Needed: Research to drive efforts to counter extremism

The 21st century has experienced a preponderant rise of violent extremism, now a key defining issue in international politics.

Attacks by terrorist groups connected particularly with Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State rose to more than 200 cases per year between 2007 and 2010.

These attacks hit an all-time high of about 600 cases per year by 2013 — an increase of more than 200 per cent. In Kenya, terrorist attacks by Al-Shabaab and the Mombasa Republican Council (MRC) increased steadily from less than 20 cases in 2011 to an average of 30 attacks per year between 2012 and December 2014.

This has propelled a dramatic increase in the volume of research on the new security threat. Increased funding for research has allowed the emergence of research centres, communities and networks devoted to the study of violent extremism. Bold claims by some scholars that the world is “entering the renaissance age for terrorism studies” may be hyperbole, but have a grain of truth.

Over 90 per cent of the entire literature on terrorism has been written in the decade after the 9/11 attacks in America, turning research on violent extremism into a growth industry.

New academic journals dedicated to the study of terrorism have emerged, including the Studies in Conflict & Terrorism and Terrorism and Political Violence (TPV). Moreover, hundreds of professional journals have taken a keen interest in publishing articles relating to various aspects of terrorism.

But because the quality of extant research is too poor to underpin an evidence-driven action, policy-makers have not been inclined to put these studies to use in designing policies and strategies for countering violent extremism as the worst security threat of our times.

IMPROVE QUALITY

For research to be relevant and effective, it has to overcome challenges at five levels. First, African governments and organisations should decidedly invest in improving the quality of research in order to help researchers generate new data on violent extremism.

As one expert lamented, “there are probably few areas in social science literature on which so much is written on the basis of little research.” As much as 80 per cent of existing studies on terrorism and counter-terrorism is not research-based. Without a strong empirical base, research on terrorism has tended to be condemnatory and prescriptive narratives, impressionistic, superficial and often venturing into generalisations on the basis of episodic evidence.

Second, African researchers should confront head-on conceptual limitations facing inquiries into violent extremism. At the one conceptual level, although terrorism and violent extremism have a very long history, going back thousands of years, research continues to be propelled by the need to provide a short-term, immediate assessment of current threats and groups. Because of this strong focus on contemporary issues to the exclusion of historical cases, important lessons from past terrorist conflicts are missed.

At the other conceptual level, researchers must steer clear of the “Us-versus-Them” models — largely inspired by Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilisation” paradigm — which tend to depict Muslims as the villains and Christians as victims of terrorism. Examples from Algeria, Somalia and more recently in Tunisia reveal that the extremist anti-modern ideologies driving violent extremism have targeted both Muslim and non-Muslims championing the values of democracy and freedom in modern multi-cultural societies.

Third, and related to the above, it is critical that researchers move away from methodologies, particularly trends in data-gathering and analysis, which rely heavily on secondary data especially literature review approaches. Experts decry the fact that over 70 per cent of research on terrorism consists of literature review which brings no new field-based data and perpetuates the rehashing of old data. Scholars are advocating increased use of statistical analysis and multi-disciplinary approaches to improve on the quality of research on violent extremism.

Fourth, African researchers need to move research orientation away from its almost exclusive focus on Islamist terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and Islamic State, which risks turning terrorism studies into Islamist studies and eclipsing new trends and manifestations of violent extremism in Africa.

ARE ROOTED

For starters, Africa has its fair share of Christian and neo-traditional extremist groups such as the LRA in Uganda.

Moreover, research should train a sharp focus on the dynamics and threats posed by proliferating “indigenous” or “homegrown” terrorist groups of the Al-Shabaab and Boko Haram type. Unlike Al-Qaeda, these are blood and soil African organisations rooted in our communities. Research also needs to focus on the linkage between these “homegrown” extremist groups and international networks of terrorists such as the IS.

Fifth, generating relevant research knowledge to drive evidence-based action on countering violent extremism demands serious capacity-building at three levels. One is the need for reliable capacity to fund empirical research. Regional governments and businesses should consider establishing foundations and research councils along the lines of the Social Science Research Council to fund research activities on violent extremism and terrorism.

Further, African universities should establish multi-disciplinary centres specialising on counter-terrorism. So far, none of Kenya’s 62 universities has either a centre or institute devoted to the study of violent extremism or training Africa’s next generation of researchers on terrorism. African countries also need at least one regular professional publication as a one-stop shop for empirical research on the new threat.

Investing in empirical research and anchoring policies and strategies on solid evidence is likely to reduce the risks and costs of the war on extremism.

Prof Kagwanja is chief executive, Africa Policy Institute, and former government adviser [email protected]