Order Description
Abstract Terrorist organizations, groups, cells or just ‘bunches of guys’ are
systematically compared with other types of criminal or deviant organizations:
organized crime such as the mafia, street gangs and religious sects. Of course there
are many differences between them, especially where motivation is concerned, but
they share the common factor that it is almost impossible or very difficult for
individual members to step out. However, de-radicalization may follow analogous
paths: aging out, accepting exit programs in prison or disengaging ideologically. The
article discusses the obstacles that a government strategy that encourages desistance
from terrorism by stepping out may encounter. It may be sufficient and more realistic
to discourage radicals from using violence than to try to de-radicalize them by using
counternarrative techniques.