Page 7 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 5-6: Radicalization, Violent Extremism and Conflicting Diversity, eds. Mitja Sardoč and Tomaž Deželan
P. 7
Radicalization, Violent Extremism
and Conflicting Diversity
Mitja Sardoč
Tomaž Deželan
The problem of radicalization and violent extremism is one of the
most important challenges facing modern plural societies. The
brutality of terrorist attacks and their frequency together with
some of the ‘collateral’ problems associated with radicalisation and vio-
lent extremism, e.g. Islamophobia (Esposito & Iner, 2019), ‘moral panic’
(Sukarieh & Tannock, 2018), right-wing populism [and terrorism] togeth-
er with other forms of political extremism have brought to the forefront
problems previously either compartmentalized in specialized courses on
intelligence and security studies or at the very fringes of scholarly inter-
est. Despite the consensus that radicalization and violent extremism rep-
resent a major threat to political, economic and social security of contem-
porary democratic societies, with terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001
figuring as some sort of ‘Year One’1 on the calendar of the ‘war on ter-
ror’, the discussion about what precisely is radicalization, as the authors
of the book Counter-Radicalization: Critical Perspectives have empha-
sized, ‘has been marked by a significant degree of conceptual confusion’
(2014: 5). Interestingly enough, the process of radicalization and the ad-
jacent issue of violent extremism has opened up a number of different is-
sues, which the theories, policies and practices of counter-radicalization,
deradicalization and anti-polarization do not offer a unanimous answer
to. Other important questions arise here as well, e.g. what criteria apply
in order to distinguish between non-violent and violent radicalization
(Bartlett & Miller, 2012)? What is the relationship between the cognitive
1 The analogy of ‘Year One’ is based on the French Republican Calendar created in 1792
during the French Revolution after the abolition of the monarchy in France.
5
and Conflicting Diversity
Mitja Sardoč
Tomaž Deželan
The problem of radicalization and violent extremism is one of the
most important challenges facing modern plural societies. The
brutality of terrorist attacks and their frequency together with
some of the ‘collateral’ problems associated with radicalisation and vio-
lent extremism, e.g. Islamophobia (Esposito & Iner, 2019), ‘moral panic’
(Sukarieh & Tannock, 2018), right-wing populism [and terrorism] togeth-
er with other forms of political extremism have brought to the forefront
problems previously either compartmentalized in specialized courses on
intelligence and security studies or at the very fringes of scholarly inter-
est. Despite the consensus that radicalization and violent extremism rep-
resent a major threat to political, economic and social security of contem-
porary democratic societies, with terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001
figuring as some sort of ‘Year One’1 on the calendar of the ‘war on ter-
ror’, the discussion about what precisely is radicalization, as the authors
of the book Counter-Radicalization: Critical Perspectives have empha-
sized, ‘has been marked by a significant degree of conceptual confusion’
(2014: 5). Interestingly enough, the process of radicalization and the ad-
jacent issue of violent extremism has opened up a number of different is-
sues, which the theories, policies and practices of counter-radicalization,
deradicalization and anti-polarization do not offer a unanimous answer
to. Other important questions arise here as well, e.g. what criteria apply
in order to distinguish between non-violent and violent radicalization
(Bartlett & Miller, 2012)? What is the relationship between the cognitive
1 The analogy of ‘Year One’ is based on the French Republican Calendar created in 1792
during the French Revolution after the abolition of the monarchy in France.
5
