Publications
Islamist Radicalisation: A Root Cause Model, Tinka Veldhuis and Jørgen Staun
The occurrence of the terrorist attacks in Madrid in 2004 and in London in 2005 introduced two new concepts to the European public debate: "home-grown terrorism" and "radicalisation". Since then, home-grown radicalisation of young Muslims in Europe has come to constitute one of the most pressing and elusive challenges for politicians, policy makers, and scientists, who have been confronted with questions about the reasons for and the scope of radicalisation. What is it that triggered these European Muslims to radicalise to the extent that they sought refuge in extreme physical violence, sometimes even sacrificing their own lives while doing so? Which causal factors can explain why violent radicalisation occurs and, equally importantly, why some people do radicalise, while others do not or abandon the radicalisation process in a premature phase?
This paper suggests that it is essential to examine the causes rather than the courses of radicalisation, and in doing so to perceive radicalisation as an ´embedded individual process´ that occurs in the individual within a specific social and environmental context. For that purpose, the paper introduces a theoretical model of the causes of radicalisation that sheds some light on the sociological and (socio-)psychological circumstances under which radicalisation is likely to occur, as well as on the circumstances under which it is less likely to occur. With their explanatory model, the authors aspire to provide researchers and policy makers with a solid foundation from which to further analyse the causes of radicalisation and, subsequently, to develop measures to counter their negative effects.
Tinka Veldhuis is a PhD fellow at the Department of Sociology of the University of Groningen; Jørgen Staun is a project researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies.