Work performed from the 1st December 2020 to 30th November 2021 has provided above all general methodological bases of the work-field that will be implemented in the next years, as well as a deeper critical knowledge of the research on extremism and radicalisation, including P\CVE.
1) Social lab methodology
Regarding to the first aspect it has been developed the “Social Labs: A Shared Participatory Methodology for Fieldwork” (task leader: Maastricht University) a guide to implement social labs, main methodological approach adopted in the PARTICIPATION project, in order to involve women, young people, decision makers and, in general, people, in municipalities, religion communities and schools, in the research process as well as in the development of new tools to prevent extremism, social polarisation and violent radicalisation.
2) A deeper critical knowledge of the research on extremism and P\CVE
Our analysis is based on a large set of studies conducted so far in the PARTICIPATION Project and, in particular:
- A Systematic review of the recent literature on the drivers of radicalisation and violent extremism based on a mixed research design. This study analysed 350 international papers and reports published between 2015 and 2021 with the aim to identify main development trends in current extremism and violent radicalisation (Task leader: European Foundation for Democracy).
- A Comparative research on P/CVE policies and strategies, at national and local level, in 8 European Countries: United Kingdom, France, Italy, Belgium, The Netherlands, Romania, Greece, Portugal. In addition, a special focus was on EU policies. Desk research and interviews involving experts were the methodologies for this study (Task leader: Universidade do minho).
- An Integrated research (systematic review on scientific literature and 16 semi-structured interviews with experts) on counter and alternative narratives communication strategies developed in Europe between 2015 and 2021 (task leader: Università degli Studi “Roma Tre”).
- A study on the characteristics and the effectiveness of the main risk assessment methodologies such as ERG22+ and VERA-2r (task leader: Centro Studi Internazionali).
Main emerging trends in extremism and radicalisation in Europe identified are:
• Extremism is more and more a cumulative phenomenon.
• Digital cultures and gamification play an important role.
• Radicalisation process should be understood as an event that occurs at the intersection between a personal trajectory and a permissive, or enabling, environment.
• Many radicalised young people suffer from a shared lack of acceptance from the society which they live in.
• Assembling new kind of extremism (hybridisation): this process takes place both between 'consolidated' extremisms and through the interaction with emerging phenomena such as, for instance, the proliferation of conspiracy theories or new religious movements (related to the recovery of an old tradition, such as Nordic mythology, or connected to more contemporary forms of spirituality, such as the New Age).
• Islamist extremism has remained a priority for several countries.
Consequently, the major challenge for eventual policy was the need to design a coherent approach to P/CVE and to avoid fatigue caused by introducing too many initiatives on different levels as well as to re-think risk assessment tools and methodologies because they are inadequate when it is necessary to analyse the pre-criminal space, young people, women or alienated and discriminated ethnic, religious, sexual, and social minorities.
