Gendered Security Harms in Nigeria’s Counterinsurgency Response
The overly simplistic understanding of gender in Nigeria’s National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security (WPS), along with the government’s failure to prioritize human rights in its security policy, together result in “gendered security harms.”
Building Social Cohesion in South Sudan and Burundi
Social cohesion is best facilitated when bottom-up and top-down efforts—local, national, and international—are integrated and responsive to the relational nature of these societies.
Interfaith Peace Movements as Counter-Movements to Radical Buddhist Nationalism
Although widely perceived to be weaker than and largely reactive to the Buddhist nationalist movements they oppose, interfaith peace movements “constitute important counter-voices” to these movements, finding creative ways to challenge their narratives and activities even within existing constraints.
Lessons Learned from the Law Enforcement Response to Far-Right Terrorism: Insights for a More Effective Approach
Although arrests and a proposed Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) designation worked in dismantling the Atomwaffen Division (AWD), the immediate rebranding of the group under a new name undermines the success of the law enforcement response.
Push and Pull Factors in Disengagement from Islamic Extremist Organizations
No single factor explains why people withdraw from high-risk activism or political violence; disengagement typically happens because of growing disagreements over time as opposed to singular triggering events.
The Role of Group Identity in Initiating, Sustaining, and Disengaging from Participation in Violent Extremism
Although participation in violent extremism is often thought of as ideologically driven, it is better understood as driven by a need for identity and belonging.
Researching the Causes of Radicalization and Violent Extremism: What Do We Know?
Peer-reviewed research on radicalization and violent extremism identifies a “basic structure of the process of radicalization” where an individual has “real or perceived political grievance(s),” perceives participation in violent extremism as somehow appealing or beneficial, and has a “personal vulnerability” expressed as certain personality traits or a mental health concern.
Everyday Racism and Violence in Brazil’s Favelas
Racism has a significant impact on favela residents’ daily lives, visibly through police killings but also invisibly through everyday interactions of discrimination and distrust.
Which Women’s Rights? Exploring Gender and Peace in Afghanistan
Rural villagers understood girls’ access to education and women’s economic opportunities outside the home as indicators of everyday peace.
Creating the “Problem of Extremism”
The turn from the GWOT to CVE, with its focus on prevention, broadened the monitoring mandate of security agencies, enabling them to apply tactics based on the assumption that anyone (but mostly the most traditionally marginalized) can be a potential “terrorist” or “extremist,” thereby justifying surveillance, intelligence gathering, and other civil rights violations of so-called suspects.
The Human Experience of Counterterrorism in the Global War on Terror (GWOT)
Violence prevention policy-making must start from an understanding of the lived experience of communities most affected by the GWOT in order to not be complicit in harmful and structurally racist policies.
