The Three Pillars of Radicalization

Arie W. Kruglanski is Distinguished University Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland. He is the recipient of several awards including the National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Award, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology and the Donald Campbell Award for Outstanding Contributions to Social Psychology from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He is Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society, and presently serves as co-founder and senior investigator at the National Center for the Study of Terrorism and the Response to Terrorism. His research interests are in the domains of human judgment and decision making, the motivation-cognition interface, group and intergroup processes, the psychology of human goals, and the social psychological aspects of terrorism. Jocelyn J. Bélanger is Assistant Professor of Psychology at New York University Abu Dhabi. His research seeks to understand why, and under which circumstances, individuals are willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause. Dr. Bélanger is the architect behind Montreal's Centre for the Prevention of Radicalization Leading to Violence. He also trains psychologists and social workers on the rehabilitation and reintegration of violent extremist offenders. Dr. Bélanger is the recipient of several awards such as the APA Dissertation Research Award and the Guy Bégin Award for the Best Research Paper in Social Psychology. Rohan Gunaratna is Professor of Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technology University, and Head of International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, Singapore. The author and editor of 20 books including Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror (Columbia University Press), Gunaratna edited the Insurgency and Terrorism Series of the Imperial College Press, London. A trainer for national security agencies, law enforcement authorities, and military counter-terrorism units, he has interviewed terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and other conflict zones. For advancing international intelligence cooperation, Gunaratna received the Major General Ralph H. Van Deman Award in June 2014.

The book is not only comprehensive in its scope, it is a pioneering work in that it breaks new ground in understanding radicalization and charts the way for making de-radicalization programmes more effective.

• Chapter 1. A Clear and Present Danger for the 21st Century Chapter 2. The Rise of Contemporary Violent Islamist Extremism: The Threat and the Response Chapter 3. Significance Quest Theory of Radicalization Chapter 4. Other Theories of Radicalization Chapter 5. Empirical Evidence for Significance Quest Theory Chapter 6. Profiles in Violent Extremism Chapter 7. The Deradicalization Process Chapter 8. Can Rehabilitation Last? On Preventing Re-Radicalization Chapter 9. Assessing Radicalization and Deradicalization Chapter 10. Epilogue: The Long Shadow of Violent Extremism