de un concepto problemático y vacío de contenido sino que, además, su naturaleza inespecífica dificulta enormemente la implementación de políticas públicas eficientes para prevenir la participación del individuo en el fenómeno terrorista. Por todo ello, ya en el apartado de conclusiones, se postula la necesidad de someter a este concepto a una profunda revisión que, por su parte, implique una reformulación de las estrategias antiterroristas contemporáneas.
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Las estrategias de prevención de la radicalización se han convertido en parte de todas las estrategias antiterroristas contemporáneas. Sin embargo, lo cierto es que existe muy poca evidencia acerca de su eficacia real. En el trabajo se examinan las diferentes funciones (no solo preventivas, sino también políticas y comunicativas) que dichas estrategias están, de hecho, cumpliendo y se sugieren enfoques alternativos, más respetuosos con los límites que la acción represiva de los Estados democráticos de Derecho debería en todo caso respetar.
‘Radicalization’ has a twisted history. At every turn, it gained a new meaning without shedding the existing one. In the beginning, ‘radicalization’ meant Muslims espousing an anti-Western, fundamentalist stance, with Iran as the epicentre of a global Muslim insurgency. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, it started to be loosely used as a synonym of ‘anger’. A number of Muslims were said to become increasingly angry as a result of a wide variety of ‘root causes’. But almost simultaneously, it became intertwined with ‘recruitment’ by foreign extremists, who tried to persuade these angry individuals to join foreign war zones. In 2004, another layer was added when ‘self-radicalization’ became the buzzword, since it appeared that one could also develop into a terrorist through kinship and friendship networks. That year, the EU officially embraced the concept. Myriad models and studies were financed to try to clarify the long, step-by-step process through which an individual radicalized into a terrorist. But, in a new twist, by 2015–2016 it became obvious that radicalization didn’t require a long process after all. ‘Flash’ or ‘instant radicalization’ was introduced to elucidate how some literally in a moment jumped into jihadi terrorism without any previous phase of, well, radicalization. In the meantime, by 2018, the culprit behind the global Muslim insurgency had crossed the Gulf. Saudi Arabia was now seen as the villain that, through its multi-billion-dollar promotion of a newly coined ‘Salafi-Wahhabism’, has perverted the minds of millions of Muslims worldwide into a rejectionist, anti-Western stance.
Transcurridos quince años desde los atentados del 11-M en Madrid, que se prolongaron tres semanas después con un acto de terrorismo suicida en Leganés, desde el Programa sobre Radicalización Violenta y Terrorismo Global (PRVTG) del Real Instituto Elcano ofrecemos a la ciudadanía española, a sus instituciones públicas y a su sociedad civil, este estudio sobre la evolución del yihadismo global y de su inherente amenaza terrorista
en nuestro país. Analizamos e interpretamos datos sobre la totalidad de yihadistas condenados o muertos en España entre 2004 y 2018, el año inmediatamente posterior a los atentados del 17-A en Barcelona, cuyo epílogo tuvo lugar a primeras horas del siguiente día en Cambrils.
Este libro, que ha sido escrito con las víctimas del terrorismo yihadista y sus familiares en nuestra memoria, y con el cual deseamos contribuir tanto a una mejor concienciación social respecto al fenómeno como a la labor de nuestros servicios policiales y de inteligencia, explora, en su primera parte, distintos aspectos referidos a la mutación de las características sociales propias del yihadismo global en nuestro país; en su segunda
parte, fijamos nuestra atención sobre una serie de variables que, a lo largo del tiempo, explican los procesos de radicalización yihadista; la tercera y última parte centra su interés en las diversas pautas observadas en la implicación individual y colectiva en actividades de terrorismo yihadista.
This paper outlines and criticises two models of terrorism, the Rational Agent Model (RAM) and the Radicalisation Model (RAD). A different and more plausible conception of the turn to violence is proposed. The proposed account is Moderate Epistemic Particularism (MEP), an approach partly inspired by Karl Jaspers’ distinction between explanation and understanding. On this account there are multiple idiosyncratic pathways to cognitive and behavioural radicalisation, and the actions and motivations of terrorists can only be understood (rather than explained) by engaging with their subjectivity in a way that depends on a degree of empathy. Scepticism is expressed about attempts to model radicalisation and predict political violence. This scepticism is based on reflections concerning the nature of complex particulars. The implications of MEP for counterterrorism are briefly discussed.
El proceso de radicalización se ha convertido en el epicentro explicativo del terrorismo y en la clave sobre la que descansa la política preventiva en los países de nuestro entorno. No obstante, como objetos de estudio suscitan más controversia que acuerdo, y no hay evidencia empírica concluyente. Por ello, empieza a emerger literatura que evalúa las políticas antirradicalización señalando sus impactos negativos. Esta ponencia profundiza en nuestro conocimiento de la política antiterrorista española y examina el Plan Nacional de Prevención de la Radicalización Violenta evaluando sus bases conceptuales. El argumento que desarrollamos es que, a pesar de la larga experiencia española en la lucha antiterrorista, el Plan responde a una conceptualización limitada, aunque consensuada en la investigación académica ortodoxa y que muestra de manera generalizada en los países de nuestro entorno, gran influencia en las políticas de seguridad.
El radicalismo islamista y, más concretamente, las acciones terroristas justificadas y legitimadas desde ideologías extremistas de corte yihadista, se han convertido en una de las mayores amenazas para la seguridad mundial, especialmente después de los atentados del 11S, 11M y 7J. Aunque hay quien opina que el riesgo ha disminuido, es obvio que la amenaza de atentados letales continúa presente y, según parece, en aumento. Sirvan como ejemplos para constatar lo expuesto, los recientes ataques perpetrados por islamistas radicales en Toulouse, Montauban, Boston y Londres, las últimas acciones terroristas y movimientos de insurgencia en diversos países asiáticos y africanos, así como los numerosos planes terroristas abortados por los servicios de inteligencia y las fuerzas de seguridad de distintos países a lo largo de la última década. Todo parece indicar que este problema no tiene visos de solución a corto plazo, luego parece esencial estar atentos a la evolución de esta peligrosa lacra social.
Sin embargo, actualmente la capacidad para describir, explicar y predecir científicamente los procesos psicosociales subyacentes a la radicalización islamista y al terrorismo yihadista es relativamente limitada, lo que favorece altos niveles de duda a la hora de tomar decisiones sobre cómo tratar estos fenómenos y, lo que es más importante, sobre cómo prevenirlos proactivamente.
Desde las distintas líneas de investigación del terrorismo actualmente vigentes, se considera que la pregunta acerca de cuáles son los perfiles psicosociales de los terroristas posiblemente no sea la adecuada. Tanto es así, que el centro de gravedad de la investigación sobre el terrorismo ha cambiado hacia el estudio de la radicalización de los terroristas entendida como la consecuencia de distintos procesos, ya que está altamente consensuado que la pregunta adecuada es “cómo y/o por qué llegaron a ser así” y no tanto “quiénes son”.
La presente obra sobre las claves psicosociales de la radicalización islamista y el terrorismo refleja el énfasis actual en el estudio de tales procesos, realizándose el estudio de este tópico desde distintas aproximaciones de las ciencias sociales, en general, y desde la psicología social, en particular. A lo largo de los nueve capítulos que la componen, se delimitan diversos conceptos complejos, como lo son, entre otros, la radicalización, el terrorismo, el reclutamiento, la frustración, la privación relativa, la humillación, la opresión, la aculturación, los prejuicios, el conflicto intergrupal y las bases evolutivas de la agresión. También, se revisan los datos más importantes disponibles sobre radicales y terroristas y, además, se argumenta la necesidad de poner un énfasis especial en conocer los procesos psicosociales que llevan a la radicalización violenta, a la vez que se debate sobre éstos. Así mismo, desde diferentes enfoques de análisis se realiza una revisión sistemática y rigurosa sobre teorías e investigaciones empíricas y se sintetizan los hallazgos científicos más relevantes, apartándose los contenidos expuestos de lo meramente especulativo, de los juicios fáciles y oportunistas y, por tanto, del conocimiento no científico.
Todo ello con el objetivo de establecer las bases de futuros estudios sistemáticos que permitan identificar los mecanismos psicosociales subyacentes a los procesos moduladores de este fenómeno, poder gestionar los riesgos asociados de forma inteligente y, en definitiva, conseguir desarrollar estrategias preventivas adecuadas.
Academic interest in Muslim youth, Islam, radicalisation and Islamic-inspired terrorism exploded in the aftermath of 9/11, aimed at discovering the connection between Islam and terrorism, radicalisation and terrorism and how to detect and understand those who might become involved in them. Radicalisation as a process has increasingly become associated with Muslim youth, particularly male Muslim youth, as the precursor to Islamic-inspired violence against Western states. In an effort to understand these youths, the radicalisation of, or potential radicalisation of, Muslim youth is linked in the literature to alienation due to living in separate or parallel communities, identity crisis and intergenerational conflict. Because of this, terrorism, radicalism and extremism have become entangled with notions of identity, integration, segregation and multiculturalism, and this entanglement has made being a “Muslim youth” a precarious designation in the United Kingdom. This article examines some of the concepts that are central to the process of radicalisation as it is described in the literature. Using empirical data from a study with Muslim youth, the article examines the realities of the emergence of new transcultural identities and generational change amongst Muslim youth in the United Kingdom as a feature of their lived experience, rather than as evidence of a process of radicalisation.
This article considers Hillyard’s first application of the term “suspect community” to the Irish in Britain in the era of the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and its more recent application to Muslims in the global war on terror. A review of the application of the term “suspect community” and research in the field points to the problems associated with constructing an entire population and to problems of misidentification. Ethnographic and other evidence illustrate the stigmatisation, alienation and violence that results from its deployment. Given these difficulties and Greer’s objections to the use of the term “suspect community”, a redefinition of the concept of “suspect community” is proposed, borrowing from Anderson’s concept of the imagined community. The “suspect community” is not merely the product of legal and security apparatuses, but the product of a larger cultural apparatus or “imaginary”. It is redefined as “a community created in and by the securitised imagination and enacted in a processes of ‘othering’ through a range of security practices of counter-terrorism”. The “suspect community” is not an embodied community, but an imagined one, whose boundaries are permeable and shifting and in the eye of the beholder. Its operations are distinct from Islamophobia or anti-Irish racism, yet racism, Islamophobia and other forms of subordination may well be implicated in the process of “othering” the suspect. The effect of being “suspect” on the performance of identity and citizenship is indicated in the conclusion.
Research has shown that there is no profile of individual characteristics of group-based terrorists, but profiling the characteristics of lone wolf terrorists may yet be possible. In this article, we bring together suggestions about what a lone wolf profile might look like. We describe a two-pyramids model that distinguishes radicalization of opinion from radicalization of action, then use this model to review three case histories of lone wolf terrorists. We also review results comparing two kinds of mostly lone actor violent offenders: assassins and school attackers. Results highlight the gap between radical opinion and radical action, and suggest two profiles of lone wolf terrorists: disconnected-disordered are individuals with a grievance and weapons experience who are social loners and often show signs of psychological disorder; caring-compelled are individuals who strongly feel the suffering of others and feel a personal responsibility to reduce or avenge this suffering.
In discourse about countering terrorism, the term "radicalization" is widely used, but remains poorly defined. To focus narrowly on ideological radicalization risks implying that radical beliefs are a proxy—or at least a necessary precursor—for terrorism, though we know this not to be true.Different pathways and mechanisms of terrorism involvement operate in different ways for different people at different points in time and perhaps in different contexts. This article explores the problems in defining radicalization and radicalism, and suggests that radicalization—and more specifically, involvement in terrorism—might best be viewed as a set of diverse processes. It goes on to review several potentially promising theories that might support further study of those processes, including social movement theory, social psychology, and conversion theory. Finally, it describes some possible frameworks for understanding how the processes might facilitate terrorism-related behavior.
In this article, we consider how the practice of conceiving of groups within civil society as ‘communities’ meshes with conceptualisations of certain populations as ‘suspect’ and consider some of the impacts and consequences of this for particular populations and for social cohesion. We examine how Irish and Muslim people in Britain have become aware of and have experienced themselves to be members of ‘suspect communities’ in relation to political violence and counterterrorism policies from 1974 to 2007 and investigate the impacts of these experiences on their everyday lives. The study focuses on two eras of political violence. The first coincides with the Irish Republican Army's (IRA) bombing campaigns in England between 1973 and 1996, when the perpetrators were perceived as ‘Irish terrorists’; and the second since 2001, when, in Britain and elsewhere, the main threat of political violence has been portrayed as stemming from people who are assumed to be motivated by extreme interpretations of Islam and are often labelled as ‘Islamic terrorists’. We outline why the concept of ‘suspect communities’ continues to be analytically useful for examining: the impact of ‘bounded communities’ on community cohesion policies; the development of traumatogenic environments and their ramifications; and for examining how lessons might be learnt from one era of political violence to another, especially as regards the negative impacts of practices of suspectification on Irish communities and Muslim communities. The research methods included discussion groups involving Irish and Muslim people. These demonstrated that with the removal of discourses of suspicion the common ground of Britain's urban multiculture was a sufficient basis for sympathetic exchanges.
Este artículo analiza los factores sociopolíticos que favorecen la radicalización yihadista. Para ello se utilizan tres niveles de estudio: macro, meso y micro. El artículo presta una atención especial al nivel meso o intermedio. La radicalización yihadista es un proceso de aprendizaje social y es principalmente a través del nivel intermedio como llegan al individuo los valores, las emociones y los cálculos racionales que alimentan el proceso de radicalización violenta.This article analyses the socio-political factors that favour the Jihadist radicalization. In order to do so we use three levels of study: macro, meso and micro. The article puts special interest in the meso level. The Jihadist radicalization is a social learning process, and it is mainly through the meso level that the individual obtains values, emotions and rational calculations that fuel violent radicalization.
The ubiquity of use of the term “radicalization” suggests a consensus about its meaning, but this article shows through a review of a variety of definitions that no such consensus exists. The article then argues that use of the term is problematic not just for these reasons, but because it is used in three different contexts: the security context, the integration context, and the foreign-policy context. It is argued that each of these contexts has a different agenda, impacted in the case of the integration agenda by the rise of European “neo-nationalism,” and so each uses the term “radical” to mean something different. The use of one term to denote at least three different concepts risks serious confusion. The proposed solution is to abandon the attempt to use “radicalization” as an absolute concept.
This article attempts to consolidate theorizing about the radicalization of Western homegrown jihadists. Five major models of radicalization are reviewed. The commonalities and discrepancies among these models are identified and analyzed in the context of empirical evidence in the field of terrorism research and social psychology. Three psychological factors emerge as contributors to radicalization: group relative deprivation, identity conflicts, and personality characteristics. Avenues for future research concerning the radicalization of homegrown jihadists are suggested, focusing on research that may not only be practical for counter-terrorism, but also feasible given the challenges of research with radicalized individuals.
In recent years there has been a strong focus on ‘Islamic radicalisation’ in Europe, due both to the threat of terrorism and its security implications, and to the issue of integrating second generation migrants in Europe. This paper analyses two main approaches to studying the roots of radicalisation. The first is vertical, and involves establishing a genealogy of radicalisation from the Koran and the first Islamic community to the present Islamist radicals. It is argued that this approach fails to understand the roots of terrorism and arbitrarily isolates ‘Muslim’ violence from other levels of violence among European youth. The second approach is horizontal and consists of putting the ‘leap into terrorism’ into the context of the contemporary phenomena of violence affecting our societies in general, and specifically youth. Following this approach, it is more productive to understand Al Qaeda in Europe as a youth movement, which shares many factors with other forms of dissent. An effective strategy to combat terrorism has two levels: one employs traditional intelligence and legal techniques to trace and neutralise cells. The second would be to destroy Al Qaeda’s narrative, by de-Islamising it, rather than demonising it as ‘bad Islam’.[ MICRON Policy Working Paper 2]
To foster a more in-depth understanding of the psychological processes leading to terrorism, the author conceptualizes the terrorist act as the final step on a narrowing staircase. Although the vast majority of people, even when feeling deprived and unfairly treated, remain on the ground floor, some individuals climb up and are eventually recruited into terrorist organizations. These individuals believe they have no effective voice in society, are encouraged by leaders to displace aggression onto out-groups, and become socialized to see terrorist organizations as legitimate and out-group members as evil. The current policy of focusing on individuals already at the top of the staircase brings only short-term gains. The best long-term policy against terrorism is prevention, which is made possible by nourishing contextualized democracy on the ground floor.
In the last 15 years the concept of radicalisation has come to prominence as a means of explaining the process by which individuals become attracted to extremist ideology and endorse the actions of terrorist groups. Post 9/11, radicalisation has gained traction in policy, political and media circles in Britain, being commonly connected to the threat of ‘home-grown’ terrorism. In this article, we critique the understanding of radicalisation outlined in the UK Government’s PREVENT strategy. We focus specifically on how particular understandings of radicalisation are constructed, evidenced and operationalised in PREVENT and the way in which these understandings align with party political worldviews. It is posited that an unremitting focus on the role of religious ideology in the process of radicalisation within PREVENT mutes recognition of otherwise important material grievances expressed by individuals involved in violent extremism. At a broader level, our analysis adds to growing concerns around the deleterious impacts of the securitisation of social policy.
Why and how do individuals residing in relatively peaceful and affluent Western societies come to embrace extremist ideologies that emanate from distant places? We summarize the most recent empirical literature on the causes and dynamics of radicalization, and evaluate the state of the art in the study of Islamist homegrown extremism in the West. We propose a theoretical synthesis based on four factors that come together to produce violent radicalization: personal and collective grievances, networks and interpersonal ties, political and religious ideologies, and enabling environments and support structures. We propose adopting a “puzzle” metaphor that represents a multifactor and contextualized approach to understanding how ordinary individuals transform into violent extremists. We concluded with three recommendations to strengthen the empirical foundations of radicalization studies.
While radical Islamist terrorist groups such as al Qaeda grab the headlines, their nonviolent ideological cousins remain little known. But groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir play a crucial role in indoctrinating Muslims with radical ideology. Because they occupy a gray zone of militancy, regulating them is a difficult challenge for liberal democracies--but ignoring them is no longer an option.
This article argues that, while there have always been good reasons for striving for a universally agreed definition of terrorism, there are further reasons for doing so in the post 9/11 environment, notwithstanding the formidable challenges that confront such an endeavour. Arguing that the essence of terrorism lies in its intent to generate a psychological impact beyond the immediate victims, it will propose three preliminary assumptions: that there is no such thing as an act of violence that is in and of itself inherently terrorist, that terrorism is best conceptualized as a particular method of political violence rather than defined as inherent to any particular ideology or perpetrator, and that non-civilians and combatants can also be victims of terrorism. It will then outline the implications that these assumptions have for the definitional debate.
This article examines the quality and rigor of the academic literature on radicalization. Drawing on a sample of 260 publications that make claims for empirical research and were published between 1980 and 2010, it shows that qualitative approaches dominate, and that a significant number of publications relies on secondary sources—not primary research—to support their conclusions. Methodologies tend to be stronger and more rigorous in the social sciences than the humanities. Overall, it finds that research on radicalization contains clusters of excellence that meet the highest scholarly standards, but that it also suffers from some of the same problems that afflict the wider field of terrorism studies: 34 percent of the items in our sample were either methodologically or empirically poor, whereas 11 percent were both. The article argues that this situation may have resulted from an overreliance on (poorly controlled) government money, the nature of the subject itself, and the absence of a unified academic “field” through which tougher academic standards could be enforced.
Though widely used by academics and policy-makers in the context of the 'war on terror', the concept of radicalization lacks clarity. This article shows that while radicalization is not a myth, its meaning is ambiguous and the major controversies and debates that have sprung from it are linked to the same inherent ambiguity. The principal conceptual fault-line is between notions of radicalization that emphasize extremist beliefs ('cognitive radicalization') and those that focus on extremist behavior ('behavioural radicalization'). This ambiguity explains the differences between definitions of radicalization; it has driven the scholarly debate, which has revolved around the relationship between cognition and behavior; and it provides the backdrop for strikingly different policy approaches—loosely labeled 'European' and 'Anglo-Saxon'—which the article delineates and discusses in depth. Rather than denying its validity, the article calls on scholars and policy-makers to work harder to understand and embrace a concept which, though ambiguous, is likely to dominate research and policy agendas for years to come.
This book examines the Islamist radicalisation process in Europe, developing a new theoretical model based on an empirical study of the evolution of Islamist radicals in their social environment. The approach of this book is to examine how, and under what conditions, people choose to radicalise. It focuses on the experience of radicalisation from the perspective of those who have undergone it. Overall, the explanatory framework departs from the existing deterministic paradigm and argues that radicalisation is a process much like occupational choice – a rational choice made with social and ideational significance. It addresses critically the assumption that, because the result of the radicalisation process could be seen as ‘abnormal’, the cause of it might be of a similar nature.
Since 2004, the term ‘radicalisation’ has become central to terrorism studies and counter-terrorism policy-making. As US and European governments have focused on stemming ‘home-grown’ Islamist political violence, the concept of radicalisation has become the master signifier of the late ‘war on terror’ and provided a new lens through which to view Muslim minorities. The introduction of policies designed to ‘counter-radicalise’ has been accompanied by the emergence of a government-funded industry of advisers, analysts, scholars, entrepreneurs and self-appointed community representatives who claim that their knowledge of a theological or psychological radicalisation process enables them to propose interventions in Muslim communities to prevent extremism. An examination of the concept of radicalisation used by the industry’s scholars shows its limitations and biases. The concept of radicalisation has led to the construction of Muslim populations as ‘suspect communities’, civil rights abuses and a damaging failure to understand the nature of the political conflicts governments are involved in.
This article will illustrate how the term ‘radicalization’ has both contributed to and been the subject of the social construction of risk surrounding violence and radicalization. To this extent, contemporary discussions of radicalization are related to ideas of ‘vulnerability’ and susceptibility to ‘extremism’ – topics which facilitate problematic assertions of inherent relationships between challenging ideas and the propensity for violence. The article will close by providing some corrective suggestions to push forward less subjectively framed research, while still engaging in the complex examination of the relationships between identities, ideas, and violence.
The U.S. strategy for combating international Islamist terrorists must be based on an understanding of the terrorists' behavior and the process of radicalization to violence. This process includes four dimensions: a sense of moral outrage, interpreted in a specific way, which resonates with one's personal experiences, and is channeled through group dynamics, both face-to-face and online. The threat has evolved over the past decade. The process of radicalization continues in a hostile physical environment, but it is enabled by the Internet, resulting in a disconnected, decentralized social structure. The threat of this “leaderless jihad” is self-limiting because of its confining structure and the lack of appeal of its utopian ideal. It will probably fade away for internal reasons, if not sustained by overly aggressive tactics construed as a “war on Islam.” The appropriate strategy against this threat is to contain and neutralize the radicalization process along its four dimensions.
There is an emergent consensus among counterterrorism analysts and practitioners that to defeat the threat posed by Islamist extremism and terrorism, there is a need to go beyond security and intelligence measures, taking proactive measures to prevent vulnerable individuals from radicalizing and rehabilitating those who have already embraced extremism. This broader conception of counterterrorism is manifested in the counter- and deradicalization programs of a number of Middle Eastern, Southeast Asian, and European countries. A key question is whether the objective of these programs should be disengagement or deradicalization of militants. Disengagement entails a change in behavior (i.e., refraining from violence and withdrawing from a radical organization) but not necessarily a change in beliefs. A person could exit a radical organization and refrain from violence but nevertheless retain a radical worldview. Deradicalization is the process of changing an individual's belief system, rejecting the extremist ideology, and embracing mainstream values.
Madame Chair: I appreciate the opportunity to be here today where you have experienced homegrown terror firsthand to discuss the issues of radicalization and how to protect the homeland. Although the United States and its allies have achieved undeniable success in degrading the operational capabilities of jihadist terrorists worldwide, they have had less success in reducing the radicalization and recruitment that support the jihadist enterprise. My testimony today will simply highlight a few areas for further discussion: * Building an army of believers how the jihadists recruit * Radicalization and recruitment in the United States * How we might impede radicalization and recruitment, and * Guiding principles for any actions we might consider.
When, why, and how do people living in a democracy become radicalized to the point of being willing to use or directly support the use of terrorist violence against fellow citizens? This question has been at the center of academic and public debate over the past years as terrorist attacks and foiled plots inspired by militant Islamism have grabbed European and American headlines. This article identifies and discusses empirical studies of radicalization and points to the strengths as well as the weaknesses characterizing these studies. The aim is to take stock of the current state of research within this field and to answer the question: From an empirical point of view, what is known and what is not known about radicalization connected to militant Islamism in Europe?
The London bombings in 2005 led to the perception that the terrorist threat had changed from external to internal. This became conceptualized shortly after as “homegrown terrorism.” This article deals with the meaning and scope of this phenomenon. We begin by tracing an ambiguity in the term “homegrown,” which is both about belonging in the West and autonomy from terrorist groups abroad. A quantitative study of Islamist terrorism in the West since 1989 reveals an increase in both internal and autonomous terrorism since 2003 and that most plots are now internal—but not autonomous. Finally we suggest that an increase in autonomous terrorism is a transitory phenomenon.
Radicalization is often seen as a first, prerequisite step along the road towards terrorism. Yet to be radical is merely to reject the status quo, and not necessarily in a problematic or violent way. In Part 1—“Radicals”—this article compares the backgrounds, ideologies, behaviours, and attitudes of a sample of “violent radicals” with both radical and “mainstream” non-violent sample groups. By finding both what the violent and non-violent samples share, and also what they do not, the article hopes to achieve a more adept discrimination of violent and non-violent radicalization. In Part 2—“Radicalization”—the article suggests that, in addition to being an intellectual, rational, and religious decision, becoming a terrorist is also an emotional, social, and status-conscious one.
This article interrogates the production of the ‘radicalisation’ discourse which underpins efforts to govern ‘terrorism’ pre-emptively through the UK's PREVENT strategy. British counter-terrorism currently relies upon the invention of ‘radicalisation’ and related knowledge about transitions to ‘terrorism’ to undertake governance of communities rendered suspicious. The article argues that such conceptions make terrorism knowable and governable through conceptions of risk. Radicalisation knowledge provides a counterfactual to terrorism—enabling governmental intervention in its supposed production. It makes the future actionable. However, while the deployment of ‘radicalisation’ functions to make terrorism pre-emptively governable and knowable, it also renders PREVENT unstable by simultaneously presenting ‘vulnerability indicators’ for radicalisation as threats to the wider collective—these conducts are framed as both ‘at risk’ and ‘risky’, both vulnerable and dangerous. This instability speaks to ad hoc production of the radicalisation discourse by scholarly and policy-making communities for the governance of terrorism through radicalisation knowledge. This article analyses the production of the radicalisation discourse to explore its performance as a form of risk governance within British counter-terrorism.
The ‘war on terror’ has emerged as the principal conflict of our time, where ‘Islamic fanaticism’ is identified as the greatest
threat to Western liberal democracies. Within the United Kingdom, and beyond, this political discourse has designated Muslims
as the new ‘enemy within’—justifying the introduction of counter-terrorist legislation and facilitating the construction of
Muslims as a ‘suspect community’. In this paper, we develop Hillyard's (1993) notion of the ‘suspect community’ and evidence how Muslims have replaced the Irish as the main focus of the government's
security agenda whilst also recognizing that some groups have been specifically targeted for state surveillance. We conclude
that the categorization of Muslims as suspect may be serving to undermine national security rather than enhance it.
Traducción de: Diritto e ragione. Teoria del garantismo penale
For decades, a new type of terrorism has been quietly gathering ranks in the world. America's ability to remain oblivious to these new movements ended on September 11, 2001. The Islamist fanatics in the global Salafi jihad (the violent, revivalist social movement of which al Qaeda is a part) target the West, but their operations mercilessly slaughter thousands of people of all races and religions throughout the world. Marc Sageman challenges conventional wisdom about terrorism, observing that the key to mounting an effective defense against future attacks is a thorough understanding of the networks that allow these new terrorists to proliferate. Based on intensive study of biographical data on 172 participants in the jihad, Understanding Terror Networks gives us the first social explanation of the global wave of activity. Sageman traces its roots in Egypt, gestation in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war, exile in the Sudan, and growth of branches worldwide, including detailed accounts of life within the Hamburg and Montreal cells that planned attacks on the United States. U.S. government strategies to combat the jihad are based on the traditional reasons an individual was thought to turn to terrorism: poverty, trauma, madness, and ignorance. Sageman refutes all these notions, showing that, for the vast majority of the mujahedin, social bonds predated ideological commitment, and it was these social networks that inspired alienated young Muslims to join the jihad. These men, isolated from the rest of society, were transformed into fanatics yearning for martyrdom and eager to kill. The tight bonds of family and friendship, paradoxically enhanced by the tenuous links between the cell groups (making it difficult for authorities to trace connections), contributed to the jihad movement's flexibility and longevity. And although Sageman's systematic analysis highlights the crucial role the networks played in the terrorists' success, he states unequivocally that the level of commitment and choice to embrace violence were entirely their own. Understanding Terror Networks combines Sageman's scrutiny of sources, personal acquaintance with Islamic fundamentalists, deep appreciation of history, and effective application of network theory, modeling, and forensic psychology. Sageman's unique research allows him to go beyond available academic studies, which are light on facts, and journalistic narratives, which are devoid of theory. The result is a profound contribution to our understanding of the perpetrators of 9/11 that has practical implications for the war on terror. Copyright
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