Will CVE work where CT has failed?
The emergence of the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) agenda is a global phenomenon and arguably points to the realization that conventional Counter Terrorism (CT) efforts have exhausted their potential. A key mantra in the discourse on CVE and the justification for regarding it as a seismic shift in the effort against terrorism is its supposed emphasis on the ‘drivers’ or ‘root causes’ of terrorism. The emphasis on root causes is in many ways a case of ‘re-inventing the wheel’. Even today, very little is understood about the precise linkages between root causes and radicalization in the long run, and it is not all clear that these factors inevitably lead to radicalization. The articles in this issue address different aspects of the problem of terrorism in the Horn in general and CVE as an emerging approach.
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