Radicalisation and Counter-Radicalisation in Higher Education: (Great Debates in Higher Education)

Higher education institutions have increasingly been identified as potentially radicalising locations. The 2015 Counter-Terrorism and Security Act consolidated this belief in the form of a legal duty of  "due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism". This duty made engagement with counter-radicalisation mandatory for universities and has required the development of systems that monitor potential avenues for the propagation of the extremist and radicalising ideas that are deemed to be the cause of contemporary political violence.This book explains why radicalisation has become such an important and controversial issue in contemporary higher education. The authors chart the ascent of radicalisation as a central explanation for the causes of modern terrorism and document the development of counter-radicalisation in the UK using higher education institutions as a unique case study. Drawing on a comprehensive assessment of university policy documents and original focus group research with university lecturers and undergraduate students, this book demonstrates the risks involved in taking the 'safeguarding route' to counter-radicalisation and provides recommendations for how universities can better navigate these policy challenges in the UK and elsewhere. McGlynn and McDaid provide a critical assessment of these counter-radicalisation policies upon higher education institutions in the UK making this an invaluable text for students, researchers and policy makers in the field of terrorism studies.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction 2. Radicalisation: Debate and Policy  3. Universities, Terrorism and Radicalisation  4. Radicalisation and HE Governance  5. Radicalisation and the University Classroom  6. Conclusion and Recommendations

About the Author :
Catherine McGlynn is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Huddersfield, UK. Her research focuses on Northern Ireland with respect to conflict resolution and party politics. Her last book was Abandoning Historical Conflict? Former Paramilitary Prisoners and Political Reconciliation in Northern Ireland from Manchester University Press (co-authored with Peter Shirlow, Jonathan Tonge and James W. McAuley) which was the Political Studies Association of Ireland Book of the year in 2011.Shaun McDaid is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Huddersfield, UK. His research and teaching interests include the conflict in Northern Ireland, but also the dynamics of political violence and attempts to prevent it more generally. He is the author of Template for Peace: Northern Ireland, 1972-75 (Manchester University Press, 2013), and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Review :
This volume explores radicalization and counter-radicalization at universities, focusing on how the Prevent Duty aspect of the UK's Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, the legal duty to have "due regard to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism," is implemented in English universities in terms of the experiences of staff and students. It also places the discussion in the context of broader debates about the nature of radicalization and the efficacy of attempts to counter it and demonstrates that universities have been sites of radical political activity for a long time, as well as sites where states have intervened and monitored. It discusses the origins of radicalization as a concept, including how it has been related to ideas of extremism and applied in contemporary counterterrorism policy; radicalization and higher education and how university campuses have played a role in political radicalism; how the Prevent Duty has been implemented in a university setting in terms of governance and the classroom; and implications of the findings and recommendations for policymakers and university staff and students.