ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the theoretical foundation for understanding the roles that social cohesion and resilience can play as part of a comprehensive approach to preventing and countering violent extremism. To sustainably prevent and counter VE, societies need to address the underlying political, economic, and social marginalization, fundamental insecurity, exclusion, and alienation that drive radicalization in specific contexts. This chapter employs complexity theory to provide insights into how complex social systems adapt and respond to stress. Complexity theory is also used to inform the roles that peacebuilders can play when attempting to help influence the resilience and adaptive capacity of communities, societies, and institutions when trying to assist them to prevent, manage, and overcome violent extremism. The chapter employs adaptive peacebuilding as a conceptual and operational framework for supporting societies experiencing stress with the process of improving their resilience and adaptive capacity to sustain peace, particularly through strengthening social cohesion.
Keywords: Violent Extremism, Social Cohesion, Resilience, Complexity Theory, Adaptive Peacebuilding
