European Union’s Articulation of Radicalisation: Deconstructing the Discursive Formulation of Radicalism through Counter Measures
This paper, written by Dr. Ayşe Tecmen, discusses the emergence of radicalisation and its prevention as a key pillar the EU’s counter-terrorism strategy. Tracing the changes in the methods of cooperation and the proliferation of prevention strategies, it provides a review of the changes in the radicalisation discourse. In doing so, it analyses the key documents produced by the EU using a discourse-historical analysis focusing on the interplay between discourse and social, and cultural developments. This also illustrates that the EU’s radicalisation prevention and counter-terrorism strategies are mainly reactions to the internal and external dynamics that influence the political and public debates.
This paper concludes that the EU maintains that escalation of radicalisation to terrorism is still a main premise within this discourse. While strategies since the mid-2010s have become oriented towards identifying the “root causes” thereby partly addressing the individual socio-economic and psychological factors that provoke radicalisation, there is still an overemphasis on Salafi Islam as opposed to right-wing radicalisation.
This paper derives from the ongoing EU-funded research for the “PRIME Youth” project conducted under my supervision and funded by the European Research Council with the Agreement Number 785934.