750778

research-article2018
RAC0010.1177/0306396817750778Race & ClassSilva: ‘Radicalisation’

SAGE
Los Angeles,
London,
New Delhi,
Singapore,
Washington DC,
Melbourne

‘Radicalisation: the journey of a

concept’, revisited
Derek M. D. Silva

Abstract: Over the past decade, radicalisation has emerged as perhaps the most
pervasive framework for understanding micro-level transitions towards violence.
However, the concept has not only become a dominant policing framework,
but also an overarching governmental strategy encompassing surveillance,
security, risk and community engagement. The emergence of this strategy has
been accompanied by a whole host of analysts, advisers and scholars, who
claim to possess ‘expert’ knowledge of individual transitions towards political
violence. Revisiting ‘Radicalisation: the journey of a concept’, Arun Kundnani’s
2012 typology of such ‘expertise’ (Race & Class, doi 10.1177/0306396812454984),
the author comparatively examines scholarly developments in relation to
‘radicalisation’ and juxtaposes new knowledge claims with official government
counter-radicalisation strategies and funding programmes in the UK, US and
Canada to highlight how some of the most problematic knowledge claims
continue to influence social policy as we move forward in the global ‘war on
terror’.

Keywords: Arun Kundnani, counter-radicalisation, counter-terrorism,

Islamophobia, radicalisation, ‘war on terror’

Derek M. D. Silva, Assistant Professor of Criminology at King’s University at Western University,

Canada, has research interests in terrorism and radicalisation, policing studies and sport.

Race & Class

Copyright © 2018 Institute of Race Relations, Vol. 59(4): 34­–53
10.1177/0306396817750778 journals.sagepub.com/home/rac
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 35

Introduction
In the October 2012 issue of Race & Class, Arun Kundnani explored the diffusion
of radicalisation discourses within and amongst academic communities. He doc-
umented how scholarly research on radicalisation led to the construction of
Muslim populations as ‘suspect communities’. Indeed, since the 2009 release of
his influential Spooked: how not to prevent violent extremism, published by the
Institute of Race Relations, Kundnani has been at the forefront of explorations
into how discourses of violent extremism, terrorism, and radicalisation are con-
structed by scholars, ‘expert’ analysts and industry professionals.1 He has illus-
trated how radicalisation discourses have produced a relatively narrow
conceptualisation of the term and how those discourses have been influential in
terms of impact on public and social policy. Since scholarly research is often
employed in the realms of politics and mass media to justify a host of public
policy decisions, he argues, it is important to empirically investigate how aca-
demic knowledge claims related to radicalisation are produced and, equally
important, how those are adopted in other social contexts. But it is also important
to revisit the ways in which scholarly work is being communicated and taken up
in government and public policies related to counter-terrorism and, increasingly,
counter-radicalisation.
For how a government makes sense of terrorism is often influenced by expert
‘scientific’ communities. Western liberal governments have adopted the frame-
work of counter-radicalisation as a primary approach to combating political vio-
lence. Legislators have relied upon the work of scholars to develop new theories
of ‘radicalisation’ which then inform official (and unofficial) interventions – from
advertising campaigns to community-based policing programmes. In both
Canada and the United Kingdom, for instance, authorities have explicitly relied
on the academic community to inform their counter-radicalisation strategies
identically named Prevent.
Kundnani’s original survey of academic radicalisation discourses highlighted
the incredibly narrow and empirically thin nature of so-called scientific work in
the area. But, six years after its publication, it may be time to revisit his ideas
given the relatively rapid increase in scholarly interest in the topic. In the pages
that follow I engage with Kundnani’s typology by highlighting some of the
more contemporary trends in academic discourses related to the concept of rad-
icalisation. Moreover, while Kundnani challenges the discursive construction
of radicalisation by scholars and industry ‘experts’, less addressed in his work
is how those discourses are adopted by influential individuals and groups.
Through an in-depth analysis of governmental counter-terrorism strategies, I
will explore the network of scholarship employed by governments to justify
their counter-radicalisation initiatives and practices therein. I argue that gov-
ernment officials are relatively selective in their adoption of scholarly know-
ledge claims related to radicalisation, ignoring emergent and important
scholarly developments in the area, particularly those that illuminate the very
36  Race & Class 59(4)

Figure 1.  References to radicalisation and Islam in academic publications.3

ways in which government counter-radicalisation policies disproportionately

target Muslim communities.
I explore 503 academic titles and abstracts from leading scholars of radicalisa-
tion to detail how the concept itself contributes to discriminatory government
policies targeting diverse Islamic communities. Data were gathered from aca-
demic search engines JSTOR and Sociological Abstracts, and include all refer-
ences to ‘radicalisation’ made in the title or the abstracts of books, peer-reviewed
journal articles and doctoral dissertations.2 Following an analysis of these schol-
arly pieces, I juxtapose academic discourse with 155 government funding pro-
grammes and counter-radicalisation programmes across the US, UK and Canada,
to illustrate how scholarly publications are being taken up in governmental pol-
icy. Figure 1 illustrates the number of academic sources included by year and
highlights the number of those sources that also reference Islam or Muslim com-
munities (the importance of which will become evident below).

Towards a typology of (pseudo-scientific) radicalisation discourses

Kundnani observes that, since 2004, emergent scholarship tends to conceptualise
radicalisation in at least one of four sometimes overlapping ways: (1) a cultural-
psychological disposition; (2) a theological process; (3) a theological-psychologi-
cal process; and (4) radicalisation models as policing tools.
The first three types can be traced back to the work of Walter Laqueur in 2004,
whose arguments centred on moving away from traditional approaches to terror-
ism that focus on political and structural conditions leading to violence, and
rather descend to analyses of individual characteristics.4 Laqueur proclaimed the
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 37

presence of a ‘new terrorism’, distinguishing between traditional forms of politi-

cal violence associated with older terrorism and the ‘new’ form of ‘Islamic funda-
mentalist violence rooted in fanaticism’.5 And this conclusion, in many ways, led
to important shifts in how issues of terrorism were approached and understood
amongst scholars, industry researchers and a host of ‘experts’. Laqueur maintains
that one can identify the ‘cultural-psychological disposition’ of those engaged in
terrorist activities and search for the root causes of such dispositions. Framed as
a ‘root cause’ approach to identifying dispositions, these studies can then be used
by the intelligence community and law enforcement as a ‘proxy for terrorist risk
and to structure their surveillance efforts accordingly’.6 Attempts to trace the
theological features of an identifiable radicalisation process, most exemplified by
the work of Marc Sageman, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Laura Grossman and
others,7 identify how individuals are ‘indoctrinated’ into so-called jihadist ideolo-
gies and networks. Similar to conceptualisations of radicalisation as a cultural-
psychological disposition, studies of this type focus more specifically on the
religious dispositions of those who engage in terrorist activities. Despite well-
documented criticisms of this body of work, it is often used as the basis for indica-
tor models of ‘extremist’ religious views and behaviours.8
While efforts to express the complexity involved in theorising about the radi-
calisation process break with some of the empirical and methodological issues of
previous explanation attempts, they still problematically conflate religion and
terrorism. As Kundnani rightly points out regarding Marc Sageman’s (2008)
highly influential Leaderless Jihad:

The object of his study lacks any definition. The closest we get to a description
of the category of activities he is analysing is the statement that he is interested
in ‘the men responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks and all those who,
like them, threaten the United States’.9

Other theories of radicalisation also fail to adequately demonstrate the causal link
between theology and violence which lies at the heart of so-called radicalisation
models.
The final cluster in Kundnani’s typology relates to radicalisation as a tool for
law enforcement. Law enforcement agencies and governmental offices have com-
missioned several notable studies that adopt a mostly theological-psychological
approach to radicalisation, but differ in terms of their intended audience and
applications. Most notable in this respect is the highly influential NYPD
Intelligence Division’s Radicalization in the West: the homegrown threat, prepared by
intelligence analysts Mitchell Silber and Arvin Bhatt and published in 2007. The
report offers a relatively simplistic model theorising radicalisation whilst claim-
ing scholarly and methodological thoroughness. Following the work of Sageman
and Quintan Wiktorowicz, Silber and Bhatt’s analysis highlights a fourfold model
of intergroup dynamics whereby radicalisation is supposedly cultivated, refer-
ring to the identification of ‘radicalisation incubators’ which can be infiltrated
38  Race & Class 59(4)

and subjected to various intervention strategies.10 Relying on less data and lack-
ing clear methodological or empirical transparency, Silber and Bhatt maintain
that ‘the four stages of the radicalisation process, each with its distinct set of indi-
cators and signatures, are clearly evident in each of the nearly one dozen terror-
ist-related case studies reviewed in this report’. And by focusing on group
dynamics and the ‘radicalisation incubator’ approach outlined by Silber and
Bhatt, law enforcement agencies and government officials have reconfigured
their policing intervention strategies around the theological-psychological
approach to issues of radicalisation. As Kundnani points out, the theological-psy-
chological process and intervention strategies outlined by Silber and Bhatt appear
very similar to the strategies outlined in the White House’s Empowering Local
Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism guidelines.
However empirically problematic these studies might be, they have been
highly influential in terms of governmental policy. Notably, the Rand Corporation,
whose Homeland Security Operational Analysis Center is federally funded, has
produced a plethora of significant studies, including, ten years after the event,
The Long Shadow of 9/11: America’s response to terrorism.11 And Sageman’s Leaderless
Jihad and Silber and Bhatt’s Radicalization in the West, which attempt to explore the
interconnectivity of theological extremist ideologies with individual psychology
and social networks in a generalised process towards terrorism, continue to be
the foundation of governmental counter-radicalisation programmes across west-
ern jurisdictions.
But utilising such perspectives presents problems for those groups which are
represented as dangerous, particularly cultural and ethnic minorities that are
already subjected to myriad post-9/11 counter-terrorism practices of surveil-
lance, (in)security and risk. As Kundnani concludes, ‘in the hands of the NYPD
… radicalisation scholarship becomes a prospectus for mass surveillance of
Muslim populations’.

The journey of radicalisation revisited

Laqueur’s influential work reconfigured notions of counter-terrorism around the
concept of radicalisation, and prompted academic research, government initia-
tives and public policy to focus on the identification of, and intervention in, the
so-called radicalisation process. While others have questioned the scholarly
validity of ‘research’ into these phenomena, studies suggesting that we can
observe a generalised trajectory from political or religious ideology to extremist
forms of violence have remained influential in the cultural and political appara-
tuses, evinced by the substantial increase in use of the term radicalisation in the
mass media and in governmental discourse.12
A similar, albeit antithetical, trend is evident in more recent academic discourse
related to radicalisation, which is increasingly focusing on critical explorations
into radicalisation as an overarching logic of governance. Since 2012, there has
been an increase in published studies which provide analyses of both
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 39

Table 1.  Typology of scientific radicalisation discourses pre- and post-2012.

Pre-2012 Post-2012
Cultural-psychological 248 90
Theological 27 6
Theological-psychological 32 55
Policing tools 7 13
Critical studies 2 23

Data gathered from academic search engines JSTOR and Sociological Abstracts.13

the historical development of scientific claims regarding radicalisation as well as

critical investigations into how those discourses influence shifts in strategies of
governing terrorism (see Table 1). Revisiting Kundnani’s typology of radicalisa-
tion discourses in light of recent scholarly developments, this section analyses
emergent frames of academic research related to radicalisation and counter-radi-
calisation, so as to highlight how a body of work has surfaced explicitly challeng-
ing some of the dominant tropes of scholarly research in the field.
A search for academic publications referencing radicalisation highlights some
of the pre- and post-2012 trends related to radicalisation and counter-radicalisa-
tion. As Table 1 illustrates, most academic publications prior to 2012 employed
understandings of radicalisation as a cultural-psychological disposition, high-
lighting scholarly approaches to the concept with reference to mostly political,
and sometimes psychological, transformations at the level of the individual.
Additionally, scholarly publications focusing on radicalisation as a theological
process, or as a more complex relationship between theology and social psycho-
logical characteristics, were central in academic discourse, highlighting the focus
of radicalisation as a predominantly individual psychological process rooted in
theological ideologies. Kundnani’s fourth category, radicalisation as policing
tool, has not received widespread scholarly attention at all.
After 2012, there were notable changes in scholarly discourses related to radi-
calisation. While most academic publications remained focused on generalised
cultural and psychological transitions towards extremist violence, there was a
substantial increase in attempts to offer analyses of more complex interconnec-
tions between theology and social psychological characteristics and resources. In
light of the changing landscape of the much maligned ‘war on terror’ since 2012,
with governments seemingly focusing more on domestic citizens travelling
abroad to support groups such as the Islamic State in Syria, the transition to social
psychological analysis of the dynamics between social context, network and indi-
vidual psyche is unsurprising. In many ways, research of this type has been influ-
enced by increased attention focused on homegrown terrorism and profiling
westerners’ participation in terrorist attacks against their own countries.
Meanwhile, relatively simplistic research representing radicalisation as a theo-
logical process decreased considerably. But irrespective of the acceptance of com-
plexity within this body of work, these trends are indicative of scholars’ continued
40  Race & Class 59(4)

preoccupation with modelling radicalisation processes based on religious, psy-

chological and group dynamics. Such exercises have, in turn, influenced the wid-
ening of surveillance practices throughout the West, which now increasingly
adopt a ‘risk subject’ approach based on more complex social psychological theo-
rising, such as was integral to the Metropolitan Police’s now defunct Muslim
Contact Unit.14 Several studies are emblematic of this social psychological preoc-
cupation, with titles such as ‘Psychological factors associated with support for
suicide bombing in the Muslim diaspora’, ‘What moves an individual from radi-
cal opinion to radical action’, and ‘Social interaction and psychological pathways
to political engagement and extremism’.15
Such studies, and similar work in the area of social network analysis,16 begin
by looking at a predetermined problematic group or social location (i.e., Muslim
communities or attacks perpetrated by Muslims), and extend their findings to
broader populations. Indicative of government (and perhaps social) anxieties
surrounding Islam as the primary site of homegrown terrorism in the post-Iraq
and Afghanistan ‘war on terror’, research beginning with Muslim communities
is at risk of simple confirmation bias. This is particularly the case in so-called
radicalisation studies, as radicalisation is a concept most often evoked with ref-
erence to terrorism and terrorist activities perpetrated by individuals associ-
ated with Islam. Scholarship adopting this perspective in advance of the
research, by using network analysis tools of case studies, may provide partial,
inadequate, or even biased theoretical explanations due to the exclusion of
alternative explanations and control groups. Despite often using methodologi-
cal techniques and approaches that Kundnani had already appropriately cri-
tiqued, the data here suggest that academic publishers continue to disseminate
research attempting to find the social psychological and theological causes asso-
ciated with radicalisation, whilst using pre-selected case studies without refer-
ence to alternative cases.
The analysis also indicates a notable increase in scholarly publications
related to the use of radicalisation theories as tools for police and law enforce-
ment agencies (see Table 1). Studies in this area focused on law enforcement
perspectives concerning the factors leading to so-called radicalisation,17 ‘best
practice’ approaches to policing and surveillance, and comparative studies of
public policy and policing initiatives. These mostly programme-oriented stud-
ies,18 on such topics as ‘assessing the effectiveness of counter-radicalisation
policies’ or ‘designing a community based model to reduce the risk of recruit-
ment’ aimed to highlight the most, and least, efficient policing and surveil-
lance strategies that have been deployed throughout (mostly) the US and the
UK. Rather than critiquing the problematic application of policing and policy
initiatives to specific cultural and ethnic minority communities, these studies
approach radicalisation as an a priori problem amongst Muslim populations
and seek to highlight the most efficient means of countering it. While such
academic discourses did increase post-2012, they remained a small proportion
of all published material.
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 41

The changing dynamics of the so-called ‘war on terror’ in the post-Iraq and
Afghanistan context have influenced the ways in which radicalisation is being
theorised and expert knowledge claims produced. As anxieties increase over the
domestic terror threat, researchers in a variety of disciplines now focus more
explicitly on providing strategies for government and law enforcement to moni-
tor, collect information, and identify risky subjects within their own communities,
rather than focusing on threats from outside the country. Typologies surround-
ing the ‘lone wolf’ threat have been quickly adopted by scholars who now attempt
to profile the ‘characteristics of lone wolf terrorists’, in spite of the conclusion that
‘research has shown that there is no profile of individual characteristics of group-
based terrorists’.19
The ongoing focus of radicalisation research at the level of the individual sup-
ports the basis of western governments’ intervention, whose research funding is
most often distributed to projects with an explicit aim of identifying the risk fac-
tors for individual radicalisation. For example, in response to the release of a
federal inquiry into the Air India Flight 182 bombing in 2012, Public Safety
Canada created the Kanishka Project with the unequivocal goal of better under-
standing trajectories towards terrorism. Some of the projects receiving funding
under Kanishka include: analysis of the characteristics of lone actor attacks, the
development of typologies for understanding terrorist organisation, and investi-
gating factors that predict youth pathways to radicalisation.20 Moreover, the
stated goal of UK’s Prevent strategy continues to be ‘based on the premise that
people being drawn into radicalisation and recruitment can be identified and
then provided with support’ and funding is determined on the basis of ‘aggre-
gate’ information and ‘police indicators of terrorist activity’.21 Radicalisation
research has proven to be durable and flexible, often supplying and maintained
by governmental objectives based on new perceived terrorist threats.
The (problematic) dynamic between research methodologies and theoretical
frameworks, on the one hand, and the legitimation sought by governments, on
the other, for controversial policies has led to the development of an expertise
based on one-off or very few case studies of individuals and groups labelled radi-
cal. And this ‘expert knowledge’ has influenced policies which now affect whole
communities on the ground. For example, as Imran Awan suggests, much of the
academic research outlined above has helped the UK’s Home Office legitimise
intervention practices within the Prevent strategy that stigmatise and construct
Muslim communities as ‘suspect’ through notions of risk and (in)security.22
Academic discourses of risk have also been deployed to justify heavily intrusive
policing strategies targeting Islamic communities, including the aforementioned
Muslim Contact Unit set up by the UK’s Metropolitan Police.23 In Calgary,
Alberta, Canada in 2015, the Police Service established a similar ‘ReDirect’ policy,
a risk-based intervention programme focusing on the identification of risky sub-
jects, who could be funnelled through a series of community interventions – from
providing social support teams to educational programmes – in order to combat
42  Race & Class 59(4)

the radicalisation process. There is thus a broadening of responsibility for those

in charge of monitoring and surveilling communities deemed at risk of engaging
in political violence.24
Largely in response to critiques, including that of Kundnani, about lack of
rigour but no lack of bias, the most notable transition in post-2012 scholarly radi-
calisation discourse was the emergence of critical approaches to current academic
tropes. This collection of work aims to provide a counter-narrative to current
scholarship and highlight the illogicality, paradoxes, deficiencies and problem-
atic state of current scholarly work related to the conceptual and theoretical fram-
ing of radicalisation. Scholars highlight the problematic nature of academic
radicalisation discourses in a variety of contexts, not least security and surveil-
lance, governmental policy and programmes, mass media and the academy.25
Researchers show how counter-radicalisation policies in terms of monitoring and
surveillance have been diffused across social institutions including schools, hos-
pitals and community organisations,26 leading to community campaigns which
challenge Prevent, such as in the UK ‘Education not Surveillance’27 and the
National Union of Students’ campaign, ‘Students not Suspects’.28
Scholars have challenged the traditional tropes in scholarly radicalisation dis-
courses for not only their methodological and theoretical deficiencies, but also
their predetermined set of assumptions. For instance, Jeffrey Monaghan and col-
leagues demonstrate how law enforcement counter-radicalisation strategies in
Canada have adopted international academic and policy discourses while reaf-
firming pre-emptive and discriminatory security practices.29 Peter Neumann, on
the other hand, illustrates how academic and policy-makers’ conceptualisations
of radicalisation lack logical clarity and calls for a more systematic and co-ordi-
nated effort amongst researchers to resolve ambiguity. Academic discourses such
as these and others turn the focus away from creating models of radicalisation
towards providing deeper analyses and understanding of how the concept of
radicalisation and the practices of counter-radicalisation are constructed, and
how these have implications for a variety of organisations and communities.
Thus, rather than investigating case studies or other empirical data on ‘terror-
ists’, which otherwise might be considered problematic, critical scholarship has
emerged which focuses on the theoretical, conceptual discourses that have influ-
enced the creation of a myriad of counter-radicalisation interventions. For
instance, O’Toole and colleagues point out ways in which Prevent (UK) could
better align with integrating Muslims into state strategies.30 Some academics in
this area call for the abolition of (at least some) governmental counter-radicalisa-
tion strategies and initiatives, while also providing useful insights for govern-
mental officials to create social and public policy more attuned to the experiences
and characteristics of communities under the spotlight.31 At the community level,
JUST Yorkshire has called in its report for an independent inquiry into the gov-
ernment’s Prevent strategy.32 And a grassroots campaign, ‘Birmingham Against
Spy Cameras’ successfully campaigned for the removal of 216 cameras installed
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 43

in Muslim communities in Birmingham under the counter-terrorism surveillance

operation ‘Project Champion’.
In this respect, critical academic analyses of radicalisation could be of use to
governments if they were open-minded. The Home Office in the UK, for instance,
published a follow-up Prevent strategy and accompanying Review in 2011 which
highlighted some concerns raised by the public and ways in which the govern-
ment was attempting to address community issues: ‘going forward, we will look
for much greater rigour in addressing Prevent projects … the focus must be on
impact and outcomes (attitudinal or behavioural change in a target audience) not
on outputs (a simple assessment of numbers reached by a particular project)’.33
Notably missing from the Home Office’s report is any citation from scholarly
research here identified as critical of government policy on such grounds. Instead,
important issues raised by scholars and advocacy organisations alike around the
balancing of security and the protection of civil liberties, particularly amongst
Muslim communities, was pushed to the periphery of the Review. This is high-
lighted by the fact that such issues were included in its ‘other themes and issues’
section – as finding fifty-three out of a total of fifty-five, notably following an
account of how supportive the public has been of the strategy.34 Moreover, the
revised strategy underemphasised the critiques, suggesting:

One of the most damaging allegations made about Prevent in the last two years
has been that it has strayed into the area of Pursue and become a means for spy-
ing on Muslim Communities. This allegation was raised in the media and in a
research paper in late 2009…35

The Home Office conducted a review into the more detailed allegations and con-
cluded that there was little or no evidence to support them.36
The Home Office concluded that the allegations raised by Kundnani (and others)37
that Prevent legitimised forms of surveillance that disproportionately focused on
Muslim communities were unfounded, based on a questionnaire distributed online
to 400 people and ‘a small number of focus groups’,38 unequivocally denying the pos-
sibility that Prevent legitimised surveillance of Muslims. While this is unsurprising,
it is suggestive of the UK government’s aversion to some forms of research when it
comes to development and delivery of its Prevent strategy.
Important questions thus emerge: what scholarly discourses related to radi-
calisation and counter-radicalisation are being adopted by governments? And,
equally important, how do those scientific discourses influence the configuration
of governmental counter-radicalisation strategies and their practices?

The adoption of academic radicalisation discourses

To explore the inter-systemic adoption of academic radicalisation discourses,
I used a variety of data sources and collection methods. First, counter-radical-
isation strategies in the US, Canada and the UK were analysed on the basis of
44  Race & Class 59(4)

references to scholarly research. Each reference was categorised in terms of

the typology outlined in the previous section and any reference made to fund-
ing initiatives for research or ‘evidence-based’ analyses. With the results of
this search, I was able to uncover the most important bodies of empirical
research and funding programmes used by government officials in the cre-
ation of counter-radicalisation initiatives. I then searched pertinent govern-
mental and federal research-granting websites for information on the projects
funded as part of official counter-radicalisation strategies. Each funded pro-
posal was then analysed in detail to identify how the authors understood rad-
icalisation and issues of counter-radicalisation. Following the analysis, I then
categorised each proposal according to the same typology used throughout
this paper.
The importance of government funding with respect to knowledge claims
about radicalisation is twofold: (1) there have been well-documented structural
transformations within the scientific system that illustrate the importance of
government funding in the pursuit of research outcomes;39 and (2) governmen-
tal counter-radicalisation strategies, as I have noted, increasingly focus on ‘evi-
dence-based’ research to advise authorities on best practice, to whit explicitly
mentioning funding programmes in those official strategies. Since academic
research is often in need of government funding and governments explicitly
request scholarly work from the scientific system in their counter-radicalisation
initiatives, identifying the output of those funding programmes is central to an
analysis of how academic discourses are adopted by governments and govern-
ment officials. Unlike the UK’s Prevent strategy, Canadian and US counter-
radicalisation guidelines did not explicitly cite academic research. The analysis
therefore includes only government-funded research projects in Canada and
the US.40
Findings from the analysis are presented in Table 2. The data indicate that most
government radicalisation research projects focused on identifying theological,
psychological or group dynamics amenable to a radicalisation process. This is
particularly evident in the UK, where both the Prevent strategy and government
funding continue to seek out studies detecting indicators of a generalised radi-
calisation process. In the US and Canada, however, much more attention is paid
to the identification of best practice for law enforcement and the intelligence and
security communities. This aligns with changes in the perceived terror threat in
North America – both governments are focused primarily on the threat of domes-
tic, ‘lone wolf’ terrorism and this is reflected in the research projects receiving
government funding. Research on best practice for law enforcement has received
much support through Canada’s Kanishka Project, the Canadian Network for
Research on Terrorism, Security, and Society (TSAS)41 as well as the US National
Institute of Justice’s Domestic Radicalisation and Terrorism Program, and
Researching Solutions to Violent Extremism Network (RESOLVE). Of note is the
lack of reference to, or funding of, research projects critical of current or former
counter-radicalisation practices.
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 45

Table 2.  Funded government research projects and citations in governmental counter-
radicalisation strategies since 2007.42

United States United Kingdom Canada

Cultural-psychological 6 11 3
Theological 2 8 1
Theological-psychological 14 71 9
Policing tools 18 15 12
Critical studies − 5 −

None of the projects analysed in Canada or the US provided critical analyses of

radicalisation and only five projects were funded in the UK. However, a deeper
analysis of the UK’s governmental response to radicalisation illustrates its own
aversion to critical radicalisation scholarship. Of the forty-six scholarly citations
in the UK’s Prevent strategy, twenty-eight sought to identify causes or explain
pathways towards radicalisation and three of them focused on best practice for
countering radicalisation. Notably missing from the UK’s Prevent strategy is any
reference to critical analysis of governmental strategies, despite the inclusion of
numerous ‘community concerns’ regarding law enforcement and security mea-
sures (outlined above).43
And while those involved in developing counter-radicalisation strategies con-
tinue to call for ‘evidence-based’ research as a fundamental requirement for gov-
ernmental initiatives, the evidentiary standards of the research have been
questioned.44 In addition, as the data here suggest, governments ignore research
critical of status-quo surveillance, intelligence and policing strategies in favour of
questionable ‘indicator’ and ‘evidence-based’ studies attempting to identify the
cultural, theological, psychological or even social characteristics of those in the
so-called radicalisation process. For example, despite McCauley and Moskalenko’s
conclusion that no single profile of individual characteristics of terrorists exists,
the authors have received over $700,000 to carry out projects on political radicali-
sation since 2004, many of which offer ‘root cause’ models.45 This is not to suggest
such endeavours are entirely meaningless, but rather to highlight governments’
preoccupation with identification and risk-based theories of radicalisation which
have well-documented limitations. The overwhelming focus of governments and
funders on identifying the ‘root causes’ of radicalisation and ‘best practice’ of law
enforcement vis-à-vis counter-radicalisation thus legitimises a body of empiri-
cally questionable research, while simultaneously justifying their own counter-
radicalisation interventions. The mutually beneficial relationship between
government and academic researchers in other fields has been explored by
numerous scholars,46 and is here accompanied by the exclusion of an entire emer-
gent body of work that may be of use for governments as they aim to create just
and equitable security and policing measures.
Outside the governmental apparatus, academic discourses related to radicali-
sation have been adopted by news media to lend legitimacy to stories related to
46  Race & Class 59(4)

terrorism. The mass media have a long history of including interviews and com-
ments from scientists and researchers to provide authoritative discourses to lend
weight to media accounts of diverse social phenomena, particularly on issues
related to crime and security.47 In a similar way, academic knowledge claims
have been employed to legitimise journalistic accounts of issues related to radi-
calisation. Scholars advocating risk factor-based radicalisation theories have been
referenced according to their ‘expert’ status by media on numerous occasions,
with labels such as ‘cerebral university historian and author’, ‘iconoclastic psy-
chiatrist, sociologist, former CIA case officer and scholar-in-residence with the
New York Police Department’, and ‘terrorism expert’.48 In contrast, critical
researchers receive notably less attention and are more humbly labelled as
‘scholar’ or via their job title.49
The media have most often sought out scholars working to understand the
theological and social psychological precursors to radicalisation. News articles in
the US overwhelmingly focused on a very select few academic researchers, not
the least of which included the work of Marc Sageman (85 references), Bruce
Hoffman (91 references), and Peter Neumann (208 references). In the UK, news
media mostly relied on Peter Neumann’s analysis (72 references), while also
employing research from Hoffman (15 references), and UK scholars Bartlett,
Birdwell and King (8 references), who notably authored research referenced in
the Prevent strategy. In Canadian news coverage of radicalisation, the work of
Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman (20 references), Sageman (22 references),
Hoffman (25 references), Neumann (20 references) and Canadian scholars Wesley
Wark (17 references) and Lorne Dawson (10 references) were amongst the most
cited. News media mostly referenced the work of scholars exploring the theologi-
cal and psychological underpinnings of a generalised radicalisation process, but
with a notable focus on law enforcement tools used to counter radicalisation.
Few critical scholars have been sought out by the news media. Even Kundnani’s
newsworthy work with the provocative title The Muslims are Coming!, which
focused on deconstructing approaches to radicalisation, was only referenced five
times in the news media (four of which were related to the release of the book
rather than Kundnani’s expertise on radicalisation). In addition, the release of
Christopher Baker-Beall, Charlotte Heath-Kelly and Lee Jarvis’ Counter-
Radicalisation: critical perspectives received only one mention; and only one of the
authors was referenced by virtue of their ‘expertise’ in the news articles. Sageman’s
Leaderless Jihad, though, was referenced fifteen times. It is important to note that
the UK’s Prevent strategy did highlight one meta-analysis that had reflected on
some of the empirical issues raised in academic studies on radicalisation, but the
citation itself was to the author’s finding that many scholars focus on individuals’
searches for community when involved in radicalisation processes.50
Not only was an entire body of research mostly ignored by the media, but
numerically a particular perspective overshadowed scholarship relating to some
of the problems with counter-radicalisation policies. And when the media did
reference critical research, they downplayed researchers’ expertise relative to the
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 47

overemphasis on the credentials and specialist knowledge of scholars whose

research attempts to uncover pathways, mechanisms or risk factors leading indi-
viduals towards radicalisation. The media thus contribute to an understanding of
expertise that is based on somewhat arbitrary characteristics – ‘experts’ are those
working closely with governmental agencies and police forces to provide inter-
vention strategies, whilst the contributions from other professional researchers
are downplayed and delegitimised.
While the adoption of scholarly discourses related to radicalisation in news
media warrants further attention in its own right – as there are complex reasons
for the adoption of particular discursive formations over others – the exploratory
analysis here suggests that the mass media, like government, are preoccupied
with the pursuit of indicator-based models of radicalisation. By seeking out schol-
ars who advocate this type of radicalisation research, the media contribute to
popular understandings of radicalisation as rooted in theology and social psy-
chological processes.
Both government authorities and the media thus influence and legitimise spe-
cific forms of expertise in this area. In an era characterised by institutionally legit-
imised forms of public science, where publicity and research funding often
determine career placement, promotion, salary and other benefits, it is important
to reflect on the ways in which government, media and academe interact in the
production of ‘expert’ knowledge claims. In the case presented here, the dynam-
ics between radicalisation research and its adoption by government and media
clearly construct expertise on the basis of a particular theory of radicalisation –
one that posits that radicalisation is an observable process that can be prevented
by paying attention to a series of risk factors and associated interventions. But
what important scholarly work is kept in the blind spots of public discourse? The
data presented here suggest that it is the critical scholarship challenging some of
the ways in which modern counter-radicalisation practices and policies may be
eroding vital civil liberties in which our society is founded that is left in the dark
– ignored by funders, governments and the media alike.

Conclusion
These trends in media representation are not new. As Edward Said noted, media
and ‘experts’ influence the ways in which we understand the world.51 Part of
Said’s now classic analysis is that western media evoke discourses from an
‘expert’ class of Orientalists who offer prepackaged and often false claims about
the East and the Arab. And, as Michel Foucault, reminds us, criminological
knowledge claims cannot be disconnected from the relations of power that per-
meate governmental decision-making,52 for in ‘politicised scholarship’ scientific
knowledge claims are taken up in rather selective ways to justify social policy
decisions.53 I argue that the selective adoption of research results in media and in
governmental discourse alike reflects an unacknowledged but institutionalised
bias, analogous to the concept of ‘colorblind’ racism, in which discriminatory
48  Race & Class 59(4)

Table 3.  References to academic scholarship on radicalisation in news media.

United States United Kingdom Canada

Cultural-psychological 56 7 22
Theological 14 3 32
Theological-psychological 193 82 56
Policing tools 13 12 20
Critical studies − 6 1

Data: Newspaper articles from the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star,
National Post, The Guardian, The Independent, The Daily Telegraph from 1969 to 2016 (n = 8,072).

social policies are justified by the adoption of specific types of scholarly research
and the ignoring of others.54 Furthermore, I argue that the circular relationship
between government counter-radicalisation research and media reflects a broader
preoccupation with problematising radicalisation as a predominantly religious
issue, one that affects (mostly) Muslim communities (see Table 3).
A good example of this trend is that, despite the emergence of numerous criti-
cal analyses of some counter-radicalisation practices in the UK, the Home Office
chose to cite from a short film produced by Avon and Somerset Police to show
how the case of Andrew Ibrahim – jailed in 2009 for plotting to blow up a shop-
ping centre in Bristol – ‘illustrates signs of vulnerability and the role that those in
contact with individuals at risk can have in raising potential concerns’.55 Moreover,
Prevent used a BBC Panorama television series as evidence to support the claim
that ‘a minority of independent faith schools have been actively promoting views
that are contrary to British values’ whilst ignoring some peer-reviewed eviden-
tiary claims to the contrary.56 In the UK’s overarching Contest strategy,57 the gov-
ernment cited conclusions from for-profit magazines, such as The New Yorker, and
news websites The Register and BBC News, rather than peer-reviewed, method-
ologically rigorous scholarship to legitimise claims regarding the structure of
ideological violence in its nationwide Prevent strategy. It argued that terrorist
organisations can no longer look for state sponsorship as easily and therefore
must seek new forms of terror, social networks and recruiting tactics.58
Governments thus encourage the advancement of and provide legitimacy for
certain discourses on radicalisation, while simultaneously delegitimising others.
In this way, academic discourses of radicalisation can be approached as instru-
mental for government decision-making related to counter-terrorism. This trend
highlights a preoccupation with indicator- and evidence-based approaches to
counter-radicalisation that suffer not only from empirical inadequacies, but also
fail to account for the complexity of radicalisation as a social phenomenon. By
only focusing on the religious aspects of radicalisation, governments continue to
ignore other possible explanations (and thus interventions) for interactions
between states and those who commit political violence.
It is therefore important not only to explore the ways in which the scientific
system is embedded in the meaning-giving process on issues related to
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 49

radicalisation and counter-radicalisation, but also to revisit those ways in order

to challenge the underlying logic of counter-terrorism measures that continue to
impact the daily lives of diverse Islamic communities.

References
1 See A. Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation: the journey of a concept’, Race & Class 54, no. 2 (2012), pp.
3–25 and reprint A. Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation: the journey of a concept’, in C. Baker-Beall, C.
Heath-Kelly and L. Jarvis, eds, Counter-radicalisation: critical perspectives (New York: Routledge,
2015), pp. 14–36.
2 The search included both British (‘radicalisation’) and American/Canadian (‘radicalization’)
spellings.
3 Following Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation’, this Figure was generated using searches of peer-
reviewed journals, doctoral dissertations, and academic books for the terms ‘radicalisation’
or ‘radicalization’ and any combination of references to Islam, including ‘Islam’, ‘Islamic’,
‘Islamist(s)’, ‘Muslim(s)’ and others. I used the databases JSTOR and Sociological Abstracts
as search engines due to their ability to output spreadsheets of search results and their inclu-
sion of many journals not explored in Kundnani’s study. I also only searched the abstracts, as
Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation’, has already explored similar trends in full-text format. The search
resulted in 503 articles and abstracts included in the analysis.
4 W. Laqueur, ‘The terrorism to come’, Policy Review 126 (2004), pp. 46–64.
5 W. Laqueur, ‘The terrorism to come’.
6 A. Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation’, p. 8.
7 See J. Horgan, Walking Away From Terrorism: accounts of disengagement from radical and extrem-
ist movements (New York: Routledge, 2009); J. Horgan, ‘The mind of the terrorist: perspectives
from social psychology’, Psychiatric Annals 29 (2003), pp. 227–340; D. Gartenstein-Ross and L.
Grossman, Homegrown Terrorists in the US and UK: an empirical examination of the radicalization
process (Washington: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2009).
8 For an in-depth analysis of these claims, see A. Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation’. As Kundnani illus-
trates, these studies tend to suffer from numerous empirical and methodological weaknesses
– not the least of which are the lack of control groups; failure to establish a causal link between
religiosity and terrorism, despite claiming to do so; the ignorance of possible alternative expla-
nations; confirmation biases with claimed causal mechanisms; and even serious concerns over
the validity of the criteria to determine cases’ status as ‘terrorists’.
9 M. Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: terror networks in the twenty-first century (Philadelphia, PA:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), p. 15, as cited in A. Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation’.
10 The fourfold model of so-called radicalisation includes: ‘pre-radicalisation’, self-identification’,
‘indoctrination’ and, finally, ‘jihadisation’, highlighting the inevitable connection between reli-
gion and radicalisation. See M. Silber and A. Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: the homegrown
threat (New York: New York Police Department Intelligence Division, 2007). See also Q.
Wiktorowicz, Radical Islam Rising: Muslim extremists in the West (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield,
2005).
11 Such influential work includes B. Jenkins, Countering al Qaeda: an appreciation of the situation and
suggestions for strategy (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2002); B. Jenkins, Unconquerable
Nation: knowing our enemy, strengthening ourselves (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation,
2006); B. Jenkins, Would-be Warriors: incidents of jihadist terrorist radicalization in the United States
since September 11, 2001 (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2010); B. Jenkins, Stray Dogs
and Virtual Armies: radicalization and recruitment to jihadist terrorism in the United States since 9/11
(Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2011); and B. Jenkins and J. Godges, eds, The Long
Shadow of 9/11: America’s response to terrorism (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2011).
Also M. Silber and A. Bhatt, Radicalization in the West: the homegrown threat. For an explora-
50  Race & Class 59(4)

tion of some of the problems with radicalisation research, see P. Neumann, ‘The trouble with
radicalization’, International Affairs 89, no. 4 (2013), pp. 873–93. See also P. Neumann and S.
Kleinmann, ‘How rigorous is radicalization research?’.
12 For an analysis of these trends in the media see D. Silva, ‘The othering of Muslims: discourses
of radicalization in the New York Times, 1969–2014’, Sociological Forum 32, no. 1 (2017), pp.
138–61.
13 As indicated, in total, 503 academic texts (books, peer-reviewed journal articles, dissertations)
were examined from 1970 to the present. Book, peer-reviewed journal articles and dissertation
abstracts were searched for use of the terms ‘radicalization’ or ‘radicalisation’.
14 The UK Home Office’s Prevent Strategy (London, UK: HM Government, 2011) is but one exam-
ple of a government policy utilising such social psychological work to justify new measures
of surveillance, including the law enforcement operation, the ‘Muslim Contact Unit’, which
funnelled police and intelligence operations to Muslim diaspora communities in London from
2002 until at least 2008.Its former chief, R. Lambert, who had joined Special Branch in 1980, was
made head of the Unit in 2002 and later became a lecturer in terrorism studies. But he became
persona non grata after 2012 when his former activities undercover, as an infiltrator and agent
provocateur within the Left and peace movements earlier in his career, were exposed.
15 Each of these articles represents a different methodology for exploring the social psychologi-
cal and theological underpinnings of a generalised radicalisation process. Victoroff, Adelman
and Matthews use survey data to highlight some of the psychological factors associated with
support for suicide bombing among only self-identified Muslims. McCauley and Moskalenko
explore three case studies of ‘lone wolf’ terrorism perpetrated by self-identified Muslims.
Finally, Thomas, McGarty and Louis’s study offered an experimental analysis of social psy-
chological pathways to extremism amongst a sample of psychology university students. See J.
Victoroff, J. Adelman and M. Matthews, ‘Psychological factors associated with the support for
suicide bombing in the Muslim diaspora’, Political Psychology 33, no. 6 (2012), pp. 791–809; C.
McCauley and S. Mosalenko, ‘Toward a profile of lone wolf terrorists: what moves an individ-
ual from radical opinion to radical action’, Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 1 (2013), pp.
69–85; and E. Thomas, C. McGarty and W. Lois, ‘Social interaction and psychological pathways
to political engagement and extremism’, European Journal of Social Psychology 44, no. 1, (2014),
pp. 15–22.
16 See A. Perlinger and A. Pedazur, ‘Social network analysis in the study of terrorism and politi-
cal violence’, PS: Political Science and Politics 44, no. 1 (2011), pp. 45–50; R. Medina, ‘Social net-
work analysis: a case study of the Islamist terrorism network’, Security Journal 27, no. 1 (2014),
pp. 97–121; and J. Klausen, ‘Tweeting the jihad: social media networks of Western foreign
fighters in Syria and Iraq’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 38, no. 1 (2015), pp. 1–22.
17 G. Selim, ‘Approaches for countering violent extremism at home and abroad’, The ANNALS of
the American Academy of Political and Social Science 668, no. 1 (2016), pp. 94–101.
18 S. Caldwell, ‘Fighting extremism: strategies used to combat extremism and radicalization’,
PhD dissertation (Oxford, MS: Department of Legal Studies, University of Mississippi, 2012).
See also L. Lindekilde, ‘Introduction: assessing the effectiveness of counter-radicalisation poli-
cies in northwest Europe’, Critical Studies on Terrorism 5, no. 3 (2012), pp. 335–44; D. Smith,
‘Immigrants and counterterrorism policy: a comparative study of the United States and
Britain’, PhD dissertation (Boston: Department of Political Science, Northwestern University,
2013); and E. Southers, ‘Homegrown violent extremism: designing a community-based model
to reduce the risk of recruitment of radicalization’, PhD dissertation (Los Angeles: School of
Public Policy, University of Southern California, 2014).
1 9 McCauley and Moskalenko, ‘Toward a profile of lone wolf terrorists’, p. 69.
20 These are but three examples of risk-factor based research funded by Public Safety Canada. For
more see http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/ntnl-scrt/cntr-trrrsm/r-nd-flght-182/knshk/
index-en.aspx.
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 51

2 1 The Home Office, Prevent Strategy, pp. 56, 97.

22 I. Awan, ‘“I am a Muslim not an extremist”: how the Prevent strategy has constructed a “sus-
pect” community’, Politics and Policy 40, no. 6 (2012), pp. 1158–85.
23 R. Lambert, Countering Al Qaeda in London: police and Muslims in partnership (London: Hurst,
2011).
24 In 2015, the Calgary Police Service introduced its counter-radicalisation initiative under the ban-
ner of ‘Redirect’. According to the programme’s website, ‘there is no typical profile of someone
who is vulnerable to radicalization. Individuals can be radicalized for any cause and it is an
issue that can affect members of every region, nationality, or system of belief.’ This type of
agnostic approach to radicalisation is but one example of a broader preoccupation on the part of
western government officials to adopt an explicitly agnostic conceptualisation of the term.
25 See B. Harbisher, ‘Unthinking extremism: radicalising narratives that legitimise surveillance’,
Surveillance & Society 13, no. 3–4 (2015), pp. 476–86; J. Monaghan, ‘Criminal justice policy
transfer and prison counterradicalization: examining Canadian participation in the Roma-
Lyon Group’, Canadian Journal of Law and Society 30, no. 3 (2015), pp. 381–400; S. Akbarzadeh,
‘Investing in mentoring and educational initiatives: the limits of de-radicalisation programmes
in Australia’, Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 33, no. 4 (2013), pp. 451–63; K. Lemons and
J. Chambers-Letson, ‘Rule of law: Sharia panic and the US Constitution in the House of
Representatives’, Cultural Studies 28, no. 5–6 (2014), pp. 1048–77; D. Silva, ‘The othering of
Muslims: discourses of “radicalization” in the New York Times, 1969–2016’, Sociological Forum
32, no. 1 (2017), pp. 138–61; A. Kundnani, ‘Radicalisation’; and P. Neumann, ‘The trouble with
radicalization’, International Affairs 89, no. 4 (2013), pp. 873–93. See also P. Neumann and S.
Kleinmann, ‘How rigorous is radicalization research?’, Democracy and Security 9, no. 4 (2013),
pp. 360–82.
26 Awan, ‘“I am a Muslim not an extremist”’. See also T. O’Toole, N. Meer, D. N. DeHanas, S. H.
Jones and T. Modood, ‘Governing through prevent? Regulation and contested practice in state-
Muslim engagement’, Sociology 50, no. 1 (2016), pp. 160–77.
27 Bill Bolloten, ‘Education not surveillance’, IRR News, 22 October 2015, http://www.irr.org.uk/
news/education-not-surveillance/.
28 ‘Preventing Prevent – We are Students not Suspects’, https://www.nusconnect.org.uk/cam-
paigns/preventing-prevent-we-are-students-not-suspects.
29 See J. Monaghan, ‘Security traps and discourses of radicalization: examining surveillance prac-
tices targeting Muslims in Canada’, Surveillance and Society 12, no. 4 (2014), pp. 485–501. See
also J. Monaghan and A. Molnar, ‘Radicalisation theories, policing practices, and the “future of
terrorism?”’, Critical Studies on Terrorism 9, no. 3 (2016), pp. 393–413.
30 See T. O’Toole, D. DeHanas and T. Modood, ‘Balancing tolerance, security and Muslim engage-
ment in the United Kingdom: the impact of the “Prevent” agenda’, Critical Studies on Terrorism
5, no. 3 (2012), pp. 373–89; and O’Toole et al., ‘Governing through Prevent?’.
31 For such critical academic work see Y. Birt, ‘Promoting virulent envy?’, The RUSI Journal 154,
no. 3 (2009), pp. 52–58; O’Toole et al., ‘Governing through Prevent?’; and Monaghan and
Molnar, ‘Radicalisation theories, policing practices, and the “future of terrorism?”’.
32 Jasbinder S. Nijjar, ‘Prevent – Racism, Resistance, Repeal’, IRR News, 5 October 2017, http://
www.irr.org.uk/news/prevent-racism-resistance-repeal/.
33 Home Office, Prevent Strategy, p. 37.
34 Home Office, Prevent Review: summary of responses to the consultation (London: HM Government,
2011), pp. 1–25.
35 Of note here is that the ‘single’ report referenced by the Home Office is Arun Kundnani’s
Spooked! How not to prevent violent extremism.
36 Home Office, Prevent Strategy, p. 31.
37 When the revised Prevent Strategy was released, there were already a number of scholars criti-
cal of at least some modern counter-terrorism projects, including Arun Kundnani, Elizabeth
52  Race & Class 59(4)

Poole, Lorenzo Vidino, Stephen Vertigans, Ervand Arbrahamian and Basia Spalek, as well as
organisations such as the Institute of Race Relations, Human Rights Watch, the Equality and
Human Rights Commission, and the Forum Against Islamophobia & Racism.
38 Home Office, Prevent Review, p. 5.
3 9 See M. Deflem, ‘The structural transformation of sociology’, Society 50, no. 2 (2013), pp. 156–66,
A. Guena, ‘The changing rationale for European universities research funding: are there nega-
tive unintended consequences?’, Journal of Economic Issues 35, no. 3 (2001), pp. 607–32, and M.
Sageman, ‘The stagnation in terrorism research’, Terrorism and Political Violence 26, no. 4 (2014),
pp. 565–80.
40 The next logical step in this analysis is to explore the adoption of academic research in parlia-
mentary and congressional debates. Due to its already broad scope, and the resources required
for such an endeavour, I use this paper to build an empirical basis for further research into
political usage of academic radicalisation discourses.
41 It is important to note that the Kanishka Project funded the establishment of TSAS, but the
Network has since established its own internal fund-granting projects.
42 UK Sources: CONTEST and Prevent Strategies, research funded by the Economic and Social
Research Council through the ‘Radicalisation Research’ (74 projects); Canada Sources: funded
research projects from the Kanishka Project Contribution Program (37 projects; 5 rounds
of funding) and the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security, and Society
([TSAS] 4 major projects and 18 working papers); US Sources: Strategic Implementation Plan for
Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States, all research projects
funded as part of the National Institute of Justice’s ‘Domestic Radicalisation and Terrorism
Program’ from 2012 to 2016 (25 projects) and the Researching Solutions to Violent Extremism
Network (RESOLVE) from 2007 to 2017 (19 publications).
43 See Home Office, Prevent Strategy and Home Office, The United Kingdom’s Strategy for Countering
Terrorism (London: HM Government, 2011).
4 4 Neumann and Kleinmann, ‘How rigorous is radicalization research?’.
45 See https://www.brynmawr.edu/people/clark-r-mccauley.
46 See J. Galliher, ‘The influence of funding agencies on juvenile delinquency research’, Social
Problems 21, no. 1 (1973), pp. 77–90 or C. Manski, Public Policy in an Uncertain World: analysis and
decisions (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
47 See C. Greek, ‘Becoming a media criminologist: is “newsmaking criminology” possible?’, in
G. Barak, ed., Media, Process, and the Social Construction of Crime: studies in newsmaking criminol-
ogy (New York: Garland Publishing, 1995), pp. 265–86. See also G. Barak, ‘Doing newsmaking
criminology from within the academy’, Theoretical Criminology 11, no. 2 (2007), pp. 191–207.
48 See E. Sciolino and E. Schmitt, ‘A not very private feud over terrorism’, New York Times, 8 June
2005 and M. Mazzetti, ‘Qaeda leaders losing sway over militants, study finds’, New York Times,
15 November 2006.
49 See A. Correal and A. Newman, ‘New York today: ghoulish pleasures’, New York Times Blogs,
16 October 2014. See also S. Knapton, ‘NHS staff “failing in duty to report terror suspects”; lack
of trust in the police means they are not being told of vulnerable people at risk of radicalisa-
tion’, Daily Telegraph, 27 April 2017, in which Charlotte Heath-Kelly is referred to by her profes-
sional position of Associate Professor at the University of Warwick.
50 The meta-analysis referenced by Prevent (UK) was Dalgaard-Nielsen’s exploration of ‘what
we know and what we do not know’ about violent radicalisation in Europe (see A. Dalgaard-
Nielsen, ‘Violent radicalization in Europe: what we know and what we do not know’, Studies in
Conflict and Terrorism 33, no. 9 (2010), pp. 797–814). In it the author highlights several empirical
and methodological concerns besetting scholarly research on radicalisation; however, the UK’s
Prevent strategy cited the work to justify its claim that: ‘some recent academic work suggests
that radicalisation occurs as people search for identity, meaning and community. It has been
argued in particular that some second or third generation Muslims in Europe, facing apparent
 Silva: ‘Radicalisation’ 53

or real discrimination and socio-economic disadvantage, can find in terrorism a “value sys-
tem”, a community and an apparently just cause.’ (Home Office, Prevent Strategy, p. 17).
51 E. Said, Covering Islam: how the media and the experts determine how we see the rest of the world (New
York: Pantheon Books, 1981).
52 M. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: the birth of the prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1977).
53 J. Savelsberg, R. King and L. Cleveland, ‘Politicized scholarship? Science on crime and the
state’, Social Problems 49, no. 3 (2002), pp. 327–48.
5 4 This idea is borrowed from Bonilla-Silva’s concept of colour-blind racism; see E. Bonilla-
Silva, Racism Without Racists: color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in America
(Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003).
5 5 Home Office, Prevent Strategy, p. 56.
5 6 Home Office, Prevent Strategy, p. 56. For counterfactual evidence see M. Woodward, I.
Rohmaniyah, A. Amin and D. Coleman, ‘Muslim education, celebrating Islam and having fun
as counter-radicalization strategies in Indonesia’, Perspectives on Terrorism 4, no. 4 (2010), pp.
28–50. See also M. van Bruinessen, ‘Kitab Kuning: Books in Arabic script used in the Pasantren
milieu’, Bijagren tot de Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde 146 (1990), pp. 226–69, and R. Hefner and
M. Zamman, Schools Islam: the culture and politics of modern Muslim education (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 2007).
57 CONTEST is the overarching counter-terrorism strategy in the UK set up in 2006, with the aim
of stopping people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism.
5 8 Home Office, Contest Strategy (London: HM Government, 2011), pp. 33–35. The fact that the
Home Office could have relied on relevant criminological literature to legitimise these claims
highlights governmental aversion to much of the scholarly research vis-à-vis issues of terror-
ism. See, for example, S. Hutchinson and P. O’Malley, ‘A crime-terror nexus? Thinking on
some of the links between terrorism and criminality’, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism 30, no. 12,
(2007), pp. 1095–107.