Radicalization and Recruitment

Abstract

As described in the GTI, ISIL's transnational tactics in combination with lone actor attacks inspired by the group drove an increase in terrorism to its highest levels ever across Europe and many OECD countries (upwards of a 650 percent increase in deaths since 2014). The attacks by ISIL in Paris, Brussels, and in Turkey's capital Ankara, were amongst the most devastating in the history of these countries and reflect a disturbing return of the transnational group-based terrorism. Actor network theory (ANT) was applied as a systems lens to open the “blackbox” of terrorism. The systems view facilitated by ANT highlighted how dynamic networked actors shape radicalization through the actor network process of translation. This chapter applies functional resonance accident model (FRAM) methodology. The FRAM method was used to analyze how radicalization activities (as described through ANT) take place and where and how intervention strategies can be designed to interfere with the radicalization process.