Radicalization

Contestation of the ConceptRadicalization is a term that some authors would prefer to see consigned to the post 9/11 history books.It gained traction in a Western policy and academic contex t during the "War on Terror," and at the same time "radicalization studies" proliferated (Stampnitzky, 2013).The scholarship suggests radicalization, for those who accept the term, is a process of escal ation from nonviolence to violence over time through complex interactions (della Porta, 2018).However, there is little agreement on a precise definition.Scholars seek to understand radicalization as a process with stages that can be interrupted and countered.However, pinning down the mechanisms of radicalization processes has proven challenging.Like terrorism and extremism, radicalization is a conceptually contentious and also politically problematic term.Globally , government measures to counter it have had egregious effects in what have often been the most marginalized populations, particularly Muslim communities.This has led some scholars (see Khalil et al., 2022) to call for the avoida nce of the term.