Through Critical Discourse analysis, this thesis examined the discursive construction of terrorism related events and finds out the common definiens of terrorism in the editorials of two Bangladeshi English-medium newspaper. The Daily Star & Dhaka Tribune, both the newspapers covered terrorism related events in their editorials throughout the year of 2015. This thesis finds out the discrepancies in the produced expression and in the use of other common definiens of terrorism in the editorials. The newspapers were different in producing expressions against terrorism while sympathetic in portraying the victims and usually supported the victims. Both the newspapers represented perpetrators from ideological perspective, while distancing the ideologies from religious teachings. The newspapers identify terrorism as a serious threat both to security, social stability and perceives terrorist attacks as a threat to many crucial democratic values. In light of the problem, the newspapers suggested various policy recommendation, criticized the law enforcement for failures and emphasized on the engagement of religious clerics to curb terrorism from a Bangladeshi perspective, while stressing on the promotion of secular values of the country and its society.

In 2001, George W. Bush, the former president of the United States, declared war on terrorism after the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Centre in New York. Since then, terrorism and terrorist attacks have perceived to be rather frequent and the problem of radicalization has become a new phenomenon in societies, especially the western societies. Therefore, in 2014, the Swedish government decided to create a National Strategy Against Violent Extremism (NSAVE) which was released in 2016. In this strategy, it is argued that the main responsibility of the preventative-work against radicalization is directed at the local levels in Sweden, which is the municipalities. The research on the implementation of the strategy is however limited to non-existing. Therefore, this study is conducting a review of the national strategy and two case- studies with a qualitative approach to get an understanding of how municipalities are working with prevention of radicalization and violent extremism as well as how the national strategy is implemented at the local levels. The data collection that is used is semi-structured interviews with professionals working within two municipalities in Sweden. The findings show that the two municipalities are working with prevention of radicalization but use different strategies. The result is analyzed with the theoretical approach of inclusion and exclusion. The result shows that both municipalities are using the inclusive and development approach in their strategies. The last part of the thesis argues for recommendations in future work on national, regional and local levels as well as direct recommendations towards the two municipalities.

CVE is complex. It requires combatting the narratives and ideology of many extremist groups around the globe, constructing environments with appealing alternatives to extremism, and most importantly, sensitivity to the variety of circumstances in which CVE takes place to effectively battle the root causes of extremism. Constructing a complete CVE effort thus requires a great variety of skills, coordinated to efficient implementation. Despite notional commitment, U.S. CVE abroad lacks interagency coordination. JIATF-S offers a strong model of interagency coordination, from which lessons may be applied to the formation of an interagency CVE effort. Interagency coordination would bring extensive expertise and resources to bear on CVE operations.

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.

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.

The main purpose of this essay is to investigate the role of teachers of religious education in the proactive work against violent extremism and radicalization. Furthermore, the ambition is to raise awareness of how these five teachers of religious education in the Swedish upper secondary schools and primary schools in the subject of religious studies work with and implement the school's democratic mission, and to find structures to teach about radicalization, fundamentalism, pro-violence extremism and terrorism. To obtain a result, five semi-structured interviews with active religious education teachers in the upper secondary schools and the primary schools were conducted.To show the extent to which the school's democratic mission in the proactive work against radicalization and violent extremism is carried out, the collected empirical material has been analyzed based on Paulo Freire's awareness-raising pedagogy as a theoretical framework which indicates whether the interviewed teachers of religious education work according to what Freire calls the bank view or the liberating teaching. The study shows that all interviewed teachers work according to both these models. The teachers believe that it is inevitable to ignore the teaching of facts but prefer the liberating teaching. This is because all interviewed teachers believe that through dialogues and discussions, a critical thinking is created in the students. Furthermore, it appears that all teachers find it essential to create a good and open classroom climate where there is mutual acceptance of dissent. Thus, a long-term effort to create students as source-critical thinkers is fundamental.

A holistic approach to Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) in the Internet Environment and Social Media is essential. This thesis focuses on gender and context consideration in online approaches to CVE through use of a literature review and samples of online counter-narrative campaigns. This has led to determination of the extent to which gender and context have been considered in online approaches to CVE and identifying what they mean for CVE online, while highlighting full participation of women in online approaches that are aimed at countering violent extremism as well as the critical role of contextual factors in online approaches to CVE. In addition, the thesis shows that more research is needed to fill the gaps identified. These gaps are the role of women in online CVE campaigns as well as contextual factors that are associated to violent extremism. More so, online narratives should be all rounded since this study found that CVE narratives have failed to identify a predictable psychosocial trajectory to explain de-radicalization processes that are crucial to disengage radicals.

It is important to direct resources to effective evidence- and value-based counter-radicalization strategies, especially within prisons. With the increasing threat ofviolence and terror from various violent extremist groups, such as Daesh, thefocus on prisons should be intensified. While radicalization within prisons was nota significant problem a decade ago, the new recruitment strategies from e.g.Daesh now pose a new challenge for prisons. This thesis identifies contemporaryliterature on radicalization, deradicalization, and violent extremism within aprison context. From this seven recurrent themes were identified: overcrowding,religious chaplains, sectioning, risk assessment, monitoring and supervision,rehabilitation programs and education of staff. This was then used to develop anassessment model, which was based on the Canadian Risk-Need-Responsivitymodel’s three core principles, for evaluating and conducting counterradicalizationstrategies. The assessment model was then used as a framework fora comparative analysis of the Danish and Swedish Prison and Probation Services’counter-radicalization strategies within prisons. The results show that bothcountries adhered to a degree to the assessment model and current literaturewithin the field. The results further reveal that there is a lack of empiricalevidence and data on radicalization and counter-radicalization within prisons, andthat the data available is somewhat outdated.

The threat from homegrown terrorism in the United States is called a new face of the threat from terrorism. The aim of this study is to empirically examine how the new threat from homegrown terrorism has been constructed in the American discourse. Furthermore it is interesting to examine how the construction relates to the American counterterrorism policy and possible consequences. This is done by using the theoretical framework of Copenhagen’s school of securitization. By using a discourse analysis, documents and speeches from the U.S. government are analysed to see how the threat from homegrown terrorism are constructed by using the securitization theory. This study concludes that the threat from homegrown terrorism is constructed by portraying it as an existential threat to the United States, it’s people and it’s collective identity. The construction has made it possible to undertake exceptional actions that may reduce the American citizens’ freedom in benefit for security.

The violent extremism represents the greatest threat towards the society of today. The school does not have an explicit assignment in the crime prevention work against violent extremism. The school and education, are important factors in preventing children and young people from being involved in violent extremism. Because of this, the school staff has an important task. The aim of this study was to shed light on school staff need to relate to and manage violent extremism in school. This study is conducted by having a qualitative method with six semistructured interviews, where the empirical information is analysed with a qualitative analysis. Further, the theoretical starting point is the theory of health known as Sense of Coherence (SOC) and Job- demands- control-support-model (JDCS), as well as Norm-critical pedagogy. Three categories could be found from the analysis. The personnel are in need of reducing uncertainty, The personnel are in need of increased support and The personnel are in need of knowledge. The conclusion is that school staff are in need of reducing uncertainty about expressing themselves wrong and dare to engage in dialogue with students. School staff are also in need of increased support in the form of collaboration with actors, access to an action plan and more resources. The school staff is also in need of more knowledge about violent extremism, the democratic mission and what the law says. Finally, they need better information and guidelines on how to act when a student risks being involved in violent extremism. / Våldsbejakande extremism utgör det största hotet mot säkerheten i dagens samhälle. Skolan har inte ett uttalat uppdrag i det brottsförebyggande arbetet mot våldsbejakande extremism. Skolan som arena och utbildning är dock viktiga faktorer för att förebygga att barn och ungdomar involveras i våldsbejakande extremism. Därav har skolpersonalen en betydelsefull uppgift. Studiens syfte var att belysa skolpersonals behov av att förhålla sig till och hantera våldsbejakande extremism i skolan. Studien utgörs av en kvalitativ metod i form av sex semistrukturerade intervjuer, där empirin analyserades via en kvalitativ innehållsanalys. Studiens teoretiska utgångspunkt var hälsoteorierna Känsla av Sammanhang (KASAM) och Krav/kontroll/stödmodellen (KKS) samt den pedagogiska utgångspunkten Normkritisk pedagogik. Analysen resulterade i tre kategorier som utgör studiens resultat och speglar studiens syfte; Skolpersonal är i behov av att minska osäkerheten, Skolpersonal är i behov av ökat stöd och Skolpersonal är i behov av kunskap. Studiens slutsats är att skolpersonalen är i behov av att minska osäkerheten över att uttrycka sig fel och våga föra dialog med eleverna. Skolpersonalen är även i behov av ökat stöd i form av samarbete med aktörer, ta del av en handlingsplan och mer resurser. Skolpersonalen är likaså i behov av mer kunskap om våldsbejakande extremism, det demokratiska uppdraget samt vad lagen säger. Slutligen är de i behov av bättre information och riktlinjer om hur de ska agera när en elev riskerar att involveras i våldsbejakande extremism.