Episodes
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In Episode 12, the final episode in this season of RUSI’s Decoding Counterterrorism, hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Thomas Renard and Emily Winterbotham to discuss what counterterrorism might look like in the future. In an environment of shifting national security priorities, great power competition seems to be taking the top billing away from counterterrorism. However, it is important to not lose sight of the evolving threats of extremism and terrorism, both globally and in various domestic contexts. Across Europe and North America, concern has largely shifted away from the two-decade, post-9/11 focus on Islamist violent extremism to rising levels of far-right, anti-government, conspiracy and other, more nebulous, ideological mixtures. Therefore, how do we move towards a useful reimagining of the counterterrorism apparatus to make it applicable to the evolving threat spectrum and the wider connections of terrorism to extremism and conflict?
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In Episode 11 of RUSI’s Decoding Counterterrorism, hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Jared Shurin and Michael Jones to discuss the essential nature of communication to both terrorism itself and to efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism and terrorism. The fields of strategic communication and marketing have been developing a knowledge base for decades on the most effective techniques to reach the maximum number of people with messages that resonate enough to change attitudes and behaviours. Much can be learned from these fields about how to design and deliver the most effective, influential messaging to build social resilience to extremism.
There have been many efforts to prevent and counter violent extremism over the past 15 years that have used strategic communications ineffectively, and the evaluative evidence base remains weak. However, what are the lessons we can learn from older fields with good track records to refine and renew effective approaches to using communications to prevent terrorism?
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Missing episodes?
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In Episode 10 of RUSI’s Decoding Counterterrorism, hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Saji Prelis and Claudia Wallner to discuss the role youth have in preventing and countering violent extremism. Youth, often loosely seen as those aged somewhere between 15 and 35, have long been the target of efforts to prevent violent extremism and are often seen as the population most ‘at risk’ to radicalisation and recruitment. However, research of these types of interventions shows how common assumptions about youth are often not grounded in the reality that ‘youth’ itself is not a risk factor and that there are a variety of potential drivers and risk factors that need to be assessed and addressed.
At the global level, most youth use peaceful pathways to air grievances and seek change. Instead of targeting youth as a risk category, young people should be seen as a resource for positive peer-group engagement and as drivers of change. Therefore, where youth are the target population of interventions to prevent violent extremism, how can we engage them to ensure that these efforts are effectively assessing risk factors and addressing the varied experiences of these young people?
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Gayatri Sahgal and Stijn Sieckelinck to discuss resilience in the context of preventing violent extremism, or what it means to try to ensure that individuals and communities can effectively resist radicalisation and recruitment or have the capacity to rebuild following these events. While ‘resilience’ is often referred to as a goal of these types of interventions, it remains a very opaque term and can equally be used to refer to a process or an outcome. This can be due to the fact that resilience is often used in contexts where there is a high degree of complexity, such as multiple intersecting drivers of violent extremism. For example, there might be poor governance and lack of education; the violent extremist group might be offering a salary; and an individual might be more vulnerable because they are seeking opportunities for a better future.
‘Social cohesion’, a concept often used in conjunction with resilience, can sometimes be mistakenly seen as part of the same process. However, Stijn and Gayatri describe how this term is quite distinct, as a measure of cohesiveness between different social groups. What, therefore, are the best ways to encourage resilience to violent extremism within individuals and communities?
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Emily Winterbotham and Martine Zeuthen to discuss how and why mentorship efforts, often including a variety of supportive elements such as psycho-social or vocational mentorship, are one of the types of preventing and countering violent extremism approaches that maintain a positive track record for effectiveness and impact. The research evidence base and Martine’s practical implementation experience in Kenya suggest that interventions need to be kept small, tailored and targeted at those who are most at-risk of radicalisation or recruitment.
The mentor-mentee relationship is important, and careful consideration needs to be given not only to the selection of each of these groups, but also to how they are paired. It has often been found that mentors are most effective when they have similar backgrounds to their mentees and have struggled with the same challenges. So, what are the key elements to ensuring that your mentorship engagement to prevent violent extremism can be successful?
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Martin Innes and Christopher Hockey to discuss the role police have in preventing and countering violent extremism. In this episode, we survey the two different contexts of the UK and Kenya, comparing the role of police in counterterrorism across the Global North and South. While police play an important and primary role in the investigation and arrest of terrorism suspects, evidence shows that when policing powers are abused and human rights are violated, this can drive violent extremism. Thus, it is important to build capacity within law enforcement to ensure good practice in countering violent extremism, for once the bond of trust is broken, it is very difficult to rebuild.
In prevention efforts, there has been much debate around the best ways to build bonds of trust between police and communities, so that the police can better understand the potential drivers of violent extremism in the local context and prevent potential acts of terrorism. This looks different in different parts of the world, where there are different histories and ethical codes of practice among police forces. What, therefore, are the best practices that can improve law enforcement engagement in preventing violent extremism?
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Jonathan Metzl and Michael Jones to discuss how the public health model – an epidemiological approach attempting to prevent or reduce a particular illness or social problem in a population by identifying risk indicators – has been applied in preventing and countering violent extremism. Michael highlights how this model provides a way to organise preventative interventions for the wider range of potential drivers of violent extremism.
We also discuss the opportunities and challenges around engaging healthcare professionals in the goal of preventing violent extremism, including the concern that they might be drawn into a security agenda which could compromise the trust they enjoy with patients or pressure their professional judgements. Jonathan then enumerates the fundamental challenges inherent in trying to use mental health diagnosis tools to predict those who might go on to commit violence.
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Martine Zeuthen and James Khalil to talk about the types of countering violent extremism interventions addressed at people who have already been involved with violent extremism. Martine and James have a wealth of experience in supporting such efforts in the Global South, where countries grapple with the challenges of developing effective rehabilitation interventions for large groups of individuals. How can these types
of deradicalisation and disengagement interventions be designed to work towards successfully rehabilitating and reintegrating individuals into society?
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Simon Finley and Emily Winterbotham to discuss the opportunities and challenges where development efforts and preventing and countering violent extremism meet. The development field offers a range of interventions designed to respond to ongoing structural problems, such as systemic poverty and lack of educational or vocational opportunities, as well as encouraging social and economic development. This field often has a much wider base of resources than the more limited budgets and time allocations of interventions designed to prevent and counter violent extremism, which more specifically address where these structural problems can feed into violent extremist narratives and recruitment. Thus, connecting these two fields could allow for a more comprehensive approach to addressing the structural drivers of violent extremism.
With the shrinking capacity for counterterrorism among other security concerns, it may become increasingly necessary for these two fields to be combined. So, what are the most effective and efficient ways to integrate preventing violent extremism goals within development efforts, while mitigating potential harms?
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Claudia Wallner and Paul Thomas to explore efforts aimed at preventing and countering violent extremism within public education environments.
Education systems offer an existing environment where tools that can be useful in preventing violent extremism are taught, such as critical thinking, digital literacy and civic values. However, asking teachers to assess or report on security concerns among their students – such as signs of radicalisation to violent extremism – can sometimes be counterproductive or even destructive by breaking teachers’ bond of trust with students or causing other potential harms. While education systems are often designed to teach values to students, it is important to consider the best ways to ensure the safeguarding of teachers and students so that they can discuss complex ideas of historical, social, political and ideological dimensions.
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Hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Larry Attree and Christopher Hockey to discuss the challenges of implementing programming to prevent and counter violent extremism in active conflict zones.
This conversation looks at the importance of thinking about violent extremism as one element of a wider conflict eco-system, with many of the same factors that drive conflict dynamics also contributing to potentially violent extremist narratives by proscribed groups. Often, the small-scale design of countering violent extremism programmes means they are not well-equipped to address the roots of insecurity. Thus, they arguably need to be connected to the wider range of development, stabilisation, peacebuilding and other efforts implemented in conflict zones. How can we ensure that we are listening to local communities and involving them in addressing the full range of conflict drivers, as we seek to prevent and counter violent extremism?
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To launch RUSI’s ‘Decoding Counterterrorism’ podcast, hosts Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci are joined by Emily Winterbotham and Katherine Brown to delve into the complexity of gender in counterterrorism. Gender inequality can itself be a driver of violent extremism, and gendered dynamics of ideologies, radicalisation, recruitment and participation all need to be considered. Governments tend to make policy agreements at a high level to include women in security programming, but this often does not carry through to implementation. There needs to be a meaningful commitment by governments to mainstream gender in this way, so that women are not just added in without considering why they were not there to begin with, and to take into account how gender impacts all individuals. Following from this, what actions need to be taken in order to gather gendered data on local counterterrorism contexts, and to improve the effectiveness of policy and programming?
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Exploring some of the key concepts in preventative counterterrorism work, drawing on global experience and RUSI research.
Over the past few years, RUSI’s Terrorism and Conflict group has conducted multiple and extensive reviews of global preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) programmes, identifying what can work and what has not worked in these efforts. The research covered hundreds of programmes addressing different ideological motivations, with a particular focus on Islamist and far-right extremism. Through these projects, RUSI has helped to build the global evidence base for P/CVE interventions across different thematic areas and regions. Several key themes and concepts, as well as methods to prevent and counter violent extremism, have emerged.
This podcast series, hosted by Dr Jessica White and Raffaello Pantucci, features RUSI experts in conversation with international scholars and practitioners.
