Author Meets Critics Panel on 'The Dynamics of Radicalization' by Alimi, Demetriou and Bosi (Oxford UP, 2015)

Abstract

Why is it that some opposition movements engaged in contentious politics experience radicalization on the part of member organizations whereas others do not? Alimi, Demetriou, and Bosi reply to this question by investigating how and when movement organizations switch from a predominantly nonviolent mode of contention to a predominantly violent one, including but not limited to, political terrorism. Moving beyond existing explanations that posit aggressive propensities and motivations, grievances, or violent-prone ideologies, The Dynamics of Radicalization demonstrates how these factors gain and lose salience in the context relational dynamics unfolding among various parties and actors involved in episodes of contention. In doing so it also provides insight on de-radicalization and non-radicalized contention. Employing a mechanism-based comparative historical analysis, the book looks at processes of radicalization across a range of episodes, including most centrally al-Qaeda, the Red Brigades, and the Cypriot EOKA. The relational theory of radicalization the book develops, together with the comparative framework utilized, advance the understanding of the emergence and intensification of political violence in several important ways: • they identify punctuations in the radicalization processes while respecting their dynamic and open-ended character; • they allow for similarities to be found across diverse, even seemingly incompatible, empirical manifestations of radicalization processes, such as al-Qaeda and the Insurrectional Anarchists of late Nineteenth century or the Red Brigades and the Weather Underground; • they promote comparisons by using these similarities as entry points for a more nuanced analysis of difference; and, • they allow for radicalization and de-radicalization to be compared with each other (e.g. the Provisional IRA and the Catalan Movement). By demonstrating the potency of the framework through the analysis of several episodes of contention, The Dynamics of Radicalization offers a counterpoint to mainstream works on political violence – including terrorism studies and works on insurgencies and civil wars – that tend to presume that violence is rooted in some qualities intrinsic to or developed by the “group at risk”. In these times of exponentially increasing instances of political violence worldwide, Alimi, Demetriou, and Bosi’s book calls upon scholars to avoid the temptation to compartmentalize phenomena of political violence and to treat them as essentially distinct or sui generis. It therefore offers not only a valuable corrective to the tendency to individualize and ideologize instances of political violence and terrorism, but also a unified conceptual and theoretical framework for the analysis of nonviolent and violent contention.

Title	Details
The Dynamics of Radicalization: Critic I	View Paper Details
The Dynamics of Radicalization: Authors' Reply II	View Paper Details
The Dynamics of Radicalization: Authors' Reply III	View Paper Details
The Dynamics of Radicalization: Authors' Reply I	View Paper Details
The Dynamics of Radicalization: Critic II	View Paper Details