Counter-Radicalisation: Critical Perspectives.

• Author: Kiyici, Hakan
• Position: Book review

Counter-Radicalisation: Critical Perspectives Edited by Christopher Baker-Beall, Charlotte Heath-Kelly and Lee Jarvis Oxon, New York: Routledge, 2015, 250 pages, [pounds sterling]23.00, ISBN: 9781138236639

The sophisticated terror attacks that followed 9/11, the Madrid train station bombing in 2004, the murder of Dutch filmmaker Teo Van Gogh in Amsterdam, and the 7/7 attacks on the London transport system in 2005 have demonstrated the urgency of changing perceptions and policies on the new agenda in terrorism and counter-terrorism studies. Following these dramatic events, the literature of terrorism and counter-terrorism boomed and expanded. However, most of the new publications have analyzed the phenomenon of 'home-grown radicalization,' which leads to terrorism. Home-grown radicalization refers to the self-starting cell(s) and individual(s) mobilized against their host countries with little or no material support from foreign sources. The onslaught of home-grown radicalization has forged a whole new field of empirical study on radicalization, counter-radicalization, deradicalization, and how to counter violent extremism.

Although these new studies have triggered new, multi-disciplinary academic approaches, many states have remained reluctant to change their narrow and traditional counter-terrorism perspective, which served the purpose of fighting against Marxist/Leninist radical left terrorist organizations from the 1970s to the end of the 1980s. In those days, this ideology's terrorist organizations had a hierarchical structure; in order to provide control over the members, they did not recruit large numbers, and consequently most of them consisted of approximately 40-50 members, leader cadre included. Given that, most European countries used police-led counter-terrorism initiatives which sought to penetrate into the terrorist organizations to kill the leader cadre and to learn of the group's future terror plans. After the detention or elimination of the leader cadre, these terrorist organizations fell apart easily.

The new radicalization phenomenon, namely home-grown terrorism, is not easily defused by the police-led counter-terrorism approach. Contemporary terrorist organizations have reached large masses, thanks to new information technologies. Hence hybrid counter-terrorism strategies, including police/intelligence-led and society based initiatives are beginning to be applied in the contemporary times against current terrorist...