Islamic Radicalisation Debate

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Islamic RadicalisationDebate

• Notes from the study of New Religious Movements

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CONTEST UK Public Policy Strands re Islamist
Extremism

• PREVENT- integration, undermining grounds,
  challenging
• PURSUE - disrupting Islamicist terrorists by
  intelligence gathering
• PROTECT reduce vulnerability of targets
• PREPARE rapid and effective response

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New Islamic Movements as New Religious Movements?

• The first generation of believers
• Socio-demographic characteristics
• Charismatic leaders
• Social/individual change

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Cult Controversies concerns discourse

• Disaffiliation
• Family
• Socio-Economic structure
• Culture
• Spiritual well-being
• Violence
• Brainwashing

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Experts and Concepts

• Claims to expertise
• Frame alignment
• Brainwashing theories
• Clinical psychologists
• Ex-members
• Anti-cult groups
• Anti-cult concepts/ Explanations as assumptions
• Law
• Deprogramming
• Law enforcement agencies raids, Waco

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Experts repudiated Margaret Singer

• Limited empirical research base
• Misrepresentation/ misuse of theory
• R. Lifton, E. Schein
• Alternative research and explanations ignored
• Socio-demographic characteristics
• half-way houses
• Religious nature
• Victims active vs. passive involvement
• Self - perpetuating accounts
• Positive feedback

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Radicalisation discourse claims to expertise

• Radicalisation/ de-radicalisation industry
• Ex-Members
• Quilliam Foundation
• Public policy centres
• Centre for Social Cohesion
• Radicalisation experts
• Kings Centre for the Study of Radicalisation

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Explanations

• Young Muslims vulnerability to radical preaching
• Muslim v. Western identity among 2nd - 3d
  generation
• Link between radical Islamic preaching and
  violent actions
• Paradox religion is not taken seriously!
• Recruiting grounds mosques, university
  campuses as gateway organisations everybody is
  vulnerable
• Anthony Gleece

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What is radicalisation?

• Scholars have had little to say about the
  mechanisms through which radicalised individuals
  become members of violent extremist groups
• Recruitment and Mobilisation, p. 9, emphasis
  added
• Radicalisation describes the changes in attitude
  that lead towards sanctioning of, and,
  ultimately, involvement in the use of violence
  for political aims (sic., p. 11)
• a period of learning within a group in which
  the recruits mindset is reconstructed in
  accordance with a new set of beliefs (p. 75)
• There is no doubt this issue (Iraq) radicalised
  many British Muslims (p. 29)

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Lessons from the study of NRMs three analytical
lines

• Who, how and why joins?
• How the new groups sustain and intensify
  commitment of their members?
• Why some new groups can become violent?

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Conversion and commitment significance of
non-religious factors

• Deprivation theory (C. Glock)
• Should extend to non-economic factors
• Social ties (L. Dawson, E. Barker)
• Social networks, affective ties, and intensive
  interaction
• Before and after joining

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Conversion and commitment religious factors

• No one joins an extremist group
• Socio-demographic characteristics
• Radical departures
• Saul Levine (1984)
• Half-way houses
• Attractions of religious solutions

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Some examples

• Quentin Wiktorowicz, Joining the Cause
• Cognitive opening
• Religious seeking
• Frame alignment
• Socialisation
• Jonathan Githens-Mazer, Radical violent takfiri
  Islamism
• Robert Lambert, Police v. Islamists Salafis in
  S. London

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Why do things go wrong?

• Trajectories of group violence
• Evolution towards violence
• Violent by design (some terrorist groups)
• Beliefs
• Millenarianism
• Types of millenarianism
• Mark Juergensmeyer, Cathy Wessinger

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Evolution towards violence when things may go
wrong

• Charismatic authority
• Social process, not intrinsic characteristics
• Not inherently violent
• Key factors in defining group trajectories
• Beliefs
• Characteristics of leaders
• Deviance amplification spiral