{"id":21514,"date":"2020-02-04T10:40:03","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T09:40:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/prevex-a-new-chapter-in-bcsp-s-research-of-violent-extremism\/"},"modified":"2020-02-04T10:40:03","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T09:40:03","slug":"prevex-a-new-chapter-in-bcsp-s-research-of-violent-extremism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/prevex-a-new-chapter-in-bcsp-s-research-of-violent-extremism\/","title":{"rendered":"PREVEX: A New Chapter in BCSP\u2019s Research of Violent Extremism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Researchers from all over the world taking part in the project met in Brussels to discuss how PREVEX can improve the understanding of violent extremism.\u00a0BCSP Program Director\u00a0<\/strong>Predrag Petrovic<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0is one of the project researchers, who are coming from different disciplinary backgrounds, with competences and extensive experience in the regions and on the topics examined.<\/p>\n

\u201cBCSP team has\u00a0researched<\/a>\u00a0drivers of radicalisation and violent extremism in Serbia. Through this project, we will focus more on the side of prevention – how to strengthen resilience in local communities,\u201d Petrovic explained.<\/strong><\/div>\n

Engaging policy-makers, academics and citizens<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Besides the discussions about the project, a public event titled\u00a0\u201cPreventing Violent Extremism in the Balkans and the MENA\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0was held. It was an important step in engaging both policy-makers, academics and the general public from the very beginning of the project, providing the researchers with a unique opportunity to receive input and feedback.<\/p>\n

Kari M. Osland<\/strong>\u00a0from NUPI presented the PREVEX core questions.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow come two boys who grew up in the same neighbourhood in difficult living conditions, went to the same school, experienced a similar upbringing ended up with one being radicalised and becoming a foreign fighter, while the other ended up working in the same factory as his father? This question is at the very core of the PREVEX project – why people living in enabling environments choose not to get involved in violence,\u201d Osland highlighted at the event.<\/strong><\/div>\n

A current weakness of the research on violent extremism is that it is easier to explain why people turn to violence and take up arms than why they do not.\u00a0Morten Boas<\/strong>\u00a0from NUPI explained that PREVEX partially turns this around by investigating why some communities display much greater resilience to violent extremism ideologies than others.<\/p>\n

Comparative mapping of the preventive strategies adopted by the EU and other key actors, as well as identifying lessons learned and suggest how to upscale best practice, is one of the project’s main objectives.\u00a0Djallil Lounnas<\/strong>\u00a0from Al Akhawayn University explained that some North African countries have chosen a pathway of repression, while others are based on the idea that repression does not work.<\/p>\n

“The latter are the ones we can learn lessons from,” argued Lounnas.<\/strong><\/div>\n

Niagal\u00e9 Bagayoko<\/strong>\u00a0from the African Security Sector Network and\u00a0Edina Becirevic<\/strong>\u00a0from Atlantic Initiative both pointed to the importance of investigating different forms of extremism. Bagayoko highlighted that while Jihadi groups are an integral part of violent discourses and conflict dynamics, it is important for PREVEX to look at how other non-state actors such as self-defence groups, communal militias, and criminal networks contribute to violent extremism.<\/p>\n

\u201eWe also need to look at ethno-nationalist driven violent extremism in the case of the Balkans,\u201c\u00a0Becirevic warned.<\/strong><\/div>\n

Andr\u00e9as Hatzidiakos\u00a0<\/strong>from the\u00a0European External Action Service – EEAS\u00a0provided interesting insights from the EU\u2019s perspective, giving the attendees a sense of what sort of knowledge policy-makers already have, need and want. He pointed to the fact that the EU is a new actor in the field of counter-terrorism, which traditionally has been in the hands of member states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is currently a strong focus on dialogue and exchange of best practices with partner countries to help each other. This is also to ensure ownership by local authorities – while the EU is facing many of the same problems as its partner countries, this does not mean that the EU has all the answers,\u201d Hatzidiakos concluded.<\/strong><\/div>\n

What’s next?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

In the next 3 years,\u00a0PREVEX<\/a>\u00a0will investigate cases of occurrence and non-occurrence of violent extremism in a comparative perspective by carrying out context-sensitive and in-depth case studies in the Balkans and the broader MENA region, including the Sahel.<\/p>\n

Follow PREVEX via the\u00a0website<\/a>,\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Facebook<\/a><\/p>\n

This project has received funding from the European Union\u2019s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No\u00a0870724. The content reflects only the authors\u2019 views, and the European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why are some communities more likely to experience violent extremism than others is one of the core questions of the PREVEX project, in which the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) is one of the partners. Participants gathered for the project kick-off at Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels, on 3-4 February 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11737,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8607],"tags":[100,24,227],"vest_saopstenje":[9454],"coauthors":[164,10677],"class_list":["post-21514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-extremism","tag-ekstremizam","tag-predrag-petrovic","tag-prevex","vest_saopstenje-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21514"},{"taxonomy":"vest_saopstenje","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vest_saopstenje?post=21514"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=21514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}