The root causes of violent extremism, July 2024

To effectively prevent individuals from radicalising into violent extremism or terrorism, we need to address the reasons, factors and dynamics that play a role in the process of radicalisation. There are multiple ways to examine the root causes of violent extremism since there is no single cause of or pathway into radicalisation and violent extremism. 

There is a wide array of factors on the macro, meso and micro levels of analysis. In fact, radicalisation is driven by a combination of personal factors and external influences. This consolidated paper provides a brief non-exhaustive summary of which root causes and factors can lead to violent extremism. 

And it is meant to provide a basic and easy to use overview of which factors and dynamics to take into account when developing plans and interventions to prevent radicalisation into violent extremism or terrorism. In addition, at the end of the paper there is an overview of six different radicalising personas. 

This paper is an updated version of the first version of this paper that was published in early 2016.