ABSTRACT
This article explores the idea that nonstate actors embedded in geographically and religiously defined communities have a distinctive role to play in responding to growing terrorist recruitment efforts in Europe and North America. The resulting “community-led counterterrorism” works through at least two causal channels, which I label “ideological competition” and “ethical anchoring.” Existing counterterrorism policing strategies do not harness these mechanisms and may well undermine them. Community-led counterterrorism thus presents an untapped opportunity, even as it raises new and difficult ethical questions for both Muslim minority communities in the West, as well as liberal democracies.
