Policing Violent Extremism: How the Global War on Terror Meandered Into Local Municipal Policies in Sweden

Christer Mattsson

doi:10.1177/2158244019837462

Abstract

The present article analyzes Swedish local municipal action plans for prevention of violent extremism. Sweden began adopting local policies for detection and prevention of violent extremism in 2015. Until today, about 40% of Swedish municipalities have done so. The present article examines how policy ideas have been transferred from abroad and the transnational level into a national Swedish discourse and has continually, via vertical transfer, ended up in local municipalities. This is seemingly being done without any profound understanding of or reflection on local needs, that is, the presence of violent extremist groups or other forms of violent radicalization. A major focus in these plans, as revealed in the study, is on instructing school and social welfare agencies to develop systems for detecting risk signals and instructing, among others, teachers to search for and report pupils who might be radicalized to the police or the security police. These policy ideas are then horizontally transferred to neighboring municipalities. The article, making use of critical discourse analyses, investigates the consequences for the teaching profession, as regards changing the preconditions for social practice, which might occur when teachers are instructed to monitor their pupils’ thoughts and behavior.

Highlights

There has been a continuing discussion within academia over the past decade concerning how the war-on-terror discourse (Hodges, 2011) and its counterpart, prevention of violent extremism, affect traditional pedagogical and social work, the so-called first-line professions
It is far too early to predict anything about the future development of the Swedish prevent violent extremism (PVE) discourse or to talk about how these plans may affect the social practices of teachers and social workers
It is reasonable to assume that forceful incorporation of the discursive practice relevant to the emerging discourse of these plans into pedagogical and social work may very well bring about a shift in the social practices of these professional arenas

Summary

Introduction

There has been a continuing discussion within academia over the past decade concerning how the war-on-terror discourse (Hodges, 2011) and its counterpart, prevention of violent extremism, affect traditional pedagogical and social work, the so-called first-line professions. Until April 30, 2017, 134 Swedish municipalities, out of 290, had adopted local action plans enabling them to provide PVE services This often involves new tasks for teachers, social workers, and youth workers in detecting high-risk individuals and communities. It is, crucial to understand how these local action plans are constructed and adopted; how they play out against the traditional duties of teachers, social workers, and youth workers; and how they are related to international approaches to PVE work

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Conclusion