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This article situates the debate on the United Kingdom's Prevent policy in the broader framework of the global paradigm for countering violent extremism (CVE), which appeared at the end of 2015. It argues that omission of a nuanced focus on the social, cultural, economic, and political characteristics of radicalised people has led to a tendency to introduce blanket measures which, inadvertently and indirectly, have had harmful results. Moreover, although Prevent has been the fundamental element of the British government's counterterrorist strategy since 2006, it confuses legitimate political resistance of young British Muslims with signs of violent extremism, thus giving credence to the argument that Prevent is a form of social engineering which, in the last instance, pacifies resistance by reaffirming the status quo in the country's domestic and foreign policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Trojan Horse" scandal laid bare an anxiety at the heart of the British security establishment; an anxiety that brings together questions of identity, values, and security within the demand to manage radicalization. It is an anxiety that, I will argue, reveals a novel conceptualization of threat that has driven the UK's security and communities policies within the "war on terror." This conceptualization emerges within Prevent, the UK's counter-radicalization strategy. Yet, I argue, the extensive literature on Prevent has failed to adequately articulate this underlying, core logic. To date, the Prevent literature has effectively demonstrated the ways in which Muslim communities in the United Kingdom have been policed through British counter-radicalization policy. Yet, this analysis struggles to explain the expansion of Prevent into a wider range of "extremist" spaces. In this article, I contend that it is more useful to situate Prevent as a particular conception of power; a logic and an analysis of threat that demands new forms of government intervention. To do so, this article provides a genealogical reading of Prevent, locating it as a radical extension of state security ambitions to intervene early, making explicit a vision of security in which life as a process of becoming is produced as an object of management. The paper draws out the ramifications of this analysis to think through fundamental shifts in the principles and practices of contemporary security aspirations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The burgeoning 'pre-crime' industry reveals a deep overlap between national security and mental health. The UK's counter-radicalisation policy, PREVENT, is exemplary in this regard. PREVENT mandates a duty for public bodies, such as healthcare staff, to identify and report 'at risk' individuals in the 'war on terror'. Research has shown how racialised Muslims embody 'threat' in public consciousness, though the UK government denies institutionalising racism. This article explores how British nationalism in a 'post-racial era' necessitates psychologisation to evade the charge of racism in the management of Muslim political agency. By unpacking PREVENT policy documents and training, this article will explore how the counter-radicalisation industry of the 'war on terror' reveals the triangular relationship between 1) racialisation of Muslims under nationalism, 2) psychologisation of the political and its associated colourblindness, and 3) the nation-state's management of dissent. The various performative dimensions of psychologisation will be discussed, as they relate to universalising, detecting and managing the threat of radicalisation. This article will conclude with a proposition: psychologisation is necessary in conceptualising state repression and institutional racism in the modern age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Muslim financial actions have faced increased scrutiny as financial links to 'terrorism' have risen in political rhetoric with anything labelled as 'Islamic' being perceived to be in requirement of study in terms of its relation to 'fundamental British values' (Kundnani, A., 2014. The Muslims Are Coming! Islamaphobia, Extremism, and the Domestic War on Terror. London: Verso.). Exploring Muslim charitable giving in the UK, it will be posited that much of Islamic charitable practices sustains a relationship with neoliberalism without being entirely reduced to it. The post-9/11 environment 'has led to renewed scholarly interest in the relationship between the economy and Islam and more specifically the incorporation of Islamic value in daily economic life' (Rethel, L., 2019. Corporate Islam, Global Capitalism and the Performance of Economic Moralities. New Political Economy, 24 (3), 350–364, 2). Islamic charitable practices potentially offer a resistance to the inegalitarian effects of neoliberalism whilst simultaneously being both a part, and a consequence of, neoliberal dominance. Moreover, Islamic charity in the UK acts as an expression of the Muslim community against a backdrop of security and surveillance. Thus, while potentially offering a 'radical' alternative to neoliberalism it is a non-violent and non-conflictual alternative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on UK government counter‐terrorism measures has claimed that Muslims are treated as a 'suspect community'. However, there is limited research exploring the divisive effects that membership of a 'suspect community' has on relations within Muslim communities. Drawing from interviews with British Muslims living in Leeds or Bradford, I address this gap by explicating how co‐option of Muslim community members to counter extremism fractures relations within Muslim communities. I reveal how community members internalize fears of state targeting which precipitates internal disciplinary measures. I contribute the category of 'internal suspect body' which is materialized through two intersecting conditions within preventative counter‐terrorism: the suspected extremist for Muslims to look out for and suspected informer who might report fellow Muslims. I argue that the suspect community operates through a network of relations by which terrors of counter‐terrorism are reproduced within Muslim communities with divisive effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Kingdom's approach to Prevent duties to counter extremism is emerging as a negative example. Its focus on extremism is different from the focus on countering violent extremism outlined in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2178. The focus on extremism has been influential in China but not in Canada or other democracies. Going forward, more attention should be paid to equality concerns especially relating to Muslim minorities. It would be premature to reject all attempts to counter violent extremism. Less of a top-down, state-driven approach and the use of independent accountability and evaluation mechanisms have the potential to make countering violent extremism programs more effective, responsive, and legitimate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Counter-extremism approaches in America and Britain have come under criticism and scrutiny due to the recurrence of terrorist incidents and the perception that they are alienating Muslim communities. This essay analyzes the course of counter-extremism policy development on both sides of the Atlantic and proposes potential solutions to some of the most entrenched difficulties that policymakers have encountered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the reporting of the “Operation Trojan Horse” affair in two British newspapers, the Daily Mail and The Guardian, in 2014. I argue that this high-profile case was a vehicle for the Conservative-led Government, and parts of the United Kingdom’s press, to advance their doctrine of muscular liberalism, an ideology that locates the rise of extremism in the policies of multiculturalism. In this interpretation of the event, it was argued that, under a Labour council, schools in Birmingham had been given the freedom to practise a segregationist agenda, resulting in an infiltration of Islamist ideology. Through a radicalisation narrative, that locates the causes of terrorism with extremist thought, an issue of local governance and agency was transformed into an argument about terrorist radicalisation. This allowed Government agencies to intervene, at a local and national level, promoting an assimilationist agenda through conceptualisations of national identity, here constructed as “British values”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of families who choose to home educate has significantly increased in the last decade. This article explores the experiences of British Muslims who home educate using data from a larger study exploring the views of a diverse range of families. Drawing on the work of Beck, we discuss how ‘risk’ is understood in relation to Muslim home educators. For these families, decisions to home educate were often made in response to identifying risks associated with their children attending school. At the same time, OFSTED has identified ‘risks’ of radicalisation associated with the ‘Trojan Horse’ affair which they linked specifically to Muslim families who home educate. We argue that Muslim families are both marginalised by the perception of ‘risk’ associated with radicalisation and also by their consequent decisions to home educate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the city of Birmingham (UK) became embroiled in a high-profile scandal that would bring it and the wider education system under disrepute. The ‘Trojan Horse’ affair, as it become known, began with an anonymised letter that claimed hard-line ‘Islamists’ were plotting and planning to take over a number of schools in Birmingham. Amongst the allegations were that some of the schools had been promoting gender segregation and that children were not safeguarded against the risks of extremism. This article examines some of those issues in relation to the Trojan Horse scandal and uses a qualitative study focused on participants from the area of Birmingham. As the tribunal hearings against the teachers have now found no wrongdoing, the findings reported in this article suggest that Muslim communities feel unfairly categorised as extremists and that such issues have impacted upon their sense of identity and belonging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, an alleged “Trojan Horse” plot to Islamise education in a number of schools attended predominantly by diverse Muslim pupils in the inner city wards of Birmingham raised considerable questions. Ofsted investigations of 21 schools explored these concerns at the behest of the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove MP. At the head of this so-called plot, a certain Tahir Alam, once a darling of New Labour’s policies on British Muslim schools, faced the brunt of the media and political furore. Based on a series of face-to-face interviews with Alam in 2015 and 2016, this paper provides a detailed insight into the allegations, the context in which they emerged and the implications raised for young Muslims in the education system. Ultimately, as part of the government’s counter-terrorism policy the accusations of the “Islamisation” of education in these “Trojan Horse” schools foreshadowed the additional securitisation of all sectors of education. However, there was neither the evidence nor the legal justification to ratchet up anti-extremism education measures that eventually followed; namely the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015. The consequences of the negative attention heightened existing Islamophobia but, paradoxically, they also limited the opportunities for de-radicalisation through education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the United Kingdom has placed some of its Prevent strategy on a statutory footing and is proposing to introduce a Counter-Extremism Bill, this article argues that a legal definition of extremism must be carefully drafted to provide legal certainty. The main recommendation is that all forms of violent and nonviolent extremism comes under the definition, ensuring it is differentiated from activism. Activism may hold radical views counter to the mainstream opinion, but it is required in liberal democracies as it encourages healthy debate and can prevent the policing of thought in any government strategy or legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has two aims. First, it is concerned with a discourse in British media and politics of ‘Muslim education’, a concept that often appears alongside words such as ‘extremism’ and ‘radicalisation’ and contributes to the undue ‘religification’ of people of Muslim backgrounds. I offer a preliminary analysis of this discourse arguing that the description of an educational setting as ‘Muslim’ opens up a social and political space in which certain types of action can occur, including fundamentally undermining the educational integrity of the setting in question. Second, the article considers original ethnographic data from two Iranian ‘supplementary’ schools in London as a way to push beyond a mere critique of Islamophobia towards a new theoretical framework. Drawing in particular on the concept of diaspora, the framework accounts for the highly creative, and potentially innovative, modalities of citizenship and education practice that exist in diasporic communities from Muslim backgrounds. With reference to Thomas’ work on the strength of case studies to develop ‘exemplary knowledge’ (rather than abstract theory), I sketch out some ideas for a theory of ‘diasporic education’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is now a great deal of literature that shows how Islam and Muslims are routinely represented in negative ways in the mainstream newspapers. With overt or covert reliance on Orientalist discourse, discourses of cultural clash and extremism, including terror, are prevalent. Not only are Muslims less likely to feature in “normal” stories, abuse and prejudice against them is also more unlikely to constitute “news”. British converts to Islam have only recently begun to receive more focused attention, both in academia and in the mainstream press. Occupying a unique position in respect to the idea of the “other” and of integration in a multicultural society, converts offer a powerful point of critique of these concepts. The aim of this study is to understand how and in what discourses British converts to Islam are represented, and thereby contribute empirical knowledge to these theoretical concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The mounting tide of foreign fighters leaving Britain for the Middle East to fight, sacrifice or find new lives has blighted European governments and led to the further tightening up of counter-terrorism measures. Since the first British arrest of a Syrian returnee (Choudhury) in 2014, the latest figures of foreign fighter returnees have surged to approximately 800. A number of strategies aimed at thwarting these trends have surfaced including a call upon Muslim parents to scrutinise their children’s attitudes and behaviour and to be watchful of their radicalization. Based on a study in the West Midlands (in the UK), the paper provides a snapshot of how Muslim parents have received calls upon them to report their actual or potentially radicalized children to the police. We argue that current practices are likely to be ineffective unless more democratic spaces are provided for free political expression. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the 7/7 bombings of July 2005, Britain has experienced a domestic terror threat posed by a small minority of young Muslims. In response, Britain has initiated ‘Prevent’, a preventative counter-terrorism programme. Building on previous, general critiques of Prevent, this article outlines and critically discusses the ways in which Prevent has approached young Muslims and their educational institutions. The article argues that, rather than trust in broader and non-stigmatizing processes of anti-extremist education, the police-led Prevent has ‘engaged’ with and surveilled young Muslims. Within Prevent there is little evidence of educational processes that explicitly build youth resilience against extremism. Instead, Muslim youth are viewed as both a risk to society and at risk of catching the terrorist disease, with the contested model of ‘radicalisation’ and child protection concepts utilized to portray risks of exploitation by Islamist extremists that necessitate a deepening process of education-based surveillance. The article identifies non-stigmatizing alternatives to the approach of Prevent, approaches of anti-extremism education that learn from previously problematic anti-racist educational efforts with white young people. This enables the article to advocate for enhanced human rights-based approaches of citizenship education (admittedly, in themselves contested) withallyoung people as the most effective way of building individual and collective youth resilience against terrorist ideologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ‘spaces’ left over for Muslims to be ‘radical’ and the management of minority identities in light of their securitization in the UK. The paper considers a key site of this management of ‘radical’ identities: the university. The university works as prototypical case because of the ways in student activism and identity area prioridrawn together but also because of the prevalence of higher education among terrorists in the UK and USA. As a result, universities have been specifically targeted in counterterrorism and counter-radicalization measures. The paper reveals through student narratives how security discourses of ‘radicalization’ constrain their activism, university experience and identities. Yet, alternative identity constructions emerge that work against the moderate/radical binary. These narratives show how incomplete the process is of incorporating Muslims into the nation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article will provide a critique of the PVE initiative and its implementation within the context of primary education following the events of 9/11, the 2001 riots and 7/7. Drawing upon empirical data I will argue that the monitoring of young Muslims and ‘extremism’ is problematic and reinforces the logics of Islamophobia through practices of governmentality. Moreover I will examine how whilst the monitoring of extremism is prioritized in many schools, training for teachers on race equality, tolerance and accepting difference is weak if not absent. This, I suggest, demonstrates a clear manifestation of contemporary hegemonic post-racial politics which increasingly silences the critique of institutional racism. Additionally this article will explore how Muslims in the sphere of education have been implicated and problematised against the backdrop of a ‘muscular liberalism’ intent on the return of assimilationist discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aim of this article is to examine the new Prevent Strategy 2011 in the United Kingdom and critically analyze its impact upon British Muslim communities. The U.K. government's controversial Prevent Strategy 2011 has come under fierce opposition, with critics arguing that it will not actually prevent extremism but risks labeling the Muslim community as a 'suspect' community. Following the British government review of counterterrorism policies and strategies in 2010, the article examines the key question: Will the new Prevent policy actually work? Recent studies show that previous Prevent policies have risked alienating the Muslim community ( Kundnani). Indeed, the new Prevent Strategy 2011 also has the risk of the depoliticization of Muslim communities from wider civic society and risks creating a mosaic for extremist ideologies. The article argues that, in practice, Prevent is not particularly efficacious, and that the new strategy risks further marginalizing and stigmatizing Muslim communities. Related Articles [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The London bombings of 7 July 2005 were a major event shaping the relationship between Muslims and non- Muslims in Britain. In this paper we introduce the idea of 'securitized citizens' to analyse the changing relationship between British Muslims and wider British society in response to this and similar events. Through an analysis of qualitative interviews with Muslims and non- Muslims of a variety of ethnic backgrounds in the areas where the London bombers lived in West Yorkshire we examine the popular perceptions of non- Muslims and Muslims' experiences. We show how processes of securitization and racialization have interacted with Islamophobic discourses and identifications, as well as the experiences of Muslims in West Yorkshire after the attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the programme for creating the controversial school academies, local governments in the UK have attempted to force an integration of schools with majority white and ethnic minority pupil cohorts via new mergers. This has largely been as a response to analysts' fears about self-segregation and insufficient community cohesion, following riots in northern towns in 2001 and the spectre of radicalisation among young Muslims following 9/11 and 7/7. An examination of school mergers in Burnley, Blackburn, Leeds and Oldham reveals how they have amplified racial attacks on Muslim pupils and their feelings of insecurity, while also fuelling a backlash against what is perceived by some members of the white working class as a form of social engineering that endangers white privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the implementation of the UK's ' Prevent Strategy' for countering terrorist risks and threats. Informed by qualitative data, it critically assesses the perception and reception 'on the ground' of Prevent Strategy policies amongst those individuals who are, in many ways, the focus of such interventions. It is found that there are a number of grievances held, though three are of particular concern and revolve around funding issues, confusion of the overarching aims of the strategy, and suspicions of intelligence gathering and spying within Muslim communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, fear of ‘the other’ has focused particularly on ‘home grown’ second-generation Muslims. In the aftermath of the 7 July 2005 bombings in London, there was particular horror and incredulity expressed about the fact that many of the bombers had been born and raised in Britain, and universities have been increasingly regarded by various analysts and politicians as potential ‘hotbeds of extremism.’ Yet apart from sensationalistic images of British Muslims as threatening radicals, we still have relatively little in-depth information about the vast majority of ordinary British Muslim young people in higher education. This article explores young British Muslim students' views and experiences of Islamic Student Associations (ISOCs) at three universities in the southeast. What motivates Muslim students to join ISOCs and can we determine clear differences between those who join ISOCs and those who do not? While there is growing evidence that younger British Muslims are more politicized than their parents, and are more likely to mobilize around their identity as Muslims, most British Muslim students' involvement in ISOCs does not pose a threat to British society or to their ability to negotiate their British and Muslim sense of selves. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article suggests that Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE), the government's ‘hearts and minds’ response to the threat of domestic Islamist terrorism within the wider CONTEST strategy, has been exposed as both failed and friendless by growing political and academic scrutiny. PVE's monocultural focus on Muslims is in stark contradiction to the overriding policy goal of community cohesion, while its implementation has provoked accusations both of surveillance and of engineering ‘value changes’ within Muslim communities. Local conflicts relating to the operationalisation of PVE result from political disagreement over the balance between community engagement and policing within the Labour government, and these problems leave the future of this key anti-terrorism policy area unclear. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerns about Islamic extremism and ongoing debates about the integration and assimilation of Muslims into Western societies continue to attract considerable attention from the media, policymakers, and scholars, but relatively little cross-national research has been done on Western attitudes toward Muslims. This article attempts to address this question by exploring 2006 Pew Global Attitudes data among non-Muslims in Britain, France, Germany, Spain, and the U.S. Using structural equation modeling, we examine the determinants of Western views toward Muslims, and find that threat perceptions are the primary factor influencing these views. Specifically, our analysis suggests that perceptions of security threats drive attitudes regarding Muslims, and that perceived cultural threats are only indirectly related to views towards Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is a case study of the ethno-cultural identity politics that young Muslim men since the events of 9/11 and 7/7 are found to be engaging with, using a life-history methodology and the experiences of Moazzam Begg as a lens through which to view a wider phenomenon. It is argued that the issues, debates and policy concerns impacting on the question of Islamic political radicalism in Britain, namely inequality, integration, multiculturalism, foreign policy, the influence of Islamism and the ways in which the historical, cultural, economic and political societal context that young Muslims find themselves in today, all affect the experience of conflicting multicultural identity politics and Islamic revivalism, with one informing the other. First, the methodology is outlined. Second, the analysis explores the life history of Moazzam Begg, identifying the macro-meso-micro tensions between individual Muslim identity development in the context of global tensions and conflicts relating to the Islamic world. In conclusion, it is argued that the layers of radicalization are local, national and international in character, and this paper is an attempt to determine the nature and orientation of how these factors are at play. Furthermore, a clarion call is made to British academics, activists and policymakers to ask discerning questions and determine nuanced solutions to quite complex problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores some of the reasons behind the rise in Islamic radicalism in the United Kingdom. The author seeks to suggest some ideas as to how the government and British society best deal with this worrying trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the 7 July and 21 July 2005 attacks on London the government-sponsored effort to ‘prevent extremism together’ has repeatedly acknowledged the central role of anger at UK foreign policy in the radicalization of some British Muslims. This acknowledgement has been incorporated into a ‘comprehensive framework for action’ centring upon the need for increased ‘integration’ and an effort, critically, to re-work British multiculturalism as a means to combat terrorism. Examining the history of multiculturalism in Britain and the tradition of living and acting ‘together’ that it suggests, however, raises a set of questions about the society into which integration is supposed to occur, what integration might involve and its real efficacy for combating terrorists. In addressing these issues, this article suggests that the debate over contemporary multiculturalism should be situated within a much wider social and political crisis over the meaning of ‘community’ in the UK, to which questions of global order and foreign policy are central. Comparing the ‘ethical’ basis of Al-Qaeda's attacks with Tony Blair's invocation of ‘values’ as the foundation for military intervention reveals that both seek to realize models of community through violence and a shared process of ‘radicalization’ which in both cases precedes 9/11 and which might be traced back to the Gulf War of 1991. The article concludes that debate over the future of multiculturalism in the UK is being conducted alongside and is implicated within a second, violent global conflict over community: one which is central to, but essentially unarticulated within the domestic context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information is presented on the Royal Society for Asian Affairs' biannual lecture at the East India Club in London, England on March 22, 2013. Topics, including research on the putative radicalisation of young Muslims in Great Britain, the architectural and cultural history of the Malabar coastal region of India and counterinsurgency in Sri Lanka, are discussed.