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This article explores the extension of counter-radicalisation practice into the National Health Service (NHS). In the 2011 reformulation of the UK Prevent strategy, the NHS became a key sector for the identification and suppression of ‘radicalisation’. Optometrists, dentists, doctors and nurses have been incorporated into counter-terrorism and trained to report signs of radicalisation in patients and staff. This article explores how calculative modalities associated with big data and digital analytics have been translated into the non-digital realm. The surveillance of the whole of the population through the NHS indicates a dramatic policy shift away from linear profiling of those ‘suspect communities’ previously considered vulnerable to radicalisation. Fixed indicators of radicalisation and risk profiles no longer reduce the sample size for surveillance by distinguishing between risky and non-risky bodies. Instead, the UK government chose the NHS as a preeminent site for counter-terrorism because of the large amount of contact it has with the public. The UK government is developing a novel counter-terrorism policy in the NHS around large-N surveillance and inductive calculation, which demonstrates a translation of algorithmic modalities and calculative regimes. This article argues that this translation produces an autoimmune moment in British security discourse whereby the distinction between suspicious and non-suspicious bodies has collapsed. It explores the training provided to NHS staff, arguing that fixed profiles no longer guide surveillance: rather, surveillance inductively produces the terrorist profile.

Radicalisation had long been seen as something foreign, belonging more to Western Europe than to post-communist Central Europe. Considering the recent events in the Czech Republic and the 2022 Bratislava shooting, the article investigates the Concept of the Fight against Extremism and Prejudicial Hatred 2021–2026 to explore the currently involved stakeholders in its efforts to detect radicalised individuals vis-à-vis possible radicalisation-related threats emerging from its contemporary extremist landscape. As the document solely centres on the Police, Prison Service and the Probation and Mediation Service, it turns to similar institutions and services in Slovakia and Germany to outline potential inspiration and solutions for the Czech Republic. By synthesising this with the reasoning about the effective detection of radicalised individuals of predecessor Czech scholars, the article concludes that the MoI’s 2025–2026 action plan should incorporate three other stakeholders, i.e. 1) teachers, 2) children, teenagers and young people, and 3) the general public, to more appropriately meet the B2-specific objective and, crucially, to more adequately address the contemporary complexity of radicalisation.

Counter-radicalisation measures have been criticised for stigmatising Muslim communities. However, little research exists on racialisation in policy frameworks found in counter-radicalisation policy documents themselves. Analysis of these documents can reveal whether and how racialising patterns emerge in bureaucracy at the national level, because policy documents circulate and institutionalise regulatory, administrative power. This paper presents a study of counter-radicalisation policy documents developed by the Dutch government, a pioneer in counter-radicalisation policy. A computer-assisted qualitative content analysis of policy documents was conducted and then contextualised using interviews with policy makers and executives. The policy documents were found to securitise Muslims, constructing them as potentially risky/at risk and as ‘Other’ communities. Using a theoretical framework that takes racialisation to be a particular essentialised construction of group membership, the analysis presents a nuanced answer to the question if counter-radicalisation policy frameworks racialise Muslims. There is evidence for racialisation, as well as for conscious efforts to prevent this effect. Insights from this study support appeals to reconsider the national security policy framework that expects Muslims to take responsibility for preventing radicalisation and terrorism.

This book argues that guilt, shame, and remorse, associated with a history of substance abuse, explain why a minority of Islamist extremists carried out suicide terrorism in Europe between 2001 and 2018. Since 9/11, Islamist terrorism has dominated the European security landscape, but there has been little systematic analysis of either the attacks or the men responsible. This book addresses that gap, drawing on terrorist discourse, court transcripts, elite interviews, government reports, and three years of ethnography to provide an exhaustive account of how and why Islamist terrorism has occurred in Europe. Making a detailed analysis of 48 terrorist attacks carried out by 80 suicide terrorists, the book introduces two new theories. The first argues that most of these men first engaged in Islamist extremism as an alternative to substance abuse. The second contends that, following a five-stage process of radicalisation, cognitive dissonance triggered guilt, shame, and remorse over previous misconduct. From this emotional distress, suicide terrorism emerged as a rational choice ahead of either suicide or a return to active addiction. This book argues that the root cause of suicide terrorism in Europe is not so much politics or religion but is more about personal crisis and a search for redemption. This book will be of great interest to students of terrorism/counterterrorism, de-radicalisation, political Islam, and security studies in general.

This article examines counter-terrorism efforts in the EU as it matures as a field of law. It sets out three critiques of EU counter-terrorism law: that of ineffectiveness, of anti-constitutionalism, and of contrariness to human rights and the rule of law. It considers these critiques in light of the development of policies and legal initiatives—against foreign terrorist fighters and against radicalisation. It concludes that there are both persistent problems, and some improvements, in the law. The EU's capacity to meet the challenges posed by terrorism and the counter-terrorism imperative, and how it does so, has global impact. The article concludes with an argument for better law-making in the EU to ensure it serves as a better exemplar of transnational law.

Originally proposed by John Rawls, the idea of reasoning from conjecture is popular among the proponents of political liberalism in normative political theory. Reasoning from conjecture consists in discussing with fellow citizens who are attracted to illiberal and antidemocratic ideas by focusing on their religious or otherwise comprehensive doctrines, attempting to convince them that such doctrines actually call for loyalty to liberal democracy. Our goal is to criticise reasoning from conjecture as a tool aimed at persuasion and, in turn, at improving the stability of liberal democratic institutions. To pursue this goal, we use as case study real-world efforts to counter-radicalise at-risk Muslim citizens, which, at first glance, reasoning from conjecture seems well-placed to contribute to. This case study helps us to argue that the supporters of reasoning from conjecture over-intellectualise opposition to liberal democracy and what societies can do to counter it. Specifically, they (i) underestimate how few members of society can effectively perform reasoning from conjecture; (ii) overlook that the burdens of judgement, a key notion for political liberals, highlight how dim the prospects of reasoning from conjecture are and (iii) do not pay attention to the causes of religious persons’ opposition to liberal democracy. However, not everything is lost for political liberals, provided that they redirect attention to different and under-researched resources contained in Rawls’s theory. In closing, we briefly explain how such resources are much better placed than reasoning from conjecture to provide guidance relative to counter-radicalisation in societies (i) populated by persons who do not generally hold anything close to a fully worked out and internally consistent comprehensive doctrine and (ii) where political institutions should take responsibility for at least part of the existing alienation from liberal democratic values.

The clash between national security and civil rights comprises one of the most controversial aspects of counter-radicalisation strategy. Analysts present this as a conflict between the need for restrictive security measures (for example, surveillance) and the need to uphold civil liberties (for example, privacy and freedom of speech). In responding to this dilemma, the article examines how this binary normative struggle impacts on the rhetorical presentation of counter-radicalisation policies – in particular, the UK Prevent Strategy and the rhetoric employed by UK Prime Minister and former Home Secretary, Theresa May. It argues that the normative environment has obliged May to construct rhetoric within the context of, what is termed here, normative invalidation. In facing two comparably compelling and related norms of action, May is necessarily required to invalidate or neutralise any norm not adhered to as an essential characteristic of rhetorical strategy. This is discussed in relation to the Strategic Narratives paradigm.

For the past few decades, the notorious Boko Haram sect has caused havoc in Nigeria, resulting in heightened fears among many Nigerians due to its incessant horrific deadly attacks and kidnappings. Various attempts by successive Nigerian governments to address this internal crisis have been futile. Thus, it has become clear that the Nigerian government alone cannot win the war against this terrorist group. Against this backdrop, this article scrutinises the current state of Nigeria’s counter-terrorism approach and establishes why the government has struggled to eliminate Boko Haram. The article assesses the actions of the political leadership and postulates on the possible impact of a joint regional attempt to contain the scourge, given its spill-over effects. The discussion is predicated upon the African Union’s (AU) resolve to find ‘African solutions to African problems’. The article argues for African agency as opposed to looking up to Western countries to provide a solution. We suggest what should be done to uproot Boko Haram.

There is a lack of consensus in the academic literature and among policy makers and practitioners on the definition of violent radicalisation, and current counter-radicalisation policy responses and procedures are informed by a weak and, at times, confused understanding of the motivational and structural factors underpinning such a process. The result is a variety of interventions across the EU, signalling a lack of consensus on the purposes of counter-radicalisation. In addition, indicators of success of counter-radicalisation policies are often unclear or unspecified. One consequence of this is that assessments of the effectiveness of counter-radicalisation measures and policy responses are either lacking or often methodologically questionable, impairing our understanding of the impacts of counter-radicalisation interventions on targeted communities. The article investigates problems of assessing the impact of counter-radicalisation measures using Denmark as case study. It shows how the model of radicalisation underlying the Danish counter-radicalisation efforts translate into multilayered policy objectives and diversified policy solutions, and how the initial academic and official assessments of the impact of Danish counter-radicalisation policies on end target groups following is impaired and weakened by common methodological problems and challenges. The article concludes by suggesting some ways ahead for more systematic and valid assessments of the impact of counter-radicalisation policies in Denmark and elsewhere.

Chapter Five investigates the strand of the ‘fight against terrorism’ discourse that connects the threat of terrorism to ‘violent religious extremism’, ‘radicalisation’ and the threat of the ‘Muslim’ other. The first part of the chapter maps the emergence and evolution of this stand of the discourse. The chapter shows how in its initial phase the language of ‘radicalisation and recruitment’ to terrorism contained an assumption that ‘radicalisation’ was something more likely to occur in Europe’s ‘Muslim communities’, arguing that the impact of this was to implicitly construct the ‘Muslim’ other as a potential terrorist threat. The second part of the chapter critiques the concept of ‘radicalisation’ demonstrating how knowledge about ‘radicalisation’ is highly contested and retains an implicit racial bias against the ‘Muslim’ other, which it has been unable to shed. I conclude by considering how the logic of counter-radicalisation is making possible a new form of precautionary security governance, the impact of which is the further securitisation of social and political life within the EU