USDSP, Country Reports on Terrorism 2014, June 2015

8/17/2019 USDSP, Country Reports on Terrorism 2014, June 2015

1/11

United States Institute of Peace • www.usip.org • Tel. 202.457.1700 • Fax. 202.429.6063

STATE OF THE ARTCountering Violent Extremism as a Field of Practiceby Steven Heydemann, Ph.D, vice president, Center for Applied Research on Conict, USIP

MISSION

USIP’s Insights Newsletter aims to chal-lenge and rene major assumptions aboutthe theory and practice of peacebuildingand contributes to the design of specicpeacebuilding tools applicable in conictsituations worldwide.

Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) is a rapidly expanding

eld of practice. Despite its impressive growth, CVE has

struggled to establish a clear and compelling denition as

a eld; has evolved into a catch-all category that lacks precision and

focus; reects problematic assumptions about the conditions that

promote violent extremism; and has not been able to draw clear

Continued on page 9

boundaries that distinguish CVE programs from those of other, well-established elds, such

as development and poverty alleviation, governance and democratization, and education.In addition, in reframing work in such elds in terms of its contribution to the prevention ofterrorism, CVE poses signicant risks to practitioners and participants whose local engage-ment may be seen as extensions of America’s often-controversial counterterrorism (CT)policies and thus as legitimate targets of critics of such policies.

Addressing these problems will not be easy and may require a reassessment of whetherCVE is a useful or effective framework for eld-based interventions. Developing a sharper,narrower, and more focused denition of CVE; tightening the boundaries between CVE asa eld of practice and its related elds of development, governance, and conict mitiga-tion; and a stronger commitment to testing the causal assumptions underlying CVE workare initial steps that would improve the design, implementation, and evaluation of CVE

programming. Identifying CVE as a classic case of a “wicked problem,” unpacking its com-ponent elements, and establishing which components are most tractable to specic kindsof interventions would be an important step in this direction.

The Problematic Origins and Development of CVEIn the wake of the 9/11 terror attacks, the U.S. embarked on a Global War on Terror. TheBush administration, with bipartisan support, elevated counterterrorism into a deningfeature of U.S. foreign policy: Military action—the use of force, or “kinetic” measures—became the preferred means for countering terrorism. Over the course of the 2000s,

ISSUE 1, SPRING 2014

Inside this issueSTATE OF THE ART

Countering Violent Extremismas a Field of Practice 1

Something Old, Something New 5

PEACE ARENA

Theory vs. Practice with Tom Parker and

Dr. John Horgan 2

IN PRACTICE

CVE in Nigeria & CVE in Pakistan 4


2/11

2


PEACE ARENA

“As the domain of CVE continues to mature and expand, moving further upstream to address rootcauses of extremist violence, much of the work touches the realm of peacebuilding. Violent extremismis a driver of conict, and violent extremists are often spoilers in peacebuilding efforts.”

I am always a little cautious aboutreferences to the ‘”root causes” of

extremist violence since it suggeststhat there are a discrete number ofgeneric causes of extremist violencewhereas both social science and eldexperience suggest that the drivers ofextremism and violent behavior come in many forms and combi-nations, some deeply personal and others more societal in nature,and differ from person to person.

What is, I think, fair to say is that the grievances articulated byviolent extremists are often grounded in the same political reali-ties that peacebuilding efforts are designed to engage, although

practitioners must take care not to draw facile connections asproximity is not always causation. Poverty is a classic case in point.Poverty is often cited as a root cause of terrorism, more often thannot by governments mired in a security crisis and seeking nancialaid from international donors. Yet the social science suggests thatpersonal experience of poverty is not highly correlated with ex-tremist violence—think of the students in Germany and Italy whoembraced Marxist terrorism in the early 1970s. Many—like SusanneAlbrecht, who assisted in the attempted kidnap and murder ofJürgen Ponto, Chairman of the Dresdener Bank, and the failedassassination attempt on Alexander Haig, NATO Commander-in-

Chief—came from affluent backgrounds. The same has been trueof many of the recruits that have joined al-Qaeda.

Those involved in peacebuilding efforts need to be aware ofextremist narratives and grievances but should not allow extremistnarratives to dominate their approach. Extremist groups require thesupport of their aspirational client communities to survive, what theIrish academic Louise Richardson has called “complicit surround.” This complicit surround should be the focus of peacebuildingefforts. If the client community turns its back on the extremists thentheir days are likely to be numbered as a political force.

Countering Violent Extremism(CVE), for many, is more about

preventing violent extrem-ism from taking root in the rst place.Because of this, those who espouseCVE quickly nd themselves in a no-win situation. It is not unlike beingshipwrecked with a tiny rowboat for survival. You may have thecompany of others but will face no end of disagreement aboutwhat to do. Once you realize that staying put is not a feasible option,it can be impossible to know in which direction you should row, andyou might never know if you have succeeded. Worse, if rescued, itmay not be because of anything that you actually did.

Violent extremism poses tremendous challenges for ex-planation and, thus, response. It comes in many forms. It hasmultiple, sometimes overlapping causes. It attracts multiple anddifferentially motivated participants, spawning diverse effects forparticipants and victims alike. Its reality is rarely as we would like itto be, and our responses do change it. Ironic then that so far CVEis unimpeded by the dueling metaphors that have plagued effortsto understand radicalization.

Even if we reach consensus on where to focus resources forprevention (e.g., structural conditions), we should never assumethat one kind of cause takes priority over another— a point borne

out in conicts where identity is a core driver. We still cannot evengrasp the simple fact that the motivation of the violent extremistis rarely the cause of their behavior.

The perennial challenge of violent extremists is to engineer revo-lution and mobilize the masses. By and large, they fail. They anchortheir vision in whatever crisis they can. The more they externalizeblame for that crisis, the greater potential to gain uncritical support-ers. And yet, that the pace and nature of CVE is almost exclusivelyresponsive to short-term terroristic gains is a testament to how un-imaginative and lackluster our efforts in this space continue to be.

by Tom Parker by Dr. John Horgan

In each Newsletter, the Peace Arena offers a space for discussion between scholars and practitioners as

they comment on a selected quote. This week we feature a discussion on CVE between Dr. John Horgan,

Director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and

Tom Parker, Advisor on Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism at the United Nations Counter-Terrorism

Implementation Task Force (CTITF). The selected quote comes from Georgia Holmer, Senior Program

Officer at USIP’s Center for Governance, Law and Society (GLAS). Holmer published a Special Report

entitled “Countering Violent Extremism: A Peacebuilding Perspective” in September 2013.Theory vs. Practice


3/11


However, as the quote notes, extremists can often have private,even mercenary reasons, for prolonging conict, making thempotential spoilers in peacebuilding efforts even when legitimategrievances are being addressed. In such circumstances, it is worth

bearing in mind that some violent extremists can also become pow-erful advocates for peacebuilding efforts precisely because of theirpast commitment to violent struggle.

Martin McGuinness, alleged former Head of the ProvisionalIRA’s General Army Council now deputy First Minister in NorthernIreland, has played a pivotal role in the Northern Ireland peaceprocess. In a remarkable statement in 2009, he described the rejec-tionist murderers of two British soldiers outside Massereene ArmyBarracks as “traitors to the island of Ireland”—a powerful repudia-tion of rejectionist aims, which carried substantial weight with thewider republican community. All views expressed are those of the

author and do not represent official UN policy.

Tom Parker’s response to John Horgan:John makes a compelling plea for exibility of both thought

and action, with which I fully concur. CVE is imprecisely understoodboth within academia and the policymaking community—yet it isalso currently in vogue because it seems to some to offer solutionsto pressing problems. However, what we actually have are notsolutions but rather a basket of insights culled from case studiesaround the world that may or may not be transferable from oneconict to another, and drawing analogies between conicts is

fraught with its own perils. Awareness of CVE research can cer-tainly help inform peacebuilding strategies, but it falls well short ofoffering a roadmap to successful outcomes. n

.

That we do not know precisely what we are preventing, letalone knowing how or whether we might have prevented it, doesnot make for a bright future. We cannot hide behind complexity. Itis already too late to prevent the inevitable ood of recruits to Syria

and probably too late also to adequately prepare for the increasinglikelihood of a crisis that will emerge from at least some returnees.

We have a rapidly diminishing opportunity to gure out whatCVE can be, and we must seize it. Scalability must be a core feature.CVE efforts should be big and small but also fast and slow andboth preemptive and responsive. They can never be top-down.Community-level engagement (even online) will remain a criticalrate-limiting success factor. Though it ought to be distinct frompeacebuilding, CVE can be part of it, and lessons from peacebuild-ing can inform CVE. We can limit spoiler impact by better enhanc-ing resilience, but we cannot seriously talk, even implicitly, a game

of prevention unless we are willing to acknowledge our glaringlimitations and plan accordingly.

John Horgan’s response to Tom Parker:I agree wholeheartedly with Tom Parker’s arguments about

the limitations of “root cause” arguments. They offer misleadingand serious ramications for formulating responses to violent ex-tremism and other conict-centered challenges. Equally, his pointabout the continuity of conict (often for reasons that differ fromthe original “causes”) is well taken. Ironically, however, a lesson inpointing out the extraordinary—and genuine—transformation of

Martin McGuinness from terrorist leader to elder statesman is thatit was the movement to which McGuinness once belonged thatessentially was one of the major catalysts for change in NorthernIreland. Of course a multitude of important actors were involved inpeacebuilding in Northern Ireland, but one could argue that it wasthe Provisional IRA many would say effectively choreographed thenature and pace of that process, at least until 2001–02. If the pursuitof CVE is implicitly a suggestion that its advocates are able to exertcontrol and inuence, we would do well to reect on the examplesraised by Parker. n

John Horgan, Cont.Tom Parker, Cont.

Some Final Comments by Georgia Holmer: The term “root cause” as used in this debate is a good illustrationof how CVE and Peacebuilding are indeed distinct domains ofpolicy and practice, each with its own dialect. “Root cause” theory interrorism studies, and simplistic causal explanations for violent

extremism, are dated ideas and, as John Horgan cautions, “offermisleading and serious ramications for formulating responses to violent extremism.” In conict analysis and among peacebuilders, and inthe context of this particular quote, the term refers to structural drivers of conict. The quote attempted to capture the evolution of CVE policyfrom an emphasis on countering the “pull” of ideology to addressing the more structural ”push” factors and, perhaps more importantly, therelatively new engagement of CVE practitioners in what have been traditional peacebuilding “spaces,” such as civil society and the educationsector. Regarding the overlap of the two domains, John Horgan astutely asserts that “though it ought to be distinct from peacebuilding, CVEcan be part of it, and lessons from peacebuilding can inform CVE.” Tom Parker critically notes that “awareness of CVE research can certainlyhelp inform peacebuilding strategies, but it falls well short of offering a roadmap to successful outcomes.” Both perspectives are largely con-sonant with the USIP Special Report from which the quote was taken. n


4/11

4


IN PRACTICECountering Violent Extremism: The Nigerian ExperienceMichael Olufemi Sodipo, Peace Initiative Network

N igeria is diverse, like the causes andcharacteristics of its ubiquitousconicts, especially if the analysisstretches over time. Intermittent erup-tions of sectarian strife, corruption, mutualdistrust, and social intolerance provide thebackdrop to extremist ideology in Nigeria.In June 2011, the federal government cre-ated the Joint Task Force (JTF), a special mili-tary force comprising the Nigerian armedforces and the police, aimed at mitigating

the threat of violent extremism.Despite the acclaimed success of

Nigerian CVE operations, paradoxically theterror campaign of Boko Haram is yet toabate, rather becoming more sophisticatedand lethal. The politicization of discourse onviolent extremism, the lack of intelligenceon insurgent activities, and the allegedhuman rights abuses by the security forcesundermine CVE efforts. In addition, the lackof national consensus on the best approach

to counter extremist groups continues tobe an albatross in the ght against violent

extremism. The JTF strategic operations,very much in line with traditional counter-terrorism approaches, include militarycrackdowns on extremists through house-to-house searches, military stop and searchcheckpoint, raids, and demolition of homesoccupied by suspects. Noncoercive CVEinstruments deployed by the Nigeriangovernment include the establishmentof dialogue committees, security sectorreform, economic development initiatives,

and youth empowerment programs.Civil society actors, religious leaders,

community elders, and the media pursuea wide range of activities to increase com-munity engagement, promote peaceeducation, and build tolerance, socialhealing, security, and a culture of peacein Nigeria. The Nigerian government andthe UN Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force in January 2012 unveiled proj-ects under the Integrated Assistance for

Counter-Terrorism initiative to supportNigerian efforts in combating the scourge

of extremism. The U.S Department of State

listing of Boko Haram as a Foreign TerroristOrganization in November 2013 is the latestmove by an international partner in the ef-fort to counter violent extremism in Nigeria.

The dynamics and manifestationsof violent extremism in Nigeria havechanged over the years. The phenomenonhas deep roots in poor governance andthe culture of corruption that pervadesevery level of Nigerian society and feedsextremist ideology. A CVE policy that does

not address these drivers of violence isunlikely to succeed. n

Source: Wikimedia Commons

CVE in PakistanNadia Naviwala, Pakistan Country Representative, U.S. Institute of Peace

M ost bilateral and multilateral mis-sions in Pakistan are concernedwith mitigating violence in oremanating from the country. While they eachhave offices that could be considered to fallunder the umbrella of “CVE,” their denitions,objectives, and approaches are very different—reecting the ambiguity of the term andthe complexity of conict in Pakistan.

The United States has the clearest com-mitment to the term, collapsing the work ofmany offices—public affairs, stabilization,governance, and rule of law—under the

overarching policy objective of counteringviolent extremism. The U.S. approach is alsothe most expansive, seeking to counter all

forms of ideological extremism that justifythe use of violence. The most interesting it-eration has been in Karachi, where counter-ing violent extremism has meant trying tocounter participation in political violence,ethnic violence, and even criminal gangsamong youth. The term “stabilization” isoften seen alongside CVE, so that the objec-tive is strengthening domestic peace andstability in Pakistan.

The UK approach is very different. Insteadof the term CVE, their policy objective is

Source: USIP Website

Continued on page 8


5/11


6/11

6


hindering socioeconomic development.Consequently, CVE efforts include a mixof security and development approachesand provide an important platform tobuild bridges across divergent areas of

policy and practice that focus on theprevention and mitigation of violence. Thus, while CVE emerged from thecounterterrorism portfolio, in practice it iscloser to efforts to address the structuralcauses of conict, while serving as oneinstrument in the conict prevention andmitigation toolkit.

The absence of a clear consensus onthe drivers of violent extremism and theparticularities which shape grievances and

reactions make it difficult to determineexactly which push or pull factors will mo-tivate individuals or groups to support vio-lent extremist ideas and groups—or evengo that extra step and perpetrate a terror-ist act. This discord raises the thorny ques-tion of the basis for CVE engagement andpolicies. Some international actors havehad the resources and political support todedicate resources for needs assessmentsand the mapping of dynamics that can

foster violent extremism. However, not allare able to invest adequately—either interms of time or nances—to gain a deepunderstanding of local or regional dynam-ics. On the other hand, it may be unrealisticto expect any external actor to gain a deepunderstanding of local dynamics whenthe threat landscape is constantly uidand they are caught between domestic,international, and other policy priorities.How then to develop a better starting

point for CVE interventions? At the veryleast, by ensuring sufficient resources andtime—which is often in even less supplythan money—to undertake eld visits andresearch to understand not only local andnational but also regional dynamics and,where relevant, have the opportunity tointeract with important external actorseither in the diaspora or neighbouringstates. No state or community is an island,

and the threat scenario, and opportunitiesto intervene, may well be found in suchrelationships.

From Ideas to Action

CVE has manifested itself in a broad range ofinitiatives that include building the capaci-ties of nancial, criminal justice, and rule oflaw institutions; developing media prod-ucts and messages to challenge extremistnarratives and counter their ideologies;training police and frontline officials aboutCVE; and strengthening engagement withcivil society groups working on violenceprevention and related development is-sues. A number of innovative activities have

been undertaken to further CVE efforts,such as youth engagement and employ-ment projects, educational programs, andthe development of TV, radio, and othermedia programming to showcase alterna-tive narratives to those propagated byextremists.

Do any of these work? Evaluating anypreventive measure remains an enormous

challenge as it necessitates “measuring thenegative” and attributing causality wherenone can be fully determined. However,that does not mean it cannot be doneat all. Where particular structural condi-tions have been directly linked to violentextremism, projects addressing those con-ditions can be evaluated for their impactin mitigating the threat. Moreover, whereprojects have a clearly dened objective,

target audience, and articulated theory ofchange, developing a set of benchmarksor indicators becomes more feasible. MostCVE projects that have been evaluated ina thoughtful manner have taken this latter

approach. Like development work, CVE isa long-term strategy with a more uncer-tain outcome than kinetic measures but isan important instrument in the preventiontoolkit since the narratives and activitiesthat fuel recruitment and support for vio-lent extremism cannot be allowed to gounchallenged.

Although progress has been made,there remain a number of critical challengesfor CVE policymakers and practitioners.

First, despite the proliferation of CVEactivities, there remains a lack of clarity orshared understanding among differentgovernments and experts regarding thedenition of the term and its implicationsfor programming. For some actors, CVEefforts constitute outreach by securitysector actors to gain intelligence and infor-mation; for others, CVE entails a broaderrange of prevention efforts includinginitiatives by social workers, educators,

and development actors, which traditionalsecurity actors may not consider related tocounterterrorism. This ambiguity poseschallenges in the determination of fundingfor projects, for cohesive messaging acrossdifferent government entities, and for theevaluation of CVE projects. Without agree-ment on a working premise, if not a deni-tion of CVE, it is difficult to determine whatprojects are specically focusing on CVE andwhat projects address related issues but

have attendant benets for CVE. Moreover,this makes it difficult to evaluate programsand better understand their impact, espe-cially when the theories of change and theobjectives of the projects remain unclear.

Second, and not unrelated to the rst,is the challenge of the “CVE” label. Withouta shared understanding of the term “CVE”it is difficult to know which programscan accurately be labelled as such. The

“While CVE emerged

from the counterterror-

ism portfolio, in practice

it is closer to efforts to

address the structural

causes of conict.”


7/11


political sensitivities around counterterror-ism programs have made it problematic fora number of grassroots groups to receivefunding and support under a CVE rubricwithout compromising the relationship

with their constituencies. Moreover, thereremain concerns about the securitization ofdevelopment programs and instrumental-ization of local partners, as well as the safetyof personnel associated with counterter-rorism efforts in the eld. Such concernshave constrained engagement betweensecurity and development practitioners,though there are some indications of posi-tive change in this regard. Revisions to theUnited Kingdom’s “Prevent” program and

efforts to couch CVE in terms applicable tolocal contexts reect an evolution from theearlier approaches in which a broad spec-trum of activities were labelled as “CVE” andgenerated some backlash from communi-ties who believed they were being undulystigmatized and securitized.

Third, scaling up CVE projects andmoving from a tactical to a strategic ap-proach remains a challenge. Evolving orunclear funding mechanisms for projects

have not always been conducive to thekind of multiyear support required for CVEprojects that focus on addressing struc-tural prevention, such as educational ordevelopment activities focused on youthor women, or capacity-building initia-tives to strengthen key institutions. Whilecounterterrorism efforts have tradition-ally focused on responsive interventionsto proximate threats, CVE takes a longer-term approach which is not always easy

to t into nancial and political cycles. Onthe ip side, the government proclivityfor funding large projects has sometimessidelined smaller grassroots groups thathave sought support for more localizedand smaller-scale CVE projects.

Fourth, governments and internationalorganizations face constraints when tryingto keep up with the strategic communica-tions of extremist groups. Unhampered by

bureaucracy and political sensitivities, ex-tremist groups like al-Qaeda have demon-strated adaptability and resilience in craft-ing messages and communications that canboth radicalize and mobilize supporters and

link local grievances and events to a globalnarrative of struggle. In contrast, it appearsgovernment actors are left with the task ofcountering a narrative that has been estab-lished by extremists—of responding ratherthan proactively shaping it.

Fifth, there remains a need for moreeffective balancing of top-down andbottom-up approaches. Local partnersare essential to determine the dynamicsof violence and radicalization in a local

or regional context and to determinethe environmental factors most relevantin driving support for extremist groups.Moreover, local partners are often bestplaced to shape contextually appropriateCVE interventions that are more likelyto gain traction with critical audiences.However, this engagement needs to becomplemented with top-down supportfrom governments to ensure the politicalspace and support for the implementation

of CVE projects.

Going ForwardAs a number of conict dynamics growincreasingly complex, violent extremismis one of several ingredients contributingto a lethal cocktail of insecurity, criminal-ity, and conict. In contrast to traditionalcounterterrorism approaches, CVE offersthe opportunity for a reaction more clear-

ly tailored to the contemporary threat.Responding to terrorist acts without tak-ing a more preventive and multidimen-sional approach will not prove sufficientfor an effective response to these threats,

making CVE a critical component of coun-terterrorism strategies and a contributionto broader efforts to prevent violence andpromote human security.

Post-9/11 counterterrorism responseshave at times created ssures betweenstates focusing on the threats generated byal-Qaeda and its affiliates and those statesconcerned that their development priori-ties would be superseded by the counter-terrorism agenda. The balance between

the need to address “structural causes” and“hard” security responses was struck in theUnited Nations’ 2006 Global Strategy andis reected in the broad spectrum of CVEinitiatives. The CVE framework thereforeoffers a valuable opportunity to take amore integrated approach to violence andconict and can build on longstanding ex-periences and lessons learned from relatedelds of practice.

Multilateral actors, such as the United

Nations, Global Counterterrorism Forum,and European Union, have increasinglyemphasized the importance of the multi-dimensional preventive approach encap-sulated in CVE policies and programs. TheUN’s Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force and Counter-Terrorism ExecutiveDirectorate are working on a number ofinitiatives that promote dialogue andunderstanding to counter the appeal ofterrorism, as well as efforts to inhibit incite-

ment to terrorism. The GCTF’s CVE WorkinGroup offers an important platform for in-ternational action on this front, illustratedby the establishment of Hedayah, theinternational centre of excellence on CVEin Abu Dhabi, and the announcement of aGlobal Fund for Community Engagementand Resilience. The latter will offer a rsttime vehicle for public-private partner-ships on CVE and facilitate support to local

“Responding to terrorist

acts without taking a more

preventive and multidimensional approach

will not prove sufcient.”


8/11

8


grassroots actors furthering CVE efforts inthe eld.

The proliferation of these oppor-tunities and activities, however, alsounderscores the need for collaboration,

cooperation, and information sharingamong relevant actors to reduce the scopefor duplication and avoid saturating com-munities and regions with programmingbeyond the absorption capacity. Emphasison holistic approaches for CVE needs tobe matched by “whole of government”approaches in countries as well as withinthese organizations. Over the past fewyears the CVE policy framework has beendeveloped, rened, and revised. While in

the early stages the framework was largelydetermined by security and intelligenceactors, the emphasis on engaging localactors and communities presents an op-portunity for CVE to be situated within atruly multidimensional paradigm.

Going forward, CVE efforts will need

to continue engaging a broad rangeof practitioners in the various elds inwhich core CVE activities are under-taken—development, education, conictprevention, and media. Rather than rush

to relabel all these activities as “CVE,” itis more opportune to mainstream CVEobjectives—a preventive approach toviolent extremism—into these activitiesto meet the overall objective of prevent-ing violence and conict and promotingsustainable development. To that end,

while the existing expertise and experi-ences of several countries in addressingviolence and extremism have contributedto a global knowledge base of good prac-tices and lessons learned, there remains a

need to ensure that responses are moreclosely tailored to the context in whichthey are implemented. Fitting these re-sponses requires translating macro-levelassessments of “push” and “pull” factorsinto assessments of local and regional driv-ers of violence and extremism based onresearch and engagement. These mightinclude mapping exercises to determineperceptions of violent extremism andidentify needs and credible interlocutors.

Such a baseline will provide an importantfoundation upon which responses can bedeveloped that help prevent extremistgroups from preying on vulnerable com-munities and recruiting youth into a vio-lent path that hinders prospects for bothindividual and national development. n

CVE in Pakistan cont.

counterterrorism. Counter radicalizationand rule of law, especially strengtheningthe police and justice systems, serve thisobjective. The British focus is to prevent thenext terrorist attack in the UK by preventingpeople from becoming terrorists or sup-porting terrorist organizations, specicallyal-Qaeda and its affiliates. They are also notshy in their concern with “violent Islamist

ideology” and promotion of liberal values—democracy, human rights, equality—whichthey believe undermine that support.

Other actors, like USIP, work towardsCVE objectives within their work onconict management. The Germans, whoexperienced violent extremism in theform of Nazism, do support work aroundconict mitigation but deliberately avoidthe term.

While CVE is an attractive politicalconcept, most missions and their civilsociety partners struggle to operationalizeit. “Extremism” is an awkward way to de-scribe conict in a country where it takes

so many shapes: political, ethnic, sectarian,separatist, and criminal. And using ideol-ogy as a point of departure neglects the

many other explanations for how conicthas emerged in the course of the country’spolitical development. Finally, in the localcontext, the term can be offensive and endup exacerbating conict between secularand religious communities.

Ironically, while the ambiguity of theterm may have led to some operationalchallenges, its exibility has also givenmissions and offices space to develop pro-gramming that is adaptive and responsive

to the context. But whether it is successfulin achieving its objective of changingmindsets and preventing violence is verydifficult, maybe impossible, to measure.Most discussion about work in this spacefocuses on outputs—work with religiousleaders, ashy media. There is little if anyevidence of the impact of these types ofinterventions on shifting individual beliefsor societal norms. n

“There remains a need

to ensure that responses

are more closely tailored

to the context in which

they are implemented.”

“There is little if any

evidence of the impact

of these types of

interventions on shift-

ing individual beliefs

or societal norms.”


9/11


Countering Violent cont.

however, U.S. officials came to recognizethe limits of kinetic tactics. Killing ter-rorists might prevent or deter but could

not respond to the factors that causeterrorism in the rst place and could becounterproductive by provoking violentreactions to U.S. counterterrorism efforts.In response, and without diminishing therole of military tools in CT, the U.S. gov-ernment expanded its focus to includestrategies for addressing the root causesof terrorism. This shift reected growingappreciation among American officialsthat effective counterterrorism required

addressing the underlying conditionsthat promote violent extremism.

The eld of CVE has diverse origins andlinks to earlier efforts to address violentforms of political mobilization. Yet itsexpansion as a eld in the 2000s can belinked to the response of U.S. agenciesto the growing priority they attached tothe threat of violent extremism and theconditions that support it. In effect, CVE ascurrently congured within the U.S. policy

system can be seen as a bureaucratic re-sponse to shifts in the policy priorities ofthe U.S. as its war on terror matured.

Beginning in the late 2000s, the StateDepartment and the U.S. Agency forInternational Development (USAID) un-dertook extensive efforts to dene CVE, toestablish what constituted best practice inthe eld of CVE, and to set out operationalprinciples and guidelines to inform the de-velopment of CVE programming. In keeping

with USAID’s longstanding focus on issues ofdevelopment and poverty alleviation, CVEwas initially seen as tightly linked to—andan offshoot of—broader strategies aimed atenhancing economic development. It soonexpanded beyond this, however, becominga catch-all category that was embraced byagencies and bureaus across the U.S. policysystem—notwithstanding tensions acrossagencies in what CVE priorities should be

and how they should be pursued.Within the State Department, the

Bureau of Counterterrorism added a newoffice focusing on CVE. In line with thistrend, other governments and interna-

tional institutions, including the UK (inits CONTEST counterterrorism strategyreleased in July 2011), the UN, the GCC,and the EU, also began to develop theirown CVE programs. In December 2012,an international coalition of governmentsestablished the Hedayah InternationalCenter of Excellence for CounteringViolent Extremism in the United ArabEmirates. Where donors lead, contractorsand implementing organizations are not

far behind: Within the span of only a fewyears, a large number of USAID contractorsmoved to establish their capacity to man-age government-funded CVE programs. Their counterparts in the UK and else-

where followed suit.As part of their efforts to dene and give

coherence to CVE as a eld of practice, U.S.officials, through USAID, sought to identifythe conditions that were believed to pro-mote violent extremism and what might bedone to address them. In keeping with thediffuse, unfocused, yet expansive identityof the eld, these conditions encompassedan unwieldy assortment of factors, includ-

ing “high levels of social marginalizationand fragmentation; poorly governed orungoverned areas; government repressionand human rights violations; endemiccorruption and elite impunity . . . cultural

threat perceptions . . . access to materialresources, social status and respect frompeers; a sense of belonging, adventure,and self-esteem or personal empowermentthat individuals and groups that have longviewed themselves as victimized and mar-ginalized can derive from the feeling thatthey are making history; and the prospectof achieving glory or fame.”

Causal Confusion versus

Causal ComplexityFor practitioners struggling to unpackthe causal pathways that lead individualsinto extreme violence, create or rein-force pathways out of it, and removeor weaken the factors that produce it inthe rst place, this list poses a dauntingchallenge. Which factors matter most?If they all matter, which should we pri-oritize? How do we know whether ourassumptions about the causes of violent

extremism are valid? What if causalityis too complex to imagine that we cancounter violent extremism throughpiecemeal interventions? Do we havecondence that the tools and interven-tions available will produce meaningfulresults, especially given the uncertaintyabout whether the causal claims thatUSAID advances are right? These are thekinds of questions about what works andwhat does not with which practitioners in

more established elds have wrestled fordecades. In many cases, years of testingand eld experiments have yielded onlymodest results. Yet for advocates of CVE,there is little sense that such uncertaintyabout causal relationships has informedits development as a eld of practice.

As a result, key elements of the effortto dene “best practice” in the eld of CVEhave had problematic effects. Five such

“CVE as currently con-

gured within the U.S.

policy system can be

seen as a bureaucratic

response to shifts in

the policy priorities

of the U.S. as its war

on terror matured.”


10/11

10


elements deserve further attention here.(1) The U.S. and other government

sponsors of CVE programs acknowledgethat the motivations that lead individu-als to embrace violent extremism maybe too varied and too idiosyncratic to be

generalizable and may not respond toexternal interventions unless they are verynarrowly targeted. Yet diffuse and vagueguidance concerning the design of CVEprograms encourages broad-spectruminterventions that often lack the specicityto clearly assess their effects.

(2) An exceptionally large and diversenumber of variables are understood tocontribute to the decision by individuals toembrace violent extremism, including so-

cial, political, economic, psychological, andcultural factors—a list that is so encompass-ing that virtually any set of conditions couldbe viewed as drivers of violent extremism.As funding for work dened as CVE hasexpanded, this lack of focus has producedmission creep, the relabeling of existingprograms in terms of CVE, and other tacticsthat undermine efforts to determine whatis distinctive about the work of counteringextremism and to design and test models

and tools that explicitly target specic driv-ers of extremism.

(3) The frameworks developed bythe U.S. government rest on very poorlyanchored assumptions about the causalrelationship between various factors andthe decision by an individual to become aviolent extremist. Assumptions about linksbetween poverty and violent extremismhave been questioned by economists.Political scientists have challenged whethersocially marginal populations are morelikely to embrace terrorist ideologies thanare well-educated and relatively well-off segments of society. Yet uncertainty aboutthe causes of violent extremism has notinuenced the pace or scale of U.S. govern-ment funding for CVE programs.

(4) The boundaries between CVE andother more established elds are quite po-rous, including rule of law, security sector

reform, governance and democratization,mediation and negotiation, gender andpeacebuilding, religion and conict, con-ict prevention, and development. Thisblurring of boundaries reinforces percep-tions of CVE as a catch-all category lacking

well-dened conceptual, organizational,and empirical foundations as a eld ofpractice.

(5) Finally, despite the rise of CVE asan attempt to temper the kinetic and coer-cive aspects of counterterrorism policy, itis widely seen as furthering the militariza-tion of the many elds that are broughtunder the CVE umbrella and which, forreasons both political and nancial, be-come redened in terms of their utility in

advancing a CVE agenda.

Collectively, these factors have had aprofound and problematic effect on thetrajectory and growth of CVE as a eld ofpractice. It has become an amorphous cat-egory, lacking theoretical or applied focus;encompasses a confusing and occasion-ally contradictory array of approaches; hasbecome a label of convenience for inter-ventions that would otherwise be denedin terms of better established categories,such as security sector reform, governance,gender and peacebuilding, rule of law, andconict prevention, among others; hasdeveloped practices that rest on poorly un-derstood and poorly documented assump-tions about what causes violent extremism,virtually ensuring that CVE programmingwill be unsuccessful; and has such diffuseand wide-ranging scope that efforts to es-tablish what constitutes success in CVE—as

opposed to success in reducing poverty,improving literacy, reforming a security sec-tor, empowering women, improving gover-nance, creating jobs, mitigating sectarianviolence, promoting democracy, etc.—arepoorly dened. As noted by McCants and

Watts, “[A]lthough U.S. government docu-ments frequently employ the term CVE,there is not a shared view of what CVE is orhow it should be done. Denitions rangefrom stopping people from embracing ex-treme beliefs that might lead to terrorism toreducing active support for terrorist groups. The lack of a clear denition for CVE not onlyleads to conicting and counterproductiveprograms but also makes it hard to evaluatethe CVE agenda as a whole and determine

whether it is worthwhile to continue.”

Redening CVE?Is it worthwhile to continue? Despite thereservations and concerns associated withthe emergence of CVE as a eld, it shouldnot be summarily set aside as a frameworkfor programming. Its presence has the po-tential to focus the attention of practitionerson the root causes of violent extremism asa problem distinct from outcomes dened

in terms of development or governance.It creates incentives for practitioners tointegrate CVE objectives into programsthat may previously have viewed mitigat-ing extremism as ancillary to success in, say,enhancing political participation, reducingcorruption, or improving service provision.

These benets are not trivial. Yet they areinsufficient to demonstrate the value-addedof CVE as a discrete eld, distinct in somemeaningful way from its component parts.

To realize its potential as a eld of practice,CVE will need to do more than increase theamount of money spent on interventionsthat have not proven their effectiveness.Most important, advocates of CVE shoulddevelop a sharper, narrower, and morefocused denition of the eld. This effortshould be accompanied by a stronger com-mitment—including through the allocationof resources—to dening and testing the

“Advocates of CVE

should develop a

sharper, narrower, and

more focused deni-

tion of the eld.”


11/11

© USIP 2014 • All rights reserved.

U NITED S TATES

I NSTITUTE OF P EACE

2301 Constitution Ave. NW

Washington, DC 20037

202.457.1700

www.usip.org

USIP provides the analysis, training andtools that prevent and end conicts,

promotes stability and professionalizes

the eld of peacebuilding.

For media inquiries, contact the ofce

of Public Affairs and Communications,

202.429.4725


causal assumptions underlying CVE, effortsthat would improve the design, implemen-tation, and evaluation of CVE program-ming. Identifying CVE as a classic case of a“wicked problem,” unpacking its component

elements, and establishing which are mosttractable to specic kinds of interventions areimportant steps in this direction.

To implement these recommendationswill require that CVE programming becomemore self-reexive and self-critical. Moves in

this direction will require that donor organi-zations commit themselves to support “dual-purpose” programming: approaches thatexploit interventions as opportunities to testcausal assumptions, explore the efficacy of

tools, clarify and sharpen the boundaries ofthe eld, and rene strategies and practices.In the absence of such efforts, the eld ofCVE is unlikely to answer the central ques-tion of whether it deserves to be understoodas a distinct eld of practice. n

Documents

USDSP, Country Reports on Terrorism 2014, June 2015