This study is aming to examine how municipal instances understand and work to prevent violent extremism. The study illustrates how the local coordinator in a swedish municipality together with representatives from the social service, the school and the police work against autonomous left, white power environment and violent Islamist extremists. I have used Sahlins (2000) theory of crime prevention and Lipskys (2010) theory of street level bureaucracies to analyze the empirical.  To get a deeper understanding how the actors define and work with the problem I have used semistrutcured interviews with a local coordinator, two polices, two field assistants, two polices and one teacher. Even if violent extremism is expression of political opinion or religious belief the municipality means that alienation is the reason why people involve themselves in violent extremism. As a consequense the municipality have integrated the preventing work in their regular crimepreventing work.   The prevention work is characterized of both workdivision, where each profession mind its own working area, and cooperation, wich gives a good view of the situation in the municipality. Since there are consensus that the main goal is to prevent alienation the study picturize a functioning cooperation with few conflicts between the professions that is included in this crimepreventing work. / Denna studie syftar till att undersöka hur kommunala instanser förstår och arbetar för att motverka våldsbejakande extremism. Studien belyser hur den lokala samordnaren i en svensk kommun tillsammans med och representanter från socialtjänsten, skolan och polisen arbetar mot tre grupper; autonoma miljön, vit makt-miljön, och våldsbejakande islamistiska extremistiska miljön.   De teoretiska ramverk som använts som verktyg och hjälpmedel för att analysera empirin är Sahlins (2000) teori om brottsprevention samt Lipskys (2010) teori om gräsrotsbyråkrater. För att få en djupare förståelse hur de lokala aktörerna definierar och arbetar med problemet har studien genomförts med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer med en lokal samordnare, två poliser, två fältassistenter och en lärare.   Även om våldsbejakande extremism är uttryck för politisk åsikt eller religiös tro menar kommunen att orsaken till att människor söker sig till dessa grupper är känslan av utanförskap. Som en konsekvens av detta har kommunen integrerat arbetet mot våldsbejakande extremism i sin befintliga brottsförebyggande verksamhet. Arbetet präglas av både arbetsdelning, där varje yrkeskategori arbetar utifrån sitt specifika mandat på sin egen arena, och samverkan, vilket ger en god helhetsbild av läget i kommunen. Då det finns en samsyn kring att det prioriterade målet är att motverka utanförskap visar studien på ett fungerande samarbete med få konflikter mellan de yrkesgrupper som ingår i detta brottsförebyggande arbete.

The theses deals with the most current problem of refugees stemming from the Syrian crisis, and the consequences the migration crisis can have for stability and the overall political situation in the chosen region. Due to the fact that the Syrian crisis is felt not only in the region, the aim of this thesis is to look at the impact of subsequent migrant crisis on the EU with focus on the Czech Republic. Despite various attempts by the international community, including the EU and the Czech Republic itself, to stabilise the situation the migration crisis is not, within a short and midterm time frame, closing to an end, and it is necessary to focus on possible negative consequences it may bring. The aim of this thesis is to uncover possible political repercussions. Even though, the Czech Republic is in reality afflicted by the migration wave on a minimal scale, the main hypothesis of this thesis is that the current migration wave has an influence on its political scene. The thesis is focusing especially on extremism in the Czech public and consequently in the political scene.

Introduction. This study examines the age-specific risk factors associated withradicalization that could contribute to Swedish research and responsible investigativeauthorities. Specific knowledge of individual risk factors for radicalization isremarkably limited, especially compared to what we know about other forms ofviolence.Methods. A total of 1240 cases are included after a data cleaning of the PIRUS-dataset. An exploratory factor analysis examined youths (<21), adults (>22), and a noage-specific group.Results. The younger population tends to have more often been abused as a child,had some traumatic experience, and are currently part of a gang. In comparison, theolder population tend to have alcohol or drug abuse problems and more unstructuredtime, have a radicalized friend and have actively searched for their radicalized group.The All-group shares a variety of variables with the age-specific groups.Conclusion. The results imply a need for specified risk factors according to age. Theage-specific analysis provides a deepened understanding of age-specific risk factorsthat contribute to radicalization and make individuals susceptible to radicalizedgroups. Since different authorities are responsible for minors and adults and alreadywork with a risk factor approach, the findings in this essay imply that the authoritiesshould investigate their current policies and update them to age-specific risk factors ifnecessary.

A primary objective of this thesis is to identify, understand and explain motivations that lead individuals to join the National Militia. National Militia (Národní Domobrana) is a Czech paramilitary organisation that emerged in 2015 as a reaction to migration crisis and growing fear of "Islamisation". Shortly after its establishment, in July 2016, the organisation claimed to have over 2,500 members and began to regularly organise border patrols, military-like drills, but also political manifestations, openly criticising Czech foreign and domestic policies. Utilizing ethnographic methods of inquiry, the researcher conducted 11 semi-structured interviews with members of National Militia. In the subsequent analysis, the research identifies a set of push and pull factors as being most influential in individual's decision-making process, eventually being completed by a personal factor. Secondary findings identify also elementary demographical data, shared personality traits and militiamen mindset. From academical point of view, this study provides the reader with foundational data, necessary for further research, as the phenomenon is heavily understudied in Czech context. The specific contribution of the research resides not only in identifying the motivations, but also in offering the explanation for...

In recent years there has been a growing interest in and a number of studies sensitive to the relationships between gender and conflict, including gender and violent extremism. While much attention, both in the media and scientifically, has been given to individuals directly connected to violent extremist groups, less attention has been focused on their families. This study aims to fill in the empirical gap in how violent extremism impacts family members of people associated with violent extremist organisations. The research is particularly concerned with women who became widows due to their husbands’ engagement in a violent extremist group. By utilising the biographical narratives of the widows in Kwale County in Kenya, the study seeks to broaden an understanding of the impact of violent extremism on widows whose husbands chose to join the violent extremist group al-Shabaab, with its main stronghold in Somalia. The study focuses on four impact areas: economic, physical and emotional, socio- cultural, as well as ideological impact. Moreover, based on theoretical approaches, the study discusses a widespread assumption of women as preventive forces for violent extremism in the context of Kwale County, as well as women’s empowerment measures vital for widows in the region. The results reveal that the most tangible impacts on the widows are economic, physical and emotional, with a wide range of severe consequences for both the widows and their children. Additionally, socio-cultural impact plays an immense role for the widows living situation. The study does not reveal any findings which may suggest that the widows have been impacted ideologically by their husbands in the same way. Subsequently, the study questions the assumption of women as best placed to prevent violent extremism within the domestic sphere in the context of Kwale county. Furthermore, it focuses attention on the importance of economic, educational and religious empowerment of women in the region.

Bibliographic Note CAPUTO, Alexandria. The Sultanate of Oman: Resistant to Extremism?. 104 p. Master Thesis. Charles University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Political Science. Supervisor : Prof. Oldřich Bureš Abstract This thesis analyses the Sultanate resistance to violent extremism as a Middle Eastern nation that has consistently scored a "0" on the Global Terrorism Index (GTI), an ongoing indexing of global terrorism from 2003 onwards. The Sultanate was markedly stable for those years unaccounted by the GTI. This case study examines institutional and legal frameworks established by the Sultanate and their value on countering radicalization and extremism processes that might lead to an act of terrorism. This research is supported by literature on radicalization and countering violent extremism (CVE) models, with great focus on a five- pronged, comprehensive working paper that approaches major problems across the Middle East. Radicalization and extremism notably fester in such problematic approaches, and the objective is to parallel these problems with the strategies, approaches, and norms of the Sultanate of Oman to see if this paper can come to a conclusion about the ability of nations and their populations to resist radical pathways and extremist ideologies. With religion at the crux of...

This thesis compares counter and deradicalization policies of the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Denmark. Both countries have one of the oldest policies in Europe and are characterized as different, even opposite, and therefore were chosen for the comparative analysis. Thesis assesses concrete policy initiatives preventing radicalization mainly in prisons, schools, on the Internet, governments' deradicalization initiatives; initiatives addressing foreign fighters, the extremist ideology; and other approaches in preventing radicalization. The comparison is based on the theoretical-analytical framework of the most prominent theoretical approaches towards explaining radicalization. Through the comparison, the thesis explores, sometime subtle, differences and similarities of both approaches and links them together with theoretical explanations. The thesis highlights many possible policy responses to one phenomenon, corresponding to many theoretical explanations behind it. The comparison has shown similarities and differences between the two policies and correlation between the definition of radicalization and extremism and certain policy objectives and programs. It is structured into four chapters, the first one is theoretical introduction into the concept of radicalization which creates an...

The aim of the thesis is to analyze the current state of policies proposed to address the issue of radicalization in Europe. More specifically, the thesis deals with the topic of the fight against radicalization through education. The paper highlights how security debate in Europe is changing the understanding of educational institutions and their role in anti-radicalization policies. In the past, states in Europe had to deal with various forms of violence caused by either separatist movements or other radical and extremist ideologies. Unfortunately, the problem of the occasional outbreak of violence has not been resolved yet in Europe. In relation to the theme of radicalization, the role of educational institutions is perceived as significant to counter the process. They are considered to be the main institutions able to support the social inclusion and critical thinking of students during the globalization and modernization of Internet technologies. For these reasons, educational institutions should be responsible for protecting European students and pupils and preventing them from being drawn to extremism. This work, however, points out that this understanding is not the only way promoted by governments to tackle radicalization through the sector of education. The role of educational...

This study investigates which strategies the Swedish government employs in reaction to radical nationalist propaganda. It uses the analytical framework proposed by Hellman and Wagnsson (2017) on information warfare and their four ideal-type strategies: countering, naturalising, blocking and ignoring. Through these, it analyses official inquiries and proposals made by SOU (Statens offentliga utredningar), strategic documents, and speeches and articles made by government officials, such as the Swedish Prime Minister. It also divides the propaganda into three categories to further nuance and structure the analysis according to which actor the propagandistic narrative revolves around: the minority, the elite and the people, as proposed by FOI (Totalförsvarets forskningsinstitut -FOI, 2017). The result was that the Swedish government responds to radical nationalistic propaganda using all strategies, but primarily ignoring. The strategies promoted in the strategic documents and the official inquiries tend more towards ignoring, differing from the speeches and articles where more confronting strategies are employed. The Minority-related narratives are confronted more often than other types of narratives, but blocking is also more prevalent. Narratives about the elite are primarily ignored, although all strategies are employed to some extent. Narratives relating to the people were more naturalised, in regards to characteristics of swedes as a group, but more ignored regarding the radical nationalist community, although some efforts might be taken to both stem recruitment, by naturalisation, and block it through laws. A name change for the strategy of ignoring is proposed due to the misleading notion that no actions are being taken using this strategy. It would be renamed preventing (förebyggande) to better reflect the range of measures taken within the strategy.

With religious extremism being a destructive force in many parts of the world, the mission to understand and mitigate it is always actual. The current thesis tries to contribute to the knowledge of this phenomenon by investigating it through a very particular lens – its relation to subjective happiness. This is done through finding the answer to the research question “Does subjective (un)happiness predict religious extremism?”, using various quantitative gamma and chi-squared tests of association, as well as data from the World Values Survey, wave 7. Although it is hypothesised, based on previous research, that subjective happiness should have either a positive or negative relation with holding religiously extreme views, none of this is proven correct. Instead, a conclusion entirely new to the field of psycho-emotional well-being and political views emerges, namely that religious extremists tend to evaluate their happiness and sense of well-being just as extremely as they do societal and religious matters. This not only disproves the conclusions drawn by certain previous studies, it also provides a whole new perspective as to how to understand the inner worlds of individuals drawn to the ideas of religious extremism, something crucial for successful mitigation of this harmful phenomenon.