Targeting muslims beyond Europe: preventing violent extremism and radicalisation in Kosovo

Abstract

Ervjola Selenica is post-doc fellow and adjunct professor in Terrorism and Counterterrorism at the University of Bologna and associate research fellow at the University of Sussex. Previously, she was post-doc fellow at Scuola Normale Superiore (Firenze). She holds a PhD in International Studies (University of Trento), an MSc. in International Development Studies (University of Amsterdam), a BA in International Relations and Political Science (University of Bologna), and a PGDip on Peace and Conflict (Peace Research Institute Oslo). Her research interests include education, international interventions, conflict, global changes. She has published at The Journal of Contemporary European Studies, Italian Political Science Review/Rivista Italiana di Scienze Politiche, Critical Studies on Terrorism, Globalisation, Societies and Education, and Journal of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. The paper analyses national and international interventions on preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) and radicalisation in Kosovo and their underpinning rationales. The analysis seeks to understand how a country with a Muslim majority is targeted by P/CVE and counter-radicalisation policies. Furthermore, it seeks to understand whether these policies are informed by an understanding of violent extremism and radicalisation as underpinned by Islamic extremism and, if so, how they tackle and interact with the question of Islam in Kosovo. The article has found that P/CVE and counter-radicalisation policies in Kosovo are mainly externally driven and funded, rest upon the same preventative, anticipatory logic that has characterised similar policies implemented in EU member states, are informed by an understanding of violent extremism and radicalisation as ideological processes fuelled by radical Islam, and encompasses an all-societal approach combining hard and soft measures of prevention as those found in other EU and non-EU contexts.