Sub-structural Abstracts and Bibliography On Violent Extremism & Terrorism (original) (raw)
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Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, 2013
The policy response to home-grown terrorism focuses attention on the root causes of terrorism. Such soft approaches to countering terrorism are a necessary element of an effective and comprehensive strategy. The United Kingdom's Prevent strategy, Australia's Resilience approach and the United State's diminish element all share a focus on countering violent extremism on the home front through a policy approach that promotes democratic values, social harmony and active participation of Muslim communities. This paper argues that such responses are informed by flawed assumptions that have little or no evidentiary basis and calls for a re-conceptualisation of soft counter terrorism as collective resistance against terrorism. It presents the preliminary findings of a qualitative research project that explores how a citizen driven initiative to build a peace park on the site of the Bali 2002 terrorist bombings constructs a counter-narrative to terrorist propaganda and contributes to sustainable and long term soft counter-terrorism.
Rethinking Radicalisation and Counter-Terrorist Strategies
'Radicalization' has been a keyword in the public discourse on terrorism. Yet the answer to what exactly it is, remains fuzzy. This poses a challenge not only to the scholars who aim to study it but also, to the practitioners, who aim to tackle and prevent it. Despite the ambiguities surrounding the process of radicalization, there, however, exists a set of preconceived notions about it. Islamist extremist ideology is always taken as a key factor or as a starting point in these notions. This in turn leads to faulty policy measures for tackling the problems of terrorism and radicalization, which eventually turn counterproductive. This is where the paper tries to answer its central question: 'why the current policy measures are turning out to be ineffective in tackling terrorism?' This paper attempts to bring into focus a more nuanced understanding of radicalization. By arguing that radicalization is not an individual process driven by an ideology, the paper tries to bring into focus different pathways to terrorism and how they have undergone a vast change in the era of globalization, and how that has a bearing on effective counter-terrorist strategies. The argument that this paper is trying to make is that, due to faulty understanding of what entails radicalization, the authorities are coming up with ineffective counter-terrorist policies, which lead to violations of UN Charter, Rule of Law, International law (Torture convention, Humanitarian law, Jus in Bellum) and Human Rights laws. This gives a free hand to the authorities and security forces without any repercussions or, transparency. Special attention has been given to UK's Prevent Policy, America's "War on Terror" strategy and the recent United Nations (UN) Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy Review, 2018 to substantiate this claim. These strategies are compared with European Union's approach to counterterrorism and radicalization, to offer a contrast. After giving a better understanding of radicalization, the paper then turns to the policy implications emanating from this nuanced understanding. Taking into consideration what Kundalini and Walzer had to say about the rules and approach towards countering terrorism, the paper ends with giving a few recommendations, in the light of its main argument about the importance of having a nuanced understanding of the process of radicalisation.
This article identifies a fault in the PREVENT strand in the UK"s counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. The fault is that its model of the sort of radicalization that leads to violence presupposes that people are exposed to radical ideas, more or less consciously weigh them up against alternatives, and adopt them along with the lines of action they entail. That is a good strategy as far as it goes: surely some are radicalized this way, and an appropriate way of countering that is to expose them to a critique of radical ideas. But that strategy misses the possibility that there are other routes to the sort of radicalization that leads to a readiness to kill and be killed. People may be carried away into that by what I shall call Theatre in this article, without weighing up what they are doing. So just exposing them to alternative ideas is futile. Missing that is a serious and potentially lethal flaw in PREVENT, and so it needs a rethink of its counter-radicalization strategy.
Violent and Non-Violent Extremism: Two Sides of the Same Coin?
Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism Studies, 2014
The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)-The Hague is an independent knowledge centre that focuses on information creation, collation and dissemination pertaining to the preventative and international legal aspects of counter-terrorism. The core of ICCT's work centres on such themes as de-and counterradicalisation, human rights, impunity, the rule of law and communication in relation to counter-terrorism. Functioning as a nucleus within the international counter-terrorism network, ICCT-The Hague endeavours to connect academics, policymakers and practitioners by providing a platform for productive collaboration, practical research, exchange of expertise and analysis of relevant scholarly findings. By connecting the knowledge of experts to the issues that policymakers are confronted with, ICCT-The Hague contributes to the strengthening of both research and policy. Consequently, avenues to new and innovative solutions are identified, which will reinforce both human rights and security.
Combatting Terrorist Violence - Changing the Narrative
2016
There are numerous definitions of terrorism. The definition is often refined by the agency that is using it as well as the audience to which the discussion is directed. But before we attempt to define terrorism, I want to raise the issue of terminology. An ‘ism’ is usually a belief system, such as Sufism, communism, extremism and so on. The way that we frame a discussion and the terms that we use Important in guiding – and in some cases – prejudicing the entire discussion. Instead of describing "terrorism" , this article focuses on the acts that are created by terrorists. If we can't eliminate the "ism", we can reduce the frequency and impact of the act.
In this Research Paper, ICCT Visiting Research Fellow Dr. Alex P. Schmid seeks to clarify some conceptual issues that tend to obscure the debate about how best to counter violent extremism. The main focus of this Research Paper is on obtaining a clearer understanding of what "Islamist extremism" entails in the context of the ongoing debate on allegedly "acceptable" non-violent extremists and "unacceptable" violent extremists. The author discusses a number of conceptualisations of religious extremism in the context of liberal democracies and also distinguishes, inter alia, between merely "not (yet) violent" militancy and principled non-violent political activism in the Gandhian tradition. The author argues that the distinction between "non-violent extremism" and "violent extremism" is not a valid one. The paper provides a set of twenty indicators of extremism that can be used as an instrument for monitoring extremist statements and actions, with an eye to challenging and countering such non-democratic manifestations.