Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism
This textbook serves as a guide to design and evaluate evidence-based programs intended to prevent or counter violent extremism (P/CVE).
Violent extremism and related hate crimes are problems which confront societies in virtually every region of the world; this text examines how we can prevent or counter violent extremism using a systematic, evidence-based approach. The book, equal parts theoretical, methodological and applied, represents the first science-based guide for understanding what makes hate, and how to design and evaluate programs intended to prevent this.
Though designed to serve as a primary course textbook, the work can readily serve as a how-to guide for self-study, given its abundant links to freely available online toolkits and templates. As such, it is designed to inform both students and practitioners alike with respect to the management, design, or evaluation of programs intended to prevent or counter violent extremism. Written by a leading social scientist in the field of P/CVE program evaluation, this book is rich in both scientific rigor and examples from the real world of research and evaluation dedicated to P/CVE.
This book will be essential reading for students of terrorism, preventing or countering violent extremism, political violence, and deradicalization, and highly recommended for students of criminal justice, criminology, and behavioural psychology.
Michael J. Williams is the organizing member of the research, evaluation, and consulting firm, The Science of P/CVE, LLC. He has co-designed and evaluated programs designed to prevent or counter violent extremism, spanning five continents.
Political Violence
Series Editor: John G. Horgan, Georgia State University, USA
Founding Editor: David Rapoport
This book series contains sober, thoughtful and authoritative academic accounts of terrorism and political violence. Its aim is to produce a useful taxonomy of terror and violence through comparative and historical analysis in both national and international spheres. Each book discusses origins, organisational dynamics and outcomes of particular forms and expressions of political violence.
Understanding Terrorism Innovation and Learning
Al-Qaeda and Beyond
Edited by Magnus Ranstorp and Magnus Normark
Terrorist Histories
Individuals and Political Violence since the 19th Century
Caoimhe Nic Dhibhid
Secessionism and Terrorism
Bombs, Blood and Independence in Europe and Eurasia
Glen Duerr
Apocalypse, Revolution and Terrorism
From the Sicari to the American Revolt against the Modern World
Jeffrey Kaplan
Understanding Terrorism and Political Violence
The Life Cycle of Birth, Growth, Transformation, and Demise
Dipak K. Gupta
Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism
Designing and Evaluating Evidence-Based Programs
Michael J. Williams
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com/Political-Violence/book-series/SE0196
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2021 Michael J. Williams
The right of Michael J. Williams to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Williams, Michael J., 1974 author.
Title: Preventing and countering violent extremism: designing and
evaluating evidence-based programs / Michael J. Williams.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. | Series: Political violence | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024032 (print) | LCCN 2020024033 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138338456 (hardback) | ISBN 9781138338470 (paperback) | ISBN 9780429441738 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: RadicalismPrevention. | TerrorismPrevention. |
Political violencePrevention.
Classification: LCC HN49.R33 .W55 2021 (print) | LCC HN49.R33 (ebook) | DDC 303.48/4dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024032
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024033
ISBN: 978-1-138-33845-6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-138-33847-0 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-44173-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by codeMantra
This book is dedicated to the causes of preventing and countering ideologically motivated violence. By extension, its dedicated to you, the person reading this, for trying to do something constructive about these matters.
This book would not have been inspired were it not for three individuals. Dr. William (Bill) Evans, from the University of Nevada, Reno, my first and finest teacher of evaluation, remains one of my chief role models: in evaluation and more. Dr. Daniel Koehler, internationally recognized P/CVE expert, first suggested that I write a book on this subject. Dr. Horgan, the editor of this series, has been my trusted collaborator on years of research and without whose support neither that research nor this text would have materialized.
Given that violent extremism is a problem plaguing virtually every region of the worlda problem without an end in sighthow do we prevent or counter violent extremism (P/CVE) using a systematic, evidence-based approach? This textbook, equal parts theoretical, methodological, and applied, is the first science-based guide both for understanding what makes hate, and how to design and evaluate programs intended to prevent or counter violent extremism: representing the first volume to combine those three components, and to do so in textbook format.
Though designed to serve as a primary course textbook, this volume can readily serve as a how-to guide for self-study, given its abundant links to freely available online toolkits, templates, and checklists. Those free resources are intended both to give readers a head-start and to level out what might appear to be a steep path in designing or evaluating programs intended to prevent or counter violent extremism. Therefore, this text is designed to inform both students and practitioners alike with respect to the management, design, or evaluation of P/CVE programs.
The chapters lead with learning objectives: considered due diligence information that readers should gain via the chapters. The learning objectives are followed by primary materialthe bodies of the chaptersincluding real-world examples drawn from published research and the authors experiences. Similarly, the chapters will be accompanied by reality check callout boxes intended to draw readers attention to their own (perhaps unexamined) perspectives and caveats regarding a given topic.
