Countering Violent Extremism Strategy in America: A Review of the Literature
Bashir Safi
Liberty University
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Countering Violent Extremism Strategy in America: A review of the literature
Abstract:
Combating Violent Extremism (CVE) has become unambitious topic in national
strategies in western countries including the United States. Since 2001, U.S. government has
adopted and changed so many policies and practices addressing countering violent extremism.
These approaches and practices have largely focused on Muslim communities, which faced with
an extensive criticism as the same community was partner in preventing the violent extremism
and in meantime a source of risk and as a vulnerable group to radicalization. Limiting the CVE
prevention focus on a specific group or papulation was one of the biggest failures in the past. As
law enforcement agencies were only focusing on the Muslim group tens of other non-Muslim
American were radicalized which ultimately charged and convicted in connection with the
Islamic State1.
The body of literature review addressing CVE prevention, intervention and
disengagement and rehabilitation. Violent extremism is emerging from a multitude of fields
including psychology, public health, schools and education, workplace, and criminology.
Ten papers were reviewed in this literature. All papers have analyzed the countering
violent extremism topic from deferent angles with proposed strategies and policy
recommendations. Three common themes were drawn from the papers which were articulated in
deferent ways but seems to be connecting at the end. The three themes are: 1) violent extremism
root causes and prevention, 2) intervention and disengagement from violent extremism, and 3)
rehabilitation. As mentioned above authors may have used deferent theory or implementation
module but the narrowed down to the same outcome.
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Three Themes:
Root Causes and Prevention: This common theme is very interesting, all papers accept
and articulate that before we talk about prevention, the enabling and driving force behind the
violent extremism must be clearly identified. Countering violent extremism in America needs a
thorough and deep knowledge of the root causes and factors that enables and feed extremism.
This is very unfortunate that for this important issue there is little consensus among policy
designer to identify the problem and to design a uniform response or strategy. Mackenzie agrees
in his article “Countering Violent Extremism in America" that it is difficult to design an effective
policy when there is little consensus on what it means to counter violent extremism or what
actions might be taken to do so. Consequently, CVE efforts are mostly designed and funded
based on anecdotal evidence, with unknown results. 2
Most of the policymakers believe the ideology is the first and main factor that leads a
person to violent extremism, but (Neumann, 2013) explains this may be a casual cause but not
the only one. “how else can we explain why some groups resort to violence while others do not?
While following the same ideology.”3 There is not a sole reason for a person to become
radicalized. According to (Selim, 2016) there is some combination of ideological, psychological,
and community-based factors that leads them in that direction. 4 An individual could be
following any ideology, but other push and pull factors in the community can collectively a full
driving force behind the extremism.
After 9/11, the countering violent extremism first started as an effort of countering
Islamic extremism or countering Islamic radicalization which badly caused forgetting other
groups which richly contributed to the extremist attacks and fatalities. Since 2014, nearly 100
Americans have been charged in connection with violent extremism, of which 43 have been
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convicted, out of the charged individual and convicted persons majority are of them were white
Americans vulnerable to radicalization. (McKenzie 2017) cited two states where dense of
Muslim papulation lives; New Jersey with only four convictions since 2014, and Michigan has
zero convictions. The overall argument used by majority of the papers is the ideology is one of
the factors yet not the only enabler. They argue that the policy designers must develop an
approach that can target a combination of driving factors and the approach should not just target
one patron. All papers conclude that just because the strategy was just built to respond Islamic
extremism this ended up leaving so many vulnerable groups to the radicalization which were not
believers of Muslim ideology.
Most importantly, one of the challenges to violent extremism prevention and response is
itself government enforcement. The government drives the Muslim community as primary
partner in combating violent extremism and in sometimes it was looked as a first source of risk,
which hardens the Muslim community outreach, political participation, and relation with
government. (Gillum, 2021) in his “A Survey of Attitudes and Beliefs and Their Implications for
U.S. National Security Policy” states that Nevertheless, emerging patterns suggest that Muslims,
contrary to many public assumptions, are not systematically different from their non- Muslim
American counterparts in terms of attitude formation and other behavioral features.5
To summarize the first common theme of root causes of violent extremisms and not
functional prevention with (Scham 2018) argument that the grievance triggers every type of
violence and the same “grievance trivializes both the causes of violent extremism and absolves
governments of any responsibility to redress them.” 6 Finally, all ten sources argue that there is a
grievance behind every root cause that resorts an individual to violence, thus there must be
different approach to its prevention and response.
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Intervention and disengagement
The second most common theme sources emphases in their papers is intervention and
disengagement. For some reason the “intervention phase” the third item on the Department of
Homeland Security’s (DHS) implementation plan. According to (Selim 2016) intervention and
disengagement is a phase which involves working with an individual whose behavior may
suggest an interest in violent extremism and providing an “off-ramp” through mental health or
religious counseling or alternative means of self-expression”.
Law enforcement and military approach alone can not defeat extremism. There must be a
community-led approach that can identify the vulnerabilities and grievances across the board or
stigmatized communities. Law enforcement approach were mostly investigation, tactical and
prosecution individuals that were at some point radicalized after their possible grievances and
vulnerabilities were not addressed and they left out of the intervention and disengagement
process as President Obama7 said “We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes
root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the wellspring of extremism, a perpetual war . .
. will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways. . . . [We need a] strategy
[that] involves addressing the underlying grievances and conflicts that feed extremism” (Obama
2013).
As (McKenzie, 2017) stated in the article that the intervention program is very useful and
effective. The FBI has identified roughly 1,000 individuals as persons who have been radicalized
online (and 80 percent by the Islamic State) 8. Each intervention should be tailored to the specific
needs of the individual. For instance, for teenagers who are vulnerable the religious propagandas
of a foreign terrorist organization’s on social media must be supervised by the parents to ensure
the teen is not victim of the extremist ideology. Also, there are other factors such as mental
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health, socio-economic, social discrimination and other causes that could be individually
responded with each intervention modules.
The intervention program to counter violent extremism in the root is not just for a
specific group or limited to Muslim community. (Gillum 2021) argued that teenagers are
subjected to same vulnerability when it comes to cyber propaganda materials inspired by the
foreign terrorist organizations, religious background or beliefs do not play an important role in a
teen’s aspiration for the propaganda. According to (Gillum 2021) In 2015, a Boston police
captain reported his son, Alexander Ciccolo, age 23, who used the alias Ali Al Amriki online, to
the FBI for his interest in ISIS. Similarly, in 2015 the father of Justin Sullivan, age 19, from
Morganton, North Carolina, alerted authorities of his son’s interest in ISIS and desire to kill
Americans. Both teenagers were from conservative non-Muslim background.
Other authors also argue that there is not a single approach to the intervention. According
to (Glazzard, Andrew. Et at. 2028) “There is no universal pathway to resolving conflicts
involving violent Islamists. The focus needs to be on identifying and maximizing opportunities
in each case, while ensuring coordination and coherence across all activities.” 9
(Gillum 2021) argue that community-based intervention programs are more effective than
law enforcement led tactical intervention. DHS in 2017, cut fund on Safe Spaces program which
was a community-based intervention program. DHS now tilted more toward law- enforcement-
based CVE tactics and away from community- based interventions (Hansler 2017).
Authors argue that law enforcement only respond to cases which they detect, and by then
its maybe too late for the intervention. As (McKenzie 2017) mentioned in the paper, the law
enforcement efforts will only be limited to case at its later stage to investigate and prosecute not
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to intervene and prevent. The law enforcement agencies assigned to CVE, unfortunately, limit
their efforts to cases that are under their radar and not broadly focusing the root causes and
preventive measures. At some cases if they are mostly criticized for violating civil liberty and
other constitutional rights of specific groups, which are a way of bypassing the community-based
approaches. The law enforcement led approach is frequently challenged with other problems
such as not getting enough cooperation from the community, as they see the same group as
source of risk and in same time victimized.
Rehabilitation:
Rehabilitation is an important theme in the papers, though all authors believe that there
have been little efforts placed in rehabilitating individuals who have been impacted by the
extremisms. There are some implications in law and enforcement policies that somehow
systematically ignore the rehabilitation process. The obvious reasons are law enforcement efforts
are only limited to investigation, prosecution, and prevention, lacking the rehabilitation part.
Terrorism and violent extremism are the most vicious charges, the rehabilitation process in the
Unites States is very slow even for minors, let alone other crimes. (Scham, 2018) argues that
while time may never succeed in rehabilitating the people that Western governments consider
terrorists today, it still must be conceded that it is a possibility. Nevertheless, the further one goes
back in time, the harder it is to make the case that what is considered terrorism today ever
happened in the distant past. Terrorism is fundamentally propaganda, a very bloody form of
propaganda” (Blum 2006: 32) and, of course, in Blum’s view, whether individuals commit it, or
the state matters little. Lack of public support may also be a reason why rehabilitation of
individual impacted by violent extremism is not a priority.
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One of the problems with failures in integration of individual impacted by the violent
extremism is argued by (Mourad 2018) that rehabilitation approach is not targeting the
individuals, it rather targets the entire community, which fails to reach out to individuals
impacted by various deferent root causes. Government-funded countering violent extremism
(CVE) programs are flawed. Because the basic unit of engagement for CVE programs is the
community rather than the individual, and the broad goal social cohesion and integration, they
tend not to be effective at early intervention. Their exclusive focus on Muslims has caused that
population to feel stigmatized and targeted 10. CVE programs also fail to include the larger range
of social services (and thus multidisciplinary partners) required to treat other root causes of
radicalization, such as mental illness, social isolation, and personal grievances.11
The integration part is more a responsibility of the law enforcement agencies, many
individual who have been detained, investigated and release, have posed public safety threats and
even carried out attacks, which shows lack of identifying the root causes and driving factors
which ultimately ending up with no rehabilitation process or applying a wrong reintegration
approach.
The rehabilitation and integration process must be an individual approach, not a
community target. (Selim 2016) also support this argument, criticizing the current government
approach as a whole community which doesn’t individualize the root causes and reach out to the
radicalized person. The argument adds that entail working with individuals who have paid their
debt to society and seek to reform from previous violent extremist behavior and be reintegrated
into society is the effective way of reintegration or rehabilitation. Furthermore, all papers agree
that the rehabilitation approach must be unique to each root cause, while the prevention and
disengagement is a society-led programs.
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Limitations:
Three top weaknesses in selected sources are 1) lack of data and statistics 2) lack of
empirical test, and 3) lack of correlation between theoretical and empirical tests. The academic
literature on violent extremism is partial and more theoretical than empirical. Also, the papers
provide limited research and findings on the thesis. Also, data and analysis are not provided to
support their argument which leaves the proposed argument just a theory and do not guarantee a
solid outcome. Furthermore, there is very limited data and statistics on the topic. The papers
believe that because of the sensitivity of the cases the law enforcement agencies or governments
do not provide an actual set of data. There’s also a correlation between the theory provided in
academic literature on the violent extremism and its real outcome. The authors cannot confirm
that how much these theories were successfully in the past as they do not see a proper and
reliable data stream to compare its empirical outcome.
Implications:
In adding to its limitations there is some implications in literature such methodology
used in the papers. Methodologies such formative program evaluation and comparative case
study across the papers are not supported by a foundational data set to establish an understanding
of the topic. Even though, there were at least three common themes in all ten sources, but authors
apparently do not suggest their theories for a universal application, there’s not a universal
approach to thesis discussing countering violent extremism. As conclusion of this assessment,
even though there are some implication in the researches that do not backed up by data and
empirical tests, but they are still highly influential and worth application. A future research on the
topic is warranted to present a reliable data and statistics that refute or support the theoretical test
in this literature.
1 William Stephens, Stijn Sieckelinck & Hans Boutellier (2021) Preventing Violent Extremism: A
Review of the Literature, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 44:4, 346-
361, DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2018.1543144.
2 MCKENZIE, ROBERT L. "Countering Violent Extremism in America." In Brookings Big Ideas for
America, edited by O’HANLON MICHAEL E., 221-31. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press,
2017. Accessed March 3, 2021. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7864/j.ctt1kk66tr.26.
3 Neumann, Peter. and M.L.R. Smith. 2007. The Strategy of Terrorism: How it Works, and Why it
Fails. Abingdon: Routledge.
4 Selim, George. “Approaches for Countering Violent Extremism at Home and Abroad.” The
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 668, no. 1 (November
2016): 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716216672866.
5 Gillum, Rachel M. Muslims in a Post-9/11 America: A Survey of Attitudes and Beliefs and Their
Implications for U.S. National Security Policy. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2018. Accessed
March 3, 2021. doi:10.3998/mpub.9765804.
6 Sandra, Scham. “Extremism, Ancient and Modern: Insurgency, Terror and Empire in the Middle
East (1st ed.). Routledge. (2018). https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.4324/9781315225326
7 The White House. 18 February 2015 (2015a). Fact Sheet: The White House summit on countering
violent
extremism. Washington, DC: The White House, Office of the Press Secretary.
8 Pierre Thomas, “FBI Tracking Nearly 800 ISIS-Related Cases Across US, FBI Director Says,”
ABC News, May 11, 2016, http://abcnews.go.com/US/fbi-tracking-800-isis-related-cases-us-
fbi/story?id=39037540.
9 Glazzard, Andrew. Et at. “Conflict, Violent Extremism and Development” Published. Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham. 2018. https://doi-org.ezproxy.liberty.edu/10.1007/978-3-319-51484-0
10 Stevan Weine, Ahmed Younis, and Chloe Polutnik, Community Policing to Counter Violent
Extremism: A Process Evaluation in Los Angeles (College Park, MD: National Consortium for the
Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, 2017.
11 Amy-Jane Gielen, “Countering Violent Extremism: A Realist Review for Assessing What Works,
for Whom, in What Circumstances, and How?” Terrorism and Political Violence, May 3, 2017, 9,
https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2017.1313736.
