Final Report Summary - COUNTERADICAL (Security and the Politics of Belonging: Homegrown terrorism, counter-radicalization and the “end” of multiculturalism?)
This project used Britain, the Netherlands, and France as two “typical cases” and one “less likely case”, respectively. It developped a nested research design combining quali-quantitative discourse analysis with qualitative analysis of state policies, diaspora responses, interviews, and ethnographic observations. The research proceeded in three consecutive steps. It first undertook a large-N systematic and coded discourse analysis of policy documents. Based on results of this analysis, it located dominant actors in the field and select key respondents for in-depth interviews. Finally, from the two first steps it determine relevant subjects and locations for the ethnographic observation.
Three questions and a related hypothesis guided the research. First, why is there a contradiction between the political discourse, the media debate, and actual counter-radicalization practices? The project found that although politicians, relayed by media outlets, might expect electoral gains from an assimilationist stance—it is not shared by security professionals. The project confirmed Didier Bigo and others in arguing that security bureaucracies and security experts have acquired an unprecedented level of autonomy and legitimacy. Thus, an analysis of security policies should be conducted at the level of (a) bureaucratic routines and (b) bureaucratic politics and struggles. This analysis revealed that the security professionals’ social positions and trajectories are key in understading the elaboration of categories of suspicion in the three countries. The second question addressed is how do counter-radicalization practices operate concretely in relation to questions of diversity and citizenship? Everyday practices of state identification and their related technologies are crucial for establishing and maintaining social identities. The research showed that by routinely operating along ethnic and religious lines, counter-radicalization techniques and technologies reinforced them. This was in particular revealed through the ethnographic analysis (through observation and interviews) of counter-radicalization practices (surveillance, ethnic profiling, risk profiling, biometric identification, and techniques of community policing). The final question concerned the impact of these policies on the targeted populations? Counter-radicalization policies in European states have engaged in contested community engineering in order to create acceptable forms of “moderate”, “European” Islam . Furthermore, these policies have aimed at severing transnational ties, and favouring integration in the host countries. The third main finding is that communities have neither begun “assimilating” nor they have cut their ties with homelands; indeed, the opposite is true. Counter-radicalization efforts have had two effects: first, they have reinforced the feeling of community alienation have and therefore been counter-productive in obtaining the objective of futher integration. Second, they have coopted a number of (a) Muslim community representatives and (b) welfare professionals in the counter-terrorism effort, significantly impacting relations of trust between civil society, state institutions and the Muslim population at large.
These findings carry significant importance for a broad range of policy makers, from local authorities, social and youth workers, to national and European actors of counter-radicalisation policies. More about the project can be found here: www.securitybelonging.info