Building resilience to violent extremism has become a matter of great concern for European cities that have experienced attacks or that fear experiencing them in the future. Mayors, municipal leaders and other local authority representatives are leading efforts to empower city governments across the EU and develop pragmatic and non-ideological policies. As increasing numbers of citizens rank violent extremism as one of their top worries, urban centres have effectively become the front line of the fight against radicalisation. It is in European cities where transnational extremist threats take shape in the forms of hate speech, recruitment networks, radical cells and terrorist attacks, and it is also in European cities where evidence-based plans to counter and prevent violent extremism at local level need urgently to be devised. Cities are obvious settings in which to implement the motto “think globally and act locally”.
ISBN: 978-84-92511-49-5
DOI: http:doi.org/10.24241/ResilientCities
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
INTRODUCTION
Diego Muro
VIOLENT EXTREMISM IN EUROPE
What accounts for the rise of violent extremism in European cities?
Rik Coolsaet
Countering and preventing the threat of terrorism and violent extremism: From the international and European to the national and local levels
Bibi Van Ginkel
The threat of terrorism in the world of 2017
Jorge Dezcallar
What does radicalisation look like? Four visualisations of socialisation into violent extremism
Diego Muro
LOCAL EXAMPLES AND BEST PRACTICES
The Mechelen model: An inclusive city
Bart Somers
London’s preparedness to respond to a major terrorist incident
Lord Toby Harris
What accounts for the lack of a CVE strategy in the USA?
Lorenzo Vidino
WAYS FORWARD
Who leads and who does what? Multi-agency coordination, community engagement and public-private partnerships
Daniel H. Heinke
Preventing violent radicalisation: Programme design and evaluation
Daniel Koehler
Local strategy: elements of an effective local action plan to prevent radicalisation and violent extremism
Marije Meines
Terrorism and resilience: An historical perspective
Tim Wilson
APPENDIX: STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY CHECKLIST
