Countering Violent Extremism or Resolving Conflicts? Bridging Micro- and Macro Perspectives onCountering Jihad

This article brings together two divided fields that suggest different solutions on how to counter violent jihad, namely Conflict Resolution (CR) research and Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) approaches. Common for the CVE approaches to jihadism is that their main level of analysis is the individual, seeking to understand what/who attracts the individual recruit to embrace extremist views, in order to devise strategies for preventing the individual radicalization process. In contrast, the CR framework has paid less attention to violent jihadism as individual radicalization but focuses more on group behavior. In this article, we explore whether synergy can be created by combining insights from these two fields. Three areas appear to be potentially fruitful for a future research agenda: creating interaction between research on disengagement and conflict transformation, creating synergy between research on conflict extension and the globalization of jihad, and searching for solutions using institutional forms of religious autonomy. The article ends by exemplifying how jihadi conflicts can be analyzed, both from a worldview perspective but also as a reflection of a macro-securitization process.