Resilience to Violent Extremism and Terrorism

Abstract

Violent extremism and terrorism are themselves multisystemic phenomena, with movements, actors, and events embedded within deeply complex and highly networked co-occurring systems that interact with one another at different levels and scales to support and enable violent extremist narratives, behaviors, actions, and outcomes. They can be highly resilient and pose significant challenges and threats to the function and viability of multiple nested and interconnected human (and at times natural) systems. Various meanings and practices of resilience have accordingly occupied a critical but vexed position within multisystemic approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism policy and practice. A strong focus on identifying and building the resilience of individuals and communities has come at the expense of understanding the ways in which the institutional and governmental co-occurring systems involved in countering terrorism may themselves be less or more resilient and what this means for future efforts to effectively prevent violent extremism.