ABSTRACT
Explanations of disengagement and de-radicalisation – or ‘how terrorism ends’ – have tended to underplay the social dimension of what are in essence processes of social change. De-radicalisation has been typically applied to individuals and groups, and in both cases there have been strong arguments to show that disengagement does not necessarily follow de-radicalisation either in an ideological sense or in terms of attitudinal support for terrorism and political violence.1 While these conclusions have led to the conceptual utility of de-radicalisation being challenged, ideology clearly has some causal role in causing terrorism (and by logical conclusion, its demise).2 Even if the occurrence of de-radicalisation is not necessary to ensure disengagement and recidivism reduction among individuals and groups,3 the attitudes and ideology of these actors can (unintentionally) inspire the next generation to engage in terrorism. In other words, in order to explain how terrorism ends among social movements – defined intra-and inter-generationally – de-radicalisation is an essential process to ensure terrorism within a movement does not continue or does not re-emerge (in the same way as recidivism reduction at the individual level). In order to develop a theoretical approach to understand the de-radicalisation
of social movements, it is first of all important to reiterate broadly how some of the key terms have been understood (although these are by no means uncontested). Given the nature of social movements – discussed in detail below – and how any multi-level analysis involves some form of synthesis, there are four concepts which are composites of what can be termed social movement de-radicalisation. Disengagement refers to a behavioural change away from using armed violence, motivated by a change in priorities in response to changing circumstances, but this change in behaviour can be accompanied by the maintenance of attitudes that drove involvement.4 The process of disengagement – or organisational disengagement – itself can act to encourage other groups to disengage – known as the domino effect5 – and reduce the risk of recidivism through disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration.6 Deradicalisation refers to the motivations, ideology and/or attitudes to armed violence changing genuinely, meaning the individual or group no longer wishes to engage in armed violence, thus reducing the risk of recidivism.7 As explained in the Introduction, the book’s argument is based on a critique of
this conceptualisation, and instead it focuses on attitudinal change toward behaviour, with de-radicalisation being conceptualised as the process on the whole (at least when applied to social movements). Structural change, such as changes in technology, changes in the international arena such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and changes in political systems, can affect the group’s ability to mobilise resources and limit opportunities.8 One epiphenomenon of structural change is the changing attitudes of the next generation, whereby a militant group is unable to pass on the struggle to the next generation,9 or passing the struggle to the next generation leads to its degradation into an isolated, apolitical gang.10 These concepts are drawn upon to build a theoretical framework to conceptualise the de-radicalisation of social movements as a process of social change, encompassing processes of disengagement, the domino effect, attitudinal change and, broader structural changes.
