Why young people radicalize

The Dutch Coordinator for Counter-terrorism (NCtB) has published a report that tries to answer the question why young people radicalize and sympathize with terrorism. The research, by K. van Den Bos, A. Loseman and B. Doosje from Utrecht University, concentrates on radical Muslim youth and radical right wing youth in the Netherlands. It is a combination of quantitative and qualitative research focusing on the perspectives of youth themselves. The report is in Dutch (can be downloaded here) but an english summary is included and quoted here in total below:

In this report we study why young people engage in radical behavior and start sympathizing with terrorist movements. More specially, we examine the beliefs of Dutch youngsters (13-21 years) about muslim radicalism and rightwing extremism.

Following earlier studies on this topic, important demographic variables are identified that could lead to muslim radicalism and rightwing extremism. These variables include education, gender, age, religiosity, and etnic and cultural factors. We further note that it is impossible to give an “objective” demographic description of radicalization among young people. That is, factors that lead to radical behavior are complex and multi-faceted, and it is not possible to point out demographic variables that directly and straightforwardly impact on the radicalization process. Thus, when certain demographic conditions are met this does not imply that young people in fact will engage in radical behavior.

Therefore, this reports states that in order to obtain good insights into why people engage in radical behavior and start sympathizing for terrorist violence, careful attention should be paid to how young people perceive the situation they are in. After all, how people think, behave, and feel is affected to a large extent by how they interpret situations. This report, therefore, pays appropriate attention to important aspects of how young people perceive the modern society. To this end, we build on modern insights from the behavioral sciences in general, and social psychology in particular.

Social psychology is the scientific discipline that studies what people think, do, and feel, and what the influence of other people is on these reactions. In particular, we present a conceptual model that proposes that experienced injustice plays a crucial role in the psychological process that leads to radical behavior. For example, when a young person experiences that his/her own group is deprived compared to other groups, or when the person feels unfairly treated by important actors in the person’s society, then this can lead the person to start  engaging in radical worldviews or extremist behaviors. Our model suggests that injustice thus leads young people to hold more positive beliefs about radical belief systems, judge Dutch authorities as illegitimate, start to contrast their own group from other groups, feel superior to others, and are less committed to the Dutch society.

When people experience injustice this can easily lead to anger against society, as a result of which intentions to and actually engaging in violent and rude behavior can occur. This effect is particularly likely when people are predisposed to react in strong ways to experiences of personal uncertainty and when they experience that their own group is threatened by other groups. Thus, our model suggests that injustice, uncertainty, and threatened groups play a pivotal role in the process that may lead to radical (and perhaps even terrorist) behaviors We tested our conceptual model in an internet survey with 1341 Dutch persons who were between 13 and 21 years old. Chapter 3 describes this study and Section 3.1 presents the design of the study, the way in which our respondents were sampled, and how we analyzed our data (pp. 24-28). We note explicitly that the current sample was not a genuinely randomly drawn sample, so caution is needed when interpreting the results. This noted, the sampling did not affect tests of the relationships between the variables identified by our model.

Therefore, we focus on testing our model and Section 3.7 (pp. 61-67) summarizes the results obtained. The second study that this report describes consisted of in-depth interviews with 24 radical young persons. Chapter 4 describes this study and results are summarized in Section 4.3 (pp. 94-96). General conclusions following the model and the two studies presented are drawn in Chapter 5 (pp. 97-101).

The research findings of our two studies show that when basic aspects of a young person’s life are perceived as unjust this is likely to result in muslim radicalism and rightwing extremism. Together with sensitivity for personal uncertainty and group threats this can easily lead to externally oriented negative emotions (such as anger) and intentions to engage in radical and even violent behavior.

More generally, we suggest that careful attention to how situations are perceived and interpreted by young people can contribute to the understanding of radical behavior. Politicians and policy makers can use this insight, and the specifics described in our report, to better understand and predict the behaviors of young people in the Netherlands (and elsewhere). Using these insights can led to a better grouding of the prevention of radical and violent behaviors in one’s society.

As with most social-psychological research this report focuses on grievances and more in particular the perception of injustice. An interpretation of ones environment as unjust and unfair may change people’s sense of agency and identity which, in turn, influences the interpretation of ones local and global environment. The report show many similarities with an another recent report by Human Security Gateway on identity and radicalization of Muslim youth in Europe.
Human Security Gateway – Identity and Islamic Radicalization in Western Europe

This paper argues that both socio-economic disadvantage and political factors, such as the West’s foreign policy with regard to the Muslim world, along with historical grievances, play a part in the development of Islamic radicalized collective action in Western Europe. We emphasise the role of group identity based individual behaviour in organising collective action within radicalized Muslim groups. Inasmuch as culture plays any role at all in radicalization, it is because individuals feel an imperative to act on the basis of their Muslim identity, something to which different individuals will attach varying degrees of salience, depending on how they place their Muslim identity based actions in the scheme of their multiple identities. We also emphasize the role of the opportunistic politician, from the majority European community, in fomenting hatred for Muslims, which also produces a backlash from radicalized political Islam. We present comparative evidence on socio-economic, political and cultural disadvantage faced by Muslim minorities in five West European countries: Germany, the UK, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

The latter report show a little better how particular movements can be trapped into a movement-countermovement spiral; meaning that (some) Muslim radicals respond to actions and saying by so called Islam critics and vice versa resulting in both movements becoming constitutive to one another. What both reports do not answer (and are also not intended to do but is relevant nevertheless) is how all of this relates to radical actions. The group sharing the same type of radical interpretations about an unjust world is large; the group involved in radical actions remains very small.