A new article entitled "What Drives Counter-Extremism? The Extent of P/CVE Policies in the West and Their Structural Correlates" by Sadi Shanaah and Charlotte Heath-Kelly has been accepted for publication in Terrorism and Political Violence.

In the paper, the authors construct an index of the intensity of P/CVE policies deployment in 38 Western countries and investigate the correlation between the index and the threat of terrorism (measured as the number of past attacks/victims), the size of Muslim minorities (Muslim communities have been ‘securitised’ as potential threats in the post 9/11 period), and the neoliberal governance (drawing on Criminological literature that connects neoliberalism to anticipatory crime control).

The study finds a positive and significant correlation in the first two factors (terrorism threat and size of Muslim minority population), while a negative and significant correlation for the last factor (neoliberal governance). Among other things, the findings provide some empirical evidence for the claim that Muslim minorities in the West have been racialised and securitized, since their population size positively correlates with the deployment of P/CVE policies (but not to the number of terrorist attacks and victims).

The paper is a part of the research project "Neoliberal Terror: The Radicalisation of Social Policy in Europe" funded by the European Research Council and headed by Professor Charlotte Heath-Kelly. It can be accessed here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/projects/internationalrelationssecurity/neoliberalterror/neoliberal-terror/publications/