Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism? An Assessment

Can the field known as Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism effectively prevent and/or counter the efforts of violent extremist organisations? The answer to this question has risen in significance because the leading global response to violent extremist organisation (VEO) threats – hard power, enemy-centred, state-driven force known as counter-terrorism (CT) – has failed to reverse the ongoing expansion of VEOs worldwide. A second set of international responses emerged alongside CT a few years after the terrorist attacks in the US on September 11, 2001 (9/11). Known either as Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) or Countering Violent Extremism (CVE; the combination is called P/CVE), it has served as CT’s soft-side complement for two decades. Due to the persistent ability of resilient VEOs to enter villages and neighbourhoods, coerce citizens, dominate illicit economies, manipulate female and male youth frustrations, and transform government weaknesses to their advantage, two pressing questions arise: What is the appropriate P/CVE response to VEOs on the international stage? Following funding reductions to P/CVE efforts (including by the US and the UK governments), what is the most effective way to invest limited resources? Analysis for this report integrated a recognition of potentially consequential constraints on P/CVE strategy and action, including: 1) The often-unstable security contexts that surround many P/CVE initiatives; 2) The influence of governments of nations where both VEO and P/CVE action takes place; and 3) Fundamental evaluation challenges, particularly the difficulty of confirming whether a P/CVE programme has successfully prevented VEO activities from taking place or countered those that VEOs have already undertaken.