Radicalization revisited: violence, politics and the skills of the body

Abstract

For more than a decade, ‘radicalization’ has been a keyword in our understanding of terrorism. From the outset, radicalization was conceived of as an intellectual process through which an individual would increasingly come under a spell of extremist ideas. This ideological understanding of radicalization still prevails. In a 2015 speech on extremism, British Prime Minister David Cameron, for instance, claimed that the ‘root cause of the threat we face is the extremist ideology itself’. But the way we understand radicalization has specific consequences for the way we manage and fight the scourge of terrorism. Considering recent events, including the November 2015 Paris attacks, the present article sets out to reassess the above‐mentioned intellectualist understanding of radicalization and come up with new suggestions as to how radicalization may be understood today. Initially, the article suggests that ideology is not necessarily a precondition for violence, but that a prior experience with violence is more often a precondition for engaging an extremist ideology. Such experience with violence can be both domestic and international, obtained in Europe or Syria and other conflict zones. In the second part of the article it is argued that although radicalization is often conceived of as an individual process, pathways towards terrorism are inherently social and political. Finally, the article argues that by stressing the importance of ideology and ideological processes, concepts of radicalization have abstracted away from another factor that is pivotal for understanding pathways towards terrorist violence: the skills and capacities of the body.

Being resilient to radicalisation in PVE policy: a critical examination

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Measuring radicalisation: risk assessment conceptualisations and practice in England and Wales

“…Although many questions remain regarding why some people commit terrorist acts while others do not, there is wide consensus that broader context is relevant (e.g. Basra, Neumann, & Brunner, 2016;Crone, 2016;Hegghammer, 2016;Nesser, 2016). Even, for instance, in the much-publicised debate between French scholars Gilles Kepel and Olivier Roy none of the parties dismisses the role of political and societal context, although their emphases differ (e.g.…”

From the Sunni Hanafi Madhhab to Salafism: Public Opinion and Migrant Experience

“…Используемое автором понятие «радикализация» доминирует в дискуссиях о процессах, ведущих к причастности к терроризму. Ученые, политики, журналисты и широкая общественность обсуждают участие в терроризме как результат радикализации [Crone, 2016], однако очевидно, что принятия радикальных взглядов не всегда достаточно для вовлечения в терроризм. Большинство «радикалов» не становятся причастными к терроризму, а террористы, в свою очередь, не всегда руководствуются своими убеждениями [Abrahms, 2008;Bartlett, Miller, 2012] 2 .…”