The emergence and expansion of a contentious concept
Routledge Handbook on Radicalisation and Countering RadicalisationTheorizing Radicalization and Violent Extremism
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An interview on the ‘old’ terrorism studies and the ‘new’ radicalisation research
Making Sense of Radicalization and Violent ExtremismWhat the Zeitgeist can Tell us About the Future of Terrorism
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Right-wing extremism is on the rise in most Western countries. Jihadi terrorism in contrast is in relative decline. What does that tell us about the future of terrorism?
icct.nlWhen do individuals radicalize?
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For more than a century now, observers have been trying to understand why and how individuals become terrorists. What do we now know – and what don’t we known (yet)?
Contemporary Terrorism StudiesRadicalization: The origins and limits of a contested concept
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The concept of radicalization has been less helpful or adequate at explaining and countering terrorism than its early advocates envisaged fifteen years ago.
Rik Coolsaet (Radicalisation in Belgium and the Netherlands: Critical Perspectives on Violence and Security)Radicalisation. A marginal phenomenon or a mirror to society ?
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Radicalisation remains as fraught with conceptual confusion and divergent policy prescripts as at the beginning, a decade and a half ago.
Rik Coolsaet (Radicalisation. A marginal phenomenon or a mirror to society ?)Rethinking radicalization: Addressing the lack of a contextual perspective in the dominant narratives on radicalization
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The concept of radicalization has been media hyped and is widely imbedded in public discourse today. Policy responses to radicalization are based on how we understand it.
Stiene Ravn, Rik Coolsaet, Tom Sauer (Radicalisation. A marginal phenomenon or a mirror to society ? (2019))The protracted search for a new place in the concert of nations
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Four years of war had dramatically changed the face of the country. For decades, Belgium had been one of the top five industrial powers. But the war and the occupation put a stop to Belgian global expansion: by 1918 the country was devastated, its industrial heritage dismantled. The pre-war illusion that neutrality would protect the land forever had evaporated.
Rik Coolsaet (Beyond the Great War. Belgium 1918-1928. Lannoo)The quest for vital interests and objectives in the foreign policy of Belgium
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Belgium’s foreign policy in the past five years reveals a contrasted picture. Starting in 2009-2010, an exhaustive assessment of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) resulted in significant changes in the workings and organization of the ministry. But the question what policy objectives the MFA was supposed to pursue remained largely unaddressed.
Rik Coolsaet (Studia Diplomatica)Today’s new terrorists were radical before they were religious
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The recent bombings in Europe are being perpetrated by a new generation of terrorists who are upending our previous understanding of what motivates such people and how to find and stop them. Today’s terrorists are not religious extremists who became radicals but rather radicals who became religious extremists. The difference is crucial.
Fareed Zakaria (Washington Post)Understanding terrorism is the only way to defeat it
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The terrorist attacks in Brussels, where at least 31 people were killed earlier this week, has forced us once again to comprehend the almost incomprehensible. Why do people turn their backs on the relative comfort of their lives to join the brutal organisation that is Islamic State and commit terrorist offences and mass murder?
(The Australian)Europe: Reinforcing Existing Trends
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The main impact of 9/11 on European societies has been to crystallize the pre-existing debate on immigration around the culturalist paradigm. In mainstream thinking the culture of the immigrants came to be seen as the major obstacle to their integration.
Rik Coolsaet (Mohammed Ayoob, Assessing the War on Terror)