Radicalization: Trajectories in Research, Policy and Practice

Marsden provides welcome evidence of the strength of research and practice on radicalization in Germany and reflects the dynamics of debates within international policy and scholarship. She focuses on a range of areas of research on radicalization and violent extremism covering micro-, meso- and macrolevel processes alongside methods for countering and preventing violent extremism. By examining the wide-ranging influences on radicalization, this focus section extends an invitation to both broaden and deepen scholarship in the field: broadening research to develop more interdisciplinary, integrative frameworks to help interpret radicalization processes; and deepening it by interrogating and testing existing models and frameworks to develop more robust explanations of the pathways into and out of violence. This effort will be enhanced by greater use of theory from comparable areas of scholarship and by sustaining a research culture that nurtures rigorous, innovative methodologies able to capture the complexities of violent extremism.