Enhancing Women’s Roles in Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE)


Book Description

Women can make a unique and valuable contribution to countering terrorism and violent extremism. Their participation in the wider fight against terrorism and violent extremism is essential. This is why NATO continues to encourage its allies and partners to engage more systematically on the nexus between gender and counter terrorism. This book presents edited contributions presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop (ARW) Enhancing Women’s Roles in International Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism Efforts, held in Madrid, Spain, from 19 – 21 March 2018, organized by Hedayah and the Fundación para el Análisis y los Estudios Sociales (FAES). The workshop was aimed at building on existing good practice and recommendations from the fields of countering violent extremism (CVE) and women, peace and security (WPS), recognizing that while many women facilitate acts of terrorism, willingly support terrorist groups and perform terrorist acts, they can also play a key role in preventing the violent extremism. The fight against terrorism requires a whole-society approach in which women’s participation is essential. Contributors to this volume explore the extent to which terrorism and violent extremism are gendered activities. They also discuss the importance of women’s social and political participation in helping to counter acts of terror and violence. Evidence-based research is used to identify how women can be empowered to enhance the fight against terrorism, and to identify opportunities for substantive, meaningful roles across a wide spectrum of counter terrorism activities. Given current and emerging threats, the book focuses in particular on NATO countries & partners in the Middle East and North Africa, and will be of particular interest to all those involved with security and gender issues.




Women, Gender, and Terrorism


Book Description

In the last decade the world has witnessed a rise in women's participation in terrorism. Women, Gender, and Terrorism explores women's relationship with terrorism, with a keen eye on the political, gender, racial, and cultural dynamics of the contemporary world. Throughout most of the twentieth century, it was rare to hear about women terrorists. In the new millennium, however, women have increas­ingly taken active roles in carrying out suicide bombings, hijacking air­planes, and taking hostages in such places as Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Lebanon, and Chechnya. These women terrorists have been the subject of a substantial amount of media and scholarly attention, but the analysis of women, gender, and terrorism has been sparse and riddled with stereotypical thinking about women's capabilities and motivations. In the first section of this volume, contributors offer an overview of women's participation in and relationships with contemporary terrorism, and a historical chapter traces their involvement in the politics and conflicts of Islamic societies. The next section includes empirical and theoretical analysis of terrorist movements in Chechnya, Kashmir, Palestine, and Sri Lanka. The third section turns to women's involvement in al Qaeda and includes critical interrogations of the gendered media and the scholarly presentations of those women. The conclusion offers ways to further explore the subject of gender and terrorism based on the contributions made to the volume. Contributors to Women, Gender, and Terrorism expand our understanding of terrorism, one of the most troubling and complicated facets of the modern world.




Gender Mainstreaming in Counter-terrorism Efforts in the Western Balkans


Book Description

Amplified by a volatile security environment, technology and globalization, terrorism and violent extremism have become a genuine threat on a global level, and the ability of terrorist groups to capitalize on local issues such as poverty and inequality have helped to fuel the process of radicalization and recruitment. The region of the Western Balkans is not immune to these trends, and the gender component has been recognized as an important aspect in efforts to counter and prevent such practices. This book presents edited contributions delivered at the NATO Advanced Training Course (ATC) “Gender Mainstreaming in Counter-terrorism Efforts in Western Balkans” held from 16 to 21 May 2021. The event was designed to explore gender perspectives in counter-terrorism efforts in the Western Balkans and in the wider security-sector, and to analyze drivers to radicalization through the lens of gender. This ATC brought together more than 50 military and civilian participants from 7 countries in the Western Balkans and south-eastern Europe and 35 expert lecturers. Topics include the legal and political framework of gender mainstreaming; the role of technology; the drivers, motivations and roles of women in radicalization and extremist groups; counter-terrorism and gender; gender-sensitive approaches to counter terrorism; gendered perspectives from the frontline; the prospects for women’s leadership roles in community-based approaches; and challenges to the implementation of UNSCR 1325 in the Western Balkans. Highlighting critical components and providing a unique insight which contributes to the academic debate on gender mainstreaming in P/CVE and CT efforts, the book will be of interest to all those involved in countering the spread of terrorism worldwide.




Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice


Book Description

Countering violent extremism consists of various prevention and intervention approaches to increase the resilience of communities and individuals to radicalization toward violent extremism, to provide nonviolent avenues for expressing grievances, and to educate communities about the threat of recruitment and radicalization to violence. To explore the application of health approaches in community-level strategies to countering violent extremism and radicalization, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a public workshop in September 2016. Participants explored the evolving threat of violent extremism and radicalization within communities across America, traditional versus health-centered approaches to countering violent extremism and radicalization, and opportunities for cross-sector and interdisciplinary collaboration and learning among domestic and international stakeholders and organizations. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.




Engineers of Jihad


Book Description

A groundbreaking investigation into why so many Islamic radicals are engineers The violent actions of a few extremists can alter the course of history, yet there persists a yawning gap between the potential impact of these individuals and what we understand about them. In Engineers of Jihad, Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog uncover two unexpected facts, which they imaginatively leverage to narrow that gap: they find that a disproportionate share of Islamist radicals come from an engineering background, and that Islamist and right-wing extremism have more in common than either does with left-wing extremism, in which engineers are absent while social scientists and humanities students are prominent. Searching for an explanation, they tackle four general questions about extremism: Under which socioeconomic conditions do people join extremist groups? Does the profile of extremists reflect how they self-select into extremism or how groups recruit them? Does ideology matter in sorting who joins which group? Lastly, is there a mindset susceptible to certain types of extremism? Using rigorous methods and several new datasets, they explain the link between educational discipline and type of radicalism by looking at two key factors: the social mobility (or lack thereof) for engineers in the Muslim world, and a particular mindset seeking order and hierarchy that is found more frequently among engineers. Engineers' presence in some extremist groups and not others, the authors argue, is a proxy for individual traits that may account for the much larger question of selective recruitment to radical activism. Opening up markedly new perspectives on the motivations of political violence, Engineers of Jihad yields unexpected answers about the nature and emergence of extremism.




Countering Violent Extremism


Book Description

This book presents original research on gender and the power dynamics of diverse forms of violent extremism, and efforts to counter them. Based on focus group and interview research with some 250 participants in Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and UK in 2015 and 2016, it offers insights from communities affected by radicalisation and violent extremism. It introduces the concept of gendered radicalisation, exploring how the multiple factors of paths to violent extremist groups – social, local, individual and global – can differ for both men and women, and why. The book also offers a critical analysis of gender and terrorism; a summary of current policy in the five countries of study and some of the core gendered assumptions prevalent in interventions to prevent violent extremism; a comparison of Jihadi extremism and the far right; and a chapter of recommendations. This book is of use to academics, policy-makers, students and the general reader interested in better understanding a phenomenon defining our times.




Developmental Evaluation


Book Description

Developmental evaluation (DE) offers a powerful approach to monitoring and supporting social innovations by working in partnership with program decision makers. In this book, eminent authority Michael Quinn Patton shows how to conduct evaluations within a DE framework. Patton draws on insights about complex dynamic systems, uncertainty, nonlinearity, and emergence. He illustrates how DE can be used for a range of purposes: ongoing program development, adapting effective principles of practice to local contexts, generating innovations and taking them to scale, and facilitating rapid response in crisis situations. Students and practicing evaluators will appreciate the book's extensive case examples and stories, cartoons, clear writing style, "closer look" sidebars, and summary tables. Provided is essential guidance for making evaluations useful, practical, and credible in support of social change.







Countering Violent and Hateful Extremism in Indonesia


Book Description

This book provides an overview of preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) to assist readers in developing a more complete understanding of P/CVE and the issues of radicalisation, disengagement and rehabilitation. It shines a light on some key P/CVE programmes and initiatives in Indonesia and is written to facilitate understanding preventing and countering violent extremism in a larger frame. It is intended to be of interest to civil society activists, security practitioners, communities, policy makers and researchers alike. It represents a collaboration, born out of partnership in the field, that brings together academic researchers and civil society activists from Indonesia and Australia. Around the world, far too little is known about Indonesian society in general and Indonesian Islam and civil society in particular. This is, in large measure, because of the barrier of language. This book represents a small, but hopefully significant, contribution to opening a window to Indonesia. The focus of this book is on the challenging issues entailed with violent and hateful extremism. The initiatives it portrays and the people it describes, and whose voices it channels, are filled with the hope of transforming the world to make it better.




Prevent strategy


Book Description

The Prevent strategy, launched in 2007 seeks to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism both in the UK and overseas. It is the preventative strand of the government's counter-terrorism strategy, CONTEST. Over the past few years Prevent has not been fully effective and it needs to change. This review evaluates work to date and sets out how Prevent will be implemented in the future. Specifically Prevent will aim to: respond to the ideological challenge of terrorism and the threat we face from those who promote it; prevent people from being drawn into terrorism and ensure that they are given appropriate advice and support; and work with sectors and institutions where there are risks of radicalization which need to be addressed