Journal for Deradicalization

Affective Disengagement and Gendered Agency: Women’s Pathways out of Jihadist Radicalization in Morocco

2026-06-24T07:17:01+00:00

This article examines women’s pathways out of jihadist radicalization in Morocco through the concept of affective disengagement, defined as the gradual erosion of the emotional and moral energies that sustain militant commitment. Drawing on eight life-story interviews with six Moroccan women involved in jihadist networks, the study adopts an interpretative phenomenological approach to trace how commitment weakens over time. The findings demonstrate that disengagement does not typically begin with doctrinal repudiation. Rather, it unfolds through a slow recalibration of affective orientations—trust, fervor, moral urgency—that once rendered participation meaningful. Ethical contradictions between ideals of justice and lived experiences of violence, surveillance, gendered subordination, and deprivation generate fear, shame, guilt, and exhaustion. These affective processes progressively deplete attachment before explicit ideological doubt emerges. At the same time, disengagement is not merely subtractive. Women re-anchor their moral worlds around care, relational obligation, and survival within systems of male guardianship and social surveillance, producing forms of partial disengagement rather than total rupture. By integrating insights from affect theory, moral injury scholarship, and feminist analyses of agency, the article reframes disengagement as a relational and gendered sociomoral transformation. It challenges ideology-first models of exit and suggests that durable disengagement depends not only on cognitive change but on the reconstruction of affective attachment and morally livable futures within constrained social environments.

Assessing Youth Radicalisation with the VERA 2R: Implications for Intervention and Case Management

2026-06-24T07:22:24+00:00

The field of violent extremism risk assessment is underdeveloped regarding implementation with youth. This is notable given the increasing number of youths referred to countering violent extremism (CVE) programs and the role of risk assessment in informing decisions around case management and intervention. This paper reports results from a study using primary data that applied the Violent Extremism Risk Assessment – Version 2 Revised (VERA-2R) tool to a sample of at-risk and radicalised Australian youth below the age of 18 years. The study had two aims: first, to examine the practical utility of the VERA 2R when field tested with a youth cohort, and second, to identify implications for violent extremism risk assessment and associated case management and intervention planning. An experienced practitioner (first author) trained in the VERA-2R undertook the assessments of 16 youth referred to CVE services in one Australian state. The findings indicate that while most risk indicators in the VERA-2R are broadly applicable to youth, the tool did have limitations. These findings are considered alongside several observed implementation challenges regarding interventions with youth and their case management needs.

Identity Optionality and the Equal-Alternative Narrative Model: A Needs-Based Framework for Countering Violent Extremism

2026-06-24T07:45:33+00:00

This paper proposes an integrative theoretical framework — the Equal-Alternative Narrative (EAN) model — that synthesises insights from social and personality psychology, psychological anthropology, identity fusion theory, positioning theory, and clinical practice into a unified account of vulnerability to violent extremism. A key premise is that ideology is better understood as a shared cultural medium of symbols, stories, and roles through which identity is organised rather than as a separable belief system. In turn, the model sees that vulnerability to extremist recruitment stems from the erosion of what we term identity optionality — the range and accessibility of viable identity narratives available to an individual. This optionality is conceptualised as a dynamic spectrum from a state in which a single interpretive framework monopolises the individual's narrative space, to one of fluid regeneration across multiple configurations. Given the growing evidence that counter-narrative strategies produce limited or inconsistent effects, the paper introduces the EAN approach as a prevention and intervention strategy. Rather than relying on directly countering extremist narratives, EAN focuses on fulfilling emotional and psychological needs, recognising susceptibilities, and restoring identity optionality. Applications include educational expansion at the primary level, needs-based intervention at the secondary level, and therapeutic identity restoration at the tertiary level. The framework's operationalisation is set out across four sub-sections — design logic, implementation stages, prevention-level mechanisms, and connections to existing practitioner frameworks (the Phoenix Model of disengagement and the ABC Model of programme design). Convergent evidence from the UK's Healthy Identity Intervention — whose finding of behavioural disengagement without ideological disillusionment aligns with EAN predictions — is treated as independent validation. We also suggest that focusing on markers of identity optionality erosion, rather than ideological content, may enhance predictive capabilities through existing text-based models. The framework identifies constrained optionality as a widespread, structurally produced latent vulnerability across populations, with implications for understanding both acute radicalisation and informing primary prevention. Keywords: Identity Optionality, Deradicalisation, Equal-Alternative Narratives, Needs-Based Intervention

Enhancing meaning in life and reducing radicalization, extremism, and violence in war and conflict-affected populations: A controlled feasibility study of the Meaning-Making App

2026-06-24T07:55:30+00:00

This study evaluated the feasibility of the Meaning-Making App (MMA). MMA aimed to help civilians in armed conflicts maintain a sense of meaning in life, to improve psychological well-being and reduce risks of radicalization, extremism, and violence. MMA applied the comprehensive MOSAIC (Meaning Oriented Social and Individual Changes) framework, which indicates that well-being increases and risks decrease when individuals envision and realize five or more diverse types of meaning (mainly self-oriented and social), through critical intuition, realistic appraisal, and emotion regulation. MMA consisted of six toolkits, with tools derived from Systematic Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy: psycho-education about stress, trauma, and meaning; psychological first aid; brief meaning-making exercises; practical goal-setting exercises; structured meaning-making exercises; survivor stories. MMA-participants (N=142) came from armed conflict zones (e.g., Israel, Palestine, Syria, Iran, Ukraine), used MMA on average 70.92 minutes (SD=45.22), were satisfied with its content and impact, and recommended technical/offline improvements. Participants showed statistically significant improvements in meaning-making (measured with the Short-Meaning in Life Questionnaire. Meaning Sextet Questionnaire-Brief, Existential Meaning-Regulation Scale), well-being (PTSD-Check-List-5, General Well-being Item) and radicalization/extremism/violence risk-measures (Radicalism Intention Scale, General Extremism Scale , War-subscale of Attitudes Toward Violence Scale). A non-randomized control-group of 57 individuals from Ukraine, Israel, and Palestine used the app without meaning components, showing no statistically significant changes in meaning-making and moderate, statistically significant improvements in well-being and risk-measures. Mediation analyses and structural equation models empirically supported that improvements and MMA/control-group differences in well-being and risk-measures were mediated by meaning-making improvements. These findings should be interpreted cautiously given the non-randomized feasibility design, and the need for cross-cultural, longitudinal, multi-method validation. The findings suggest meaning-oriented smartphone interventions may improve well-being and reduce radicalization, extremism, and violence during armed conflict.

The Radicalisation of Masculinity: A social work perspective on understanding and preventing male radicalisation

2026-06-24T07:50:43+00:00

Male radicalisation represents a dynamic and evolving challenge to human rights and the core values of social work. A social work perspective offers a critical lens for understanding and responding to this gendered phenomenon. This article draws on the expertise of frontline health and social care (HSC) professionals to conceptualise male radicalisation and offers original insights into effective safeguarding practices. This qualitative study involved twenty-five semi-structured interviews with experienced frontline HSC professionals and explored their experiences and approaches in safeguarding males at risk of radicalisation. The findings reveal that HSC professionals offer original insights into male radicalisation as a process that is shaped by a bespoke and complex intersection of unmet needs, within certain structural conditions, and the extremist exploitation of masculinity. The "Radicalisation of Masculinity" framework proposes extremism serves a function in offering males the opportunity to reclaim a sense of masculinity, belonging, purpose and status, contributing to a new safeguarding approach that incorporates the need for gender-sensitive, tailored interventions.

Working to Prevent Violent Extremism: Readiness of Behavioral Health Professionals in New York State

2026-06-25T07:38:44+00:00

Violent extremism has risen markedly in the United States in recent years, renewing concern about prevention but leaving behavioral health professionals (BHPs) with limited empirical guidance on their role. This study presents, to the authors’ knowledge, the first quantitative analysis of U.S. BHPs’ readiness to engage in preventing violent extremism (PVE) and behavioral threat assessment and management (BTAM). Guided by prior focus groups in the same region, an online survey was administered to 149 clinicians in a large, diverse New York State county recently affected by extremist violence. Measures assessed perceived threat, ethics, professional role, preparedness, and willingness to collaborate with law enforcement, alongside demographic and practice characteristics. BHPs overwhelmingly endorsed having a significant role in PVE and an ethical obligation to work both with communities and individuals exiting violent extremism, and most supported collaboration with law enforcement while simultaneously expressing concern about structural problems in policing. However, substantial gaps in perceived preparedness emerged, with social workers, rural practitioners, less-experienced clinicians, women, and White BHPs reporting lower readiness than their counterparts. These findings highlight both a strong professional mandate for BHP involvement in PVE and critical inequities in training and confidence, suggesting targeted, discipline- and context-specific capacity-building as a priority for policy and practice.