Terrorism is one of the biggest global security threats. Numerous terrorism attacks have succeeded globally leading to the loss of many innocent lives. Most terrorists are jihadists meaning they don’t care whether they survive during an attack or not given the attack succeeds. Over time, there have been variations in jihadists through history as well as their radicalization explanations. Additionally, there has been a shift in the conceptualization of terrorism group as it was believed to be a group consisting of individuals born and trained in a foreign nation and unlawfully entering another country to kill innocent citizens (King 2011). In current times, a terrorist can be even a citizen of a country, born and raised in that country. It can also be a conception that a third or second-generation who was born and raised in western nations plan terrorist attacks against the homeland as a result of becoming radicalized. Different concepts on different concepts such as wiktorowicz’s theory of joining extremist groups and staircase to terrorism by Maghaddam proves the change in terrorism concept shift. However, some programs can be provided by the government to prevent radicalization. They are essential as they can input certain mentalities to members of the society that will reduce their chances of developing any terrorism motives.
Wiktorowicz's Theory
In this essay, three theories have been used to analyze terrorism and its radicalization including the process of radicalization by NYPD, joining groups of extremists by Wiktorowicz’s theory, and four prongs of Sageman ( King, 2011) . Radicalization specific trajectory is used by Wiktorowicz basing it on a case study that is ethnographic with members of a movement named Al-Muhajiround (Arlington, 2015) . It is an Islamic movement based in the UK which pushes for a global Muslim revolution. Over time, it has become more notoriety as its official intention is the use of military coup during the restoration of Islamic states including in Britain where Muslims live. Wiktorowic describes terrorism as a motivating factor in the four processes leading an individual to join Islamic extremist groups instead of using the term radicalization itself. The process includes; religious seeking, socialization, cognitive opening, and frame alignment. The four elements show how individuals are lured into terrorism especially in the Muslim culture.
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Through the first level, cognitive opening results from one's crisis which leads to individual receptive ideas that would not have happened if the crisis did not occur. Such crisis can be stimulated by events in an individual’s daily life operations such as events of victimization, discrimination, joblessness, or loss of a job (Wiktorowicz, 2004) . As a result of ideals from the first level, the receptiveness is then directed to religion in stage two. In most cases when one is going through a crisis, they tend to look for solutions everywhere they can, and in a case of a religious person, they will seek more religious affiliation. An individual is more likely to consider extremist groups promoted worldviews because of their receptiveness and extreme religion seeking especially in the Islamic faith. As one explores and evaluates different world views, they gain more knowledge and get attracted to the worldviews as they are very convincing.
The individual now gets to stage three of frame alignment where an individual is convinced of the worldviews. It occurs when a person has maintained certain deference with experts of Islamic religion from which the groups encouraging the worldview are affiliated. The fourth and final stage involves socializing and joining where the person joins, adopts the entity of the group, and embraces the idea of terrorism. It is achieved through the interaction of the individual and other group members. When an individual gets to this stage, they start avoiding society in general and affiliating themselves more with the movement. The ideology is already internalized into the person as well as their identity being reformulated. Face-to-face socializing has more impact on convincing an individual but it u also done through online communication channels.
NYPD’s Process of Radicalization
On the other hand, NYPD's intelligence uses a four-stage radicalization model. To achieve it, New York Police Department radicalization experts performed an analysis of five major cases of homegrown terrorism in West Europe and North America (King, 2011) All the cases portrayed a consistent radicalization trajectory having four stages. Pre-radicalization is the first stage which includes how an individual’s life was before entering the process of radicalization. Even though psychological profiles are not specific to characterize who is or not at radicalization risk, there are similar traits in the process. People who are mostly radicalized are likely to be Muslim and young with an Islamic background and from male-dominated societies. In most cases they are 2nd or 3rd generation immigrants or individuals who recently converted to Islamic religion (Silber, 207) Radicalize individuals are less likely to have a criminal record and not considered Muslim devout. Self-identification is the second stage wherewith such predisposing traits radicalization process begins. At this stage, an individual converting to Muslim is by a crisis going on in their life. Crisis occurs as a result of difficulties that one is facing in life such as lack of a job. When one seeks and explores Islam religion, they get exposed to ideologies such as Jihadi and the benefits of murdering others. Through the process of identity transformation, a radicalized individual looks for like-minded people with whom they socialize, become more extreme a religious together.
Indoctrination occurs at stage three where individuals fully accept the worldview of jihadi-Salafi thus they develop the attitude of being against everything that is un-Islamic as well as condoning violence. At this stage, they excuse violence to serving religious operations. As they increasingly become religious, everything this now politicizes where they are feed with information such as the Western nations re planning war against Muslims ( Silber, 2007) . For this reason, they have to be prepared and caution themselves against the occurrence of such a war. It can only be achieved by murdering them before they launch wars against Islam. Therefore, one changes to not being an individualist thus become an individual whose goals are not personal but to serve and protect the Muslim religion. Private meetings are arranged after withdrawal from mosques to discuss agendas that are radical. Finally, jihadization is achieved as individuals now declare themselves as mujahedeen or holy warriors. They then become devoted to jihad that is violent. They go for military training abroad which assists them to achieve their major objective of mass murder at jihadi camps. Some even organize training places near their residences. At this stage, meetings are conducted to discuss terror attacks. Targets are identified, dates to execute set and the method of attack identified.
Sageman’s Four Prongs
The four prongs of Sageman model in contrast to the other two models which depict stages occurring in orders that are sequential notes that through the four factors interplay radicalization emerges. One of the factors is the situation while the remaining three are considered cognitive ( Sageman, 2009) . Moral outrage is one of the cognitive factors that lead to radicalization since it results from evens perceived to be moral violations. Using Iraq’s invasion which intelligence agencies have perceived to be the motivating factor for Islam extremists. Islam extremists use a cognitive frame for world interpretation that the Western nations are always planning a war against them. Islam having an ideology that the Westerners collectively strategizing to fight Islam is identified as a very big factor causing radicalization by intelligence agencies. Extremist movements install a mentality of vengeance on people with certain problems and are easily coercible into jihadism. They make them believe that their current situation results from the Westerner's oppression and wars planed against Muslims.
Sageman in addition to the above cognitive factors emphasizes that for radicalization to occur, there are like-minded interactions to influence. The final factor is mobilization using networks which involves confirmation and validation of an individual’s worldview events interpretations and ideas with other people who are radicalized. When an individual interacts with people who think that jihadism is holy, they will confirm the idea they have about the purpose of jihad through more interactions. As intelligence agencies are on high alert to identify individuals in the process of radicalization or already radicalized, most interactions can happen online. Thus to understand Sageman’s last factor, consideration has to be put that currently, Al Qaeda inspires terrorism through online channels as opposed to the coherent strategy of organization hierarchy (King, 2011). Online information is accessible to anyone in the world provided they have an internet-enabled device. Different jihad worldviews are posted where an individual in the process of radicalization can read and through online communication platforms interact with like-minded individuals to confirm the ideologies.
Behavioral and Psychological Concepts Analysis
As discussed above, extremism is a mindset in an individual against a certain religion or group of people. Psychological factors include integration, discrimination, and management of identity (Taylor, 2006) . It is easy for an individual who faces discrimination to get radicalized. Nevertheless, research has shown that individuals endure discrimination levels that are very high before they take collective action. However, when a group of discriminated individuals comes together virtually or physically, they can form a group of extremists. In Western nations, absolute discrimination is rare. Radicalization can also be caused by low integration levels of individuals into mainstream members of society. Many individuals especially immigrants face the challenge of not being able to integrate with society. They tend to live lonely lives where they do most of the things alone. In most cases, they integrate with people they share an identity with. With the influence of factors such as religion and worldview interpretation, they are easily radicalized. And individual beliefs or behavior greatly affects how they view the world. When an individual is going through a crisis, their behavior may change. Anything they think will help them solve their problems will come in handy. As a result, they seek solutions from religion where they are fed with information regarding jihad and such extremism.
Programs for Countering Radicalization
Programs have been formulated to help in curbing radicalization. Major programs include healthy identity, an initiative of deepening the dialogue and the program of Calgary redirect (Arlington, 2015) . Calgary redirect is both an education and preventive effort program that focuses on protective resources strengthening as well as addressing radicalization risk factors to extremism. It is a voluntary program that requires societies to help identify people who are at risk of radicalization for help. Health identity is a program that protects individuals who’ve been convicted initially as a result of association with extremist groups. It is government-led and includes sessions with individuals to promote self-image and identity which is positive. It is aimed at reduced the attitude of ‘us vs. them’ which associates with extremist groups that are violent. The initiate of dialogue deepening aims its efforts at community’s protective factors strengthening by using narratives directly from an individual on the pathway to extremism.
Through individuals legitimately accepting terrorism, various transformations occur psychologically. Radicalization is a result of such transformations. Through the analysis of the three concepts of radicalization as discussed above, radicalization is a result of several factors. Arguments of the three concepts indicate that in most cases, radicalization can occur as a result of one being in some kind of crisis. Through trying to get solutions, they seek religion more where they are fed with a different worldview. Through interactions both virtually and physically, individuals get assured of the worldviews they have such as jihad. Finally, they accept and acknowledge extremism by joining terrorist groups. One tool that is widely used to radicalize individuals is online platforms. During the radicalization process, most terrorist movements are not present physically but participate in the process virtually through availing jihad materials online. Government and non-government organizations have come up with programs to mitigate radicalization among members of society. The programs aim at identifying individuals likely to result in radicalization as a result of behavioral or psychological factors.
References
Arlington, V. (2015). Radicalization and Violent Extremism: Lessons Learned From Canada, the U.K. and the U.S. Retrieved 24 March 2021, from https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/249947.pdf
King, M., & Taylor, D. M. (2011). The radicalization of homegrown jihadists : A review of theoretical models and social psychological evidence. Terrorism and political violence , 23 (4), 602-622.
Pruyt, E., & Kwakkel, J. H. (2014). Radicalization under deep uncertainty: a multi‐model exploration of activism, extremism, and terrorism. System Dynamics Review , 30 (1-2), 1-28.
Sageman, M. (2009). Confronting al-Qaeda: Understanding the threat in Afghanistan. Perspectives on Terrorism , 3 (4), 4-25.
Silber, M. D., Bhatt, A., & Analysts, S. I. (2007). Radicalization in the West: The homegrown threat (pp. 1-90). New York: Police Department.
Simcox, R., Stuart, H., & Ahmed, H. (2010). Islamist terrorism. The Centre for Social Cohesion, London, The Centre for Social Cohesion, available online at www. socialcohesion. co. uk/uploads/1278089320islamist_terrorism_preview. pdf .
Taylor, M., & Horgan, J. (2006). A conceptual framework for addressing psychological process in the development of the terrorist. Terrorism and political violence , 18 (4), 585-601.
Wiktorowicz, Q. (2004). Joining the cause: Al-Muhajiroun and radical Islam. The Roots of Radical Islam .
