ABSTRACT
Parallel to the concept of human security policymakers, NGOs and scientists have stressed the necessity of tackling the root causes of conflicts as being an integral part of conflict prevention efforts. Both ideas and their resulting policies have good intentions – the resolution and prevention of conflicts and other threats to the individual. Nevertheless, both human security and root cause prevention are perceived as two different approaches, although they have a common goal – the establishment of a peaceful environment and the fulfilment of basic needs. This chapter aims to develop an approach analogous to conflict prevention for the specific area of anti-terrorism policies based on the conception of root cause prevention. To this end, first the problem of different scientific and political terminology will be highlighted, followed by an overview of discussions on root causes at policy level. The political discussion will then be complemented by scientific approaches to understanding the causes of political violence. This chapter’s objective is to extract and structure the intention behind the use of these frequent catchwords, like ‘root causes’ or ‘human insecurity’, by developing a systematic scheme of a root cause approach within the human security concept based on scientific findings. This chapter will now leave aside the perspective on terrorism performed by rational actors, which is discussed later in the book, and will look solely at the deprived actors theories.2
