De-Radicalisation in Europe and Beyond

D.Rad is a comparative study of radicalization and polarization in Europe and beyond. The project spanned from December 2020 to April 2024 and received € 3 099 535 by the Horizon-2020 program of the European Commission. Stephen Sawyer, the CCDS Director, was awarded € 254 891 portion of the grant. The Center led a WP on the identification and de-escalation of radicalization hotspots, took part in six work packages, published seven reports, co-organized a conference on radical violence, hosted a symposium and lectures, and organized an art exhibition on the theme of radical violence in Paris.

The project provided a unique evidence base for the comparative analysis of law and policy as nation states adapt to new security challenges. The process of mapping these varieties and their link to national contexts was crucial in uncovering strengths and weaknesses in existing interventions. D.Rad accounted for the problem that processes of radicalization often occur in circumstances that escape the control and scrutiny of traditional national frameworks of justice. The participation of AI professionals in modelling, analysing and devising solutions to online radicalization was central to the project’s aims.

D.Rad benefitted from an exceptional breadth of backgrounds. The CCDS was part of a 17-member consortium that included research teams from the UK, Italy, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Finland, Slovenia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Georgia, and Austria. It bridged academic disciplines ranging from political science, law and history, to cultural studies, social psychology and artificial intelligence. Dissemination methods included D.Rad labs, D.Rad hubs, policy papers, academic workshops, visual outputs and digital galleries. As such, D.Rad established a rigorous foundation to test practical interventions geared to prevention and inclusion.

D.Rad accomplished its three core objectives:

Detect Trends: identifying the actors, networks, and wider social contexts driving radicalization, especially in the emerging context of everyday polarization over mundane issue in micro-spatial environments, in order to base interventions in evidence grounded in contemporary data and methodologies.
Resolve Drivers: understanding the online and offline drivers that turn grievance, alienation and polarization into radicalization, so that policies can more effectively target underlying problems of social exclusion.
Re-integration and Inclusion: understanding how individuals can be re-integrated into the established polity or social groups, without compromising personal or collective liberties.

CCDS Reports:

SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Country Brief: A Social Psychological Perspective on Trends of Extremism in France. March 2024, pp.12. https://dradproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/D.Rad-7.1-France-brief.pdf.
M Zebba, et al. Interactive Toolkit: Civic Education as Preventive Measure and Inclusionary Practice. EURAC. November 2023, pp.46. https://dradproject.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/D10.3-Interactive-Toolkit_compressed.pdf (Contributor: C. Kocak).
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Civic Education Programs as Preventive Measures in France. The American University of Paris. May 2023, pp.22. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04471801/document.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Mainstreaming, Gender, and Communication in France. The American University of Paris. January 2023, pp.66. https://shs.hal.science/halshs-04471793/document.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. De-radicalisation and Integration in France: Legal & Policy Framework. The American University of Paris. December 2021, pp.81. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6385438.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Trends of Radicalisation: Synthesis. The American University of Paris. September 2021, pp.30. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6419290.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Trends of Radicalisation in France. The American University of Paris. July 2021, pp.64. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6351954.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Cultural Drivers of Radicalisation in France. The American University of Paris. June 2021, pp.71. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6385474.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Stakeholders of (De)-Radicalisation in France. The American University of Paris. April 2021, pp.62. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6386072

CCDS Academic Publications:

R Zinigrad. Laughing Matters in Courts: Humor and the Normalization of Hate Speech. Alternatives. 2024. doi.org/10.1177/03043754241244891.
R Zinigrad, SW Sawyer. State and Religion: The French Response to Jihadist Violence. 14(8) Religions 1010 (2023). doi.org/10.3390/rel14081010.

CCDS Blogs:

SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. Radicalizing Law to Deradicalize Society: The French Legislative Arsenal of Deradicalization and the Threat to Human Rights. D.Rad Blog. 2022.
SW Sawyer, R Zinigrad. The Democratic Promise of “Deradicalization”. Tocqueville21. 02.06.2021.

International Conference: Violent Turns: Sources, Interpretations, Responses (June 21-23, 2023)

On June 21-23, 2023, The American University of Paris hosted an international conference with an interdisciplinary platform to investigate and debate the question of contemporary irruptions of political violence and to inquire into the different responses intended to counteract violence. When and why do individuals, groups, and societies come to believe that peaceful means and legal avenues of redress, including non-violent civil disobedience, are insufficient or improper to achieve a social or political goal and to view violent action as morally legitimate and necessary for change? Can one identify trends shaping recourse to violence by parts of the populace? What role does state violence play in the dialectic? When, if ever, is political violence legitimate? How can violence be averted?

These are not new questions in political theory or the social sciences. State and non-state political violence being a regular occurrence in the historical trajectory of all societies, including modern democracies. But they have taken on new salience through the rise of far-right extremist movements and irruptions of individual and group violence of various ideological and social origins. The simultaneity of these phenomena across different countries, and the manifest potential for new violent turns, raises essential theoretical and policy questions, requiring renewed critical investigation.

The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights, and Conflict Prevention and the Center for Critical Democracy at The American University of Paris welcomed papers that analyze the origins of violence in new innovative directions and studies of state responses to violence and of the strengths and limits of strategies based on education, dialogue, truth and reconciliation, deradicalization and so forth. We were also interested in historical-comparative work situating current political violence across space and time, critical political philosophical investigations of state legitimacy, as well as rightful and unrightful resistance. We welcomed contributions in all fields, including psychology, political science, anthropology, sociology, history, law, criminology, literature, and communications as well as approaches promoting creative responses to the theme of the conference.

Lectures

Art Exhibition on Radical Violence

With the aim of disseminating their research findings to a broader audience, the D.Rad consortium chose to extend the project through an artistic lens. Six artists were invited to interpret and convey their understanding of the D.Rad Project through various works of art.

On April 1-22, 2023, the CCDS collaborated with the Espace Canopy Gallery in the 18 arrondissement in Paris to host the D.Rad art exhibition: “Complicating the Narrative in a Time of False Simplicity”.