RAN LOCAL The changing landscape of polarisation, radicalisation and extremism, online meeting 25-26 November 2021

The landscape of polarisation, radicalisation, and extremism has gone through many developments in the last few years. Local coordinators have focused and structured their P/CVE strategies on the threats coming from violent Islamist extremism. However, the current landscape of radicalisation contains new trends that might live up to the same level of threat as violent Islamism.

This paper is based on the insights from the RAN LOCAL meeting on 25 and 26 November 2021. It presents practitioners' views on the landscape of polarisation, radicalisation, and extremism that is currently visible at the local level, how has this landscape changed? And what is needed to prepare the local P/CVE strategy to deal with it?

The key outcomes of the discussions are mostly aimed at local P/CVE coordinators but can also be of interest for first-line practitioners working in the field of P/CVE and dealing with (parts of) the changing landscape. Conspiracy narratives and their breeding ground for violence and right-wing extremism were the most prominent developments mentioned as well as, to a lesser extent, left-wing extremism and radical environmentalism.

As such, participants and local coordinators shared concerns about maintaining the (online) multiagency cooperation and the political support and funding for their P/CVE activities as well as the need for new knowledge and skills. Yet, participants have recommended the construction of an inclusive, flexible, ideologically neutral local P/CVE strategy in which human rights and democratic values are guaranteed and respected.