Radicalisation through Genealogical Research: The Hidden History of European Crime Prevention Policy

Drawing from the European Research Council funded project 'Neoliberal Terror: The Radicalisation of Social Policy in Europe', this paper outlines genealogical research findings about the policy precursors of radicalisation policy. Too often, research attributes the origins of the radicalisation concept to early terrorism prevention policies of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, post 9/11. Notable research in this field has shown the emergence of the term 'radicalisation' at this time, as a signifier for 'transition to political violence'. The genealogical method enables researchers to go further in tracing the development of the concept - highlighting the significance of crime prevention and social defence policies of the twentieth century, and their application to citizens at-risk of becoming criminal. By discussing archival research into crime prevention working groups of the UN, EU, and Council of Europe, the paper shows that 'radicalisation' relies upon a long trajectory of preventive social policy interventions upon vulnerable subjects, to stop them becoming criminals in the future. These multi-agency crime prevention methods were then copied over to terrorism prevention in the twenty-first century. Importantly, for that transition, the paper demonstrates that crime prevention always had urban security concerns at its core.