ABSTRACT
Introduction Radical political Islam and radicalisation of Muslims in the Netherlands have been high on the agenda of national and local authorities ever since the devastating attacks on the United States on 11 September 2001. The rise of radical political Islam or Islamism and the radicalisation of young Muslims produced several of them to join the jihad in places like Chechnya and Kashmir, and the murder of the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004. This chapter focuses on the growth of radical political Islam in the Netherlands and the radicalisation processes among young Muslims leading to jihadism. In the second part, it will look at the way in which the authorities have responded to these social and security challenges. The chapter concludes with an overview of recent developments, which includes growing resilience to radical political Islam and radicalisation among Muslim communities, the decline of the homegrown threat, and the growth of the threat of jihadism from abroad.
