Islamist Radicalization in Europe and the Middle EastEdited by George Joffe

Abstract

In July 2015, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, unveiling his anti-radicalization plan, warned that Islamic extremism is ‘the struggle of our generation … The root cause of the threat [terror] we face’, he said, ‘is the extremist ideology’. It is this ‘evil’—‘poisonous’—ideology that is to blame for Muslim radicalization. He dismissed the view that historic injustices, recent wars, poverty or hardship, ‘unelected leaders across the Middle East’ as major contributory factors of radicalization, describing such arguments as ‘grievance justification’. However, this narrative based on the assumption, with little evidence to support it, that ‘extremist’ speech and belief are the most significant causes of radicalization does not bear scholarly scrutiny. It neglects what much of the research suggests, that there is no single cause but a complex of internal and external factors, catalysts, which can lead to the radicalization of individuals and groups. Macro- and meso-level contextual factors may play a similar or even a larger role than individual and small group factors in this process.