Violent radicalisation of young people as a challenge in building safe societies: a proposal for a typology and scale of young people vulnerable to violent radicalisation processes

Abstract

The concept of violent radicalisation is continually under review. One of the aspects under discussion is the relevance of each of its component terms: radicalisation and violence. This paper tilts towards the second term, attempting an approach to the risk/vulnerability to violent radicalisation of young people based on their disposition to violence. The main objective is to explore a typology and a scale of young people vulnerable to radicalisation processes taking as a starting point the youth's disposition to violence. The interest of this exercise is to segment the phenomenon of violent radicalisation in order to design more effective radicalisation prevention policies. The group studied is the young population, as it is the age group most vulnerable to radicalisation processes and the one on which the effects of policies can be most effective and long lasting. This group and its predisposition to violence is studied on the basis of a European on-line survey. Principal component analysis is used to construct the typology and a scale of risk/vulnerability to violent radicalisation is designed on the basis of the resulting types. Finally, its usefulness is illustrated with the sub-sample of young Spaniards. The proposed typology and scale of risk of radicalisation or development of violent behaviour allows us to change the starting point of policies to prevent the violent radicalisation of young people and to shift the emphasis from political, religious and politico-religious ideologies to actions, thus proposing policy measures and actions that allow us to approach the phenomenon in a different and holistic way. It is a work with a practical and empirical approach that advances in the classification of young people at risk or vulnerable to violent radicalisation, as well as proposing actions and response measures.