ABSTRACT
Introduction In current research on Islamism the question of individual radicalisation pro cesses is playing a major role. Which Muslims prove to be susceptible for radical messages, how does their swing towards a militant attitude manifest itself? Who exerts an influence on them, and participates in the process of conversion intro ducing them into the extremist milieu? How is the individual development process towards religious extremism to be described? At what point are crucial decisions made and where can they be interrupted? Many studies on this subject assume that (of course with certain aberrations) there is an ideal type of radicalisation process: beginning with certain types of personality, which are more responsive to an offensive interpretation of Islamic doctrine than others; specific experiences and stages in their career; their arriv ing (within the group) within the radical milieu before arriving at a provisional end from which they will be recruited into an Islamic terrorist group as new blood. In a recently published study, John Horgan pointed out how careful one should be to draw conclusions about specific individual dispositions for terrorist activities. Furthermore, he has shown how diverse and multifaceted the circum stances can be and how winding the ways along which the indivual is inducted into the terrorist group or its preliminary stage of radical milieu.1 In this contri bution we want to elaborate on this point of view through a more precise analy sis of what is meant by radical milieu: the aim and final purpose of the individual radicalisation process. We assume that depending on the milieu, the candidate of the possible attack is not only differently inducted, socialised and “orientated”, but also different radical milieus because of their unique profiles attract different indivuals. In the title we expound three different substrata of the radicalisation process or, to be precise, radical mileus.2 Radical communities emerge primarily on a subnational level (e.g. the Shiites around Hizbollah in the Lebanon or the Chech nian milieu of resistance in Russia). One particular characteristic is the close
connection to a certain region and territory over which the fight for liberation and ownership takes place. Radical communities are mainly militant exponents of an ethnic or religious minority who live in the region and insist upon their autonomy.3 The opposite to radical communities are transnational radical networks. With them the connection to particular population groups or geographical entities is only vaguely recognisable. Transnational networks establish themselves in a special sphere disconnected from common concepts of space and time, whose parameters are crucially dependent upon the ideology they are sworn to. From this ideology they deduce aims, enemy concepts, convictions and behavioural ideals.4 Somewhere between these points of extreme, subnational radical communit ies on the one hand and transnational radical networks on the other, are the “radical subcultures”. Radical subcultures are principally found at a national level and emerge as a side effect of a national protest movement.5 As a mix between the two ideal types they exhibit a specific instability and fragility. Depending upon the situation and their orientation, they tend towards either one or other of the two poles. The description begins with an explanation of the radical community and transnational radical networks which will then be contrasted in a kind of provi sional appraisal. That will be followed by a section on protest movements and radical subcultures. In the last section we will have to ask where within this the migrant colony radical groups can be found, whether they constitute a particular type or need to be related to one of the types we have already defined.6
