The Radicalization Threat. Making Sense of Government Policy

In the past few decades, Islamic radicalization and its extreme terrorism have become an increasingly large problem to governments throughout the world. To properly address this, governments need effective policies to implement to protect their people. By looking at existing academic literature on both radicalization in general and Islamic radicalization specifically a framework has been created on how to best address radicalization. By analysing government policies from four different countries and their effectiveness, a properly backed recommendation can be made. The research shows that while many governments are aware of the generally perceived causes of radicalization, the actual translation into policy tends to be lacking. Likewise, the academic arena can successfully identify causes but proposing solutions becomes more difficult. Additional research remains needed to come to an end-all solution for radicalization.