The psychologisation of counter-extremism: unpacking PREVENT

Tarek Younis

doi:10.1177/0306396820951055

Abstract

The burgeoning ‘pre-crime’ industry reveals a deep overlap between national security and mental health. The UK’s counter-radicalisation policy, PREVENT, is exemplary in this regard. PREVENT mandates a duty for public bodies, such as healthcare staff, to identify and report ‘at risk’ individuals in the ‘war on terror’. Research has shown how racialised Muslims embody ‘threat’ in public consciousness, though the UK government denies institutionalising racism. This article explores how British nationalism in a ‘post-racial era’ necessitates psychologisation to evade the charge of racism in the management of Muslim political agency. By unpacking PREVENT policy documents and training, this article will explore how the counter-radicalisation industry of the ‘war on terror’ reveals the triangular relationship between 1) racialisation of Muslims under nationalism, 2) psychologisation of the political and its associated colourblindness, and 3) the nation-state’s management of dissent. The various performative dimensions of psychologisation will be discussed, as they relate to universalising, detecting and managing the threat of radicalisation. This article will conclude with a proposition: psychologisation is necessary in conceptualising state repression and institutional racism in the modern age.

Highlights

While Frantz Fanon is celebrated for inspiring a decolonial movement, his brilliance was evident in his ability to reveal how power is exercised through psychological knowledge and language.[1]
This article explores how psychologisation allows nation-states to evade the charge of racism in their management of Muslim political agency
It will explain how the psy-disciplines continue to play an integral role in the maintenance of minority political subjectivity, and the marginalisation of Muslims across the global North

Summary

Introduction

While Frantz Fanon is celebrated for inspiring a decolonial movement, his brilliance was evident in his ability to reveal how power is exercised through psychological knowledge and language.[1]. It will explain how the psy-disciplines continue to play an integral role in the maintenance of minority political subjectivity, and the marginalisation of Muslims across the global North This is not to argue that the ‘war on terror’ has psychologised political violence, but rather that public counter-radicalisation policies presume an a priori psychologised society. Rather than further elucidate the government’s pivot towards mental health, this article will explain how the psychologisation of threat and the management of political subjectivity inevitably underpin the practice of counter-radicalisation This will lead into a discussion of psychologisation and racism, given that ‘threats to social order’ have always been racialised. These threads form an intricate lace in which the psy-disciplines become part and parcel of the same apparatus which reifies racialised Muslims as the ‘Other’

The psychologisation of PREVENT

Universalising the radical

Detecting the radical

Managing the radical