Engaging Religion and Religious Actors in Countering Violent Extremism

About the RepoRt This report explores the role of religion and engagement with
religious actors in the context of efforts to counter violent extremism (CVE). Drawing on insights from recent policy
discussions, academic activities, and the practical experience of CVE experts, it offers practical guidelines for policymakers
and practitioners seeking to better understand the role of religion in violent extremism and best practices for partnering
with religious actors to address the challenge. The report is part of ongoing United States Institute of Peace (USIP) efforts
to develop and implement training and capacity-building programs that support CVE objectives.
About the AuthoRs Peter Mandaville is Professor of International Affairs in the
Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, former senior adviser in the Office of Religion and
Global Affairs, and former member of the Policy Planning Staff at the US Department of State. Melissa Nozell is a senior
program specialist in religion and inclusive societies for the Center for Applied Conflict Transformation at USIP.
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speciAl RepoRt 413 August 2017
© 2017 by the United States Institute of Peace. All rights reserved.
Peter Mandaville and Melissa Nozell
Engaging Religion and Religious Actors in Countering Violent Extremism
UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE www.usip.org
SPECIAL REPORT
contents
Background 2 Religion as a Driver of Violent Extremism 3 Assessing the Policy Discussion to Date 5
Identifying Challenges and Opportunities 8 Recommendations 11
Conclusion 12
Summary • Interest and space for including religious actors in policy on countering violent extrem-
ism (CVE) has grown over the past few years, but debates over the degree to which ideological, religious, or structural factors contribute to violent extremism have not yielded clear guidance for policymakers and practitioners.
• The role of religion as a potential driver of violent extremism is significant, but religion usually interacts with a wide range of other factors and causality is not linear.
• An alternative approach that focuses on the role or function of religion in violent extrem- ism—facilitating mobilization, providing a counternarrative, providing a justification, and sanctifying violent acts—shows promise.
• Religious leaders are integral members of civil society and key contributors to public and political discourse. Engaging them in all spheres of government work, carefully and with sensitivity to power asymmetries and potential risks, is needed.
• Understanding how religious factors affect violent extremism can help inform the design and implementation of CVE solutions that engage the religious sector.
• The track record highlights ways in which religious actors can be partners, including when and how to engage them, how to design effective training, and how to ensure effective partnerships across sectors through inclusivity and addressing potential politi- cal obstacles.
• Recommendations for policymakers and practitioners include a focus on CVE roles for faith actors beyond the religious sector, practical approaches for avoiding undue govern- mental entanglement in religion, and suggestions for how to ensure appropriately sized and inclusive engagement with religion and religious actors in the CVE context.
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Background The past few decades have seen increasing recognition of the significant role religious actors play in peace and in conflict. In a world in which the vast majority of people identify as religious,1 the religious peacebuilding field has evolved to consider ways in which people of faith can, should, and do have an impact on conflict, as both preventers and instigators. As counterterrorism and CVE became a focus of US foreign policy after 9/11, policymakers have sought to better understand how to effectively engage religious ideas, actors, and institutions as part of this endeavor. The administration of George W. Bush established a White House team focused on faith sector engagement in 2001. A year later, an analogous office was created at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) to focus on the role of religious actors in international development. It was during the Obama administra- tion that US government engagement with the religious sector in foreign policy, including in peacebuilding, development, and human rights, became more formalized, strategic, and institutionalized. This began with the establishment of the Religion and Foreign Policy work- ing group as part of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society in 2011 and culminated in 2013 with the establishment of a dedicated Office of Religion and Global Affairs at the Department of State.2 Simultaneous with the increased interest in the religion and foreign policy field was a marked shift in prevailing approaches to understand- ing and preventing radicalization and extremist violence. Where the previously dominant focus on counterterrorism had involved efforts to directly combat or degrade the capacity of organized terrorist groups, the emerging paradigm of preventing or countering violent extremism focused instead on the various societal factors and drivers that lead individu- als and small groups to embrace or otherwise support militant ideologies.3 Although CVE was not an entirely new approach, the shift in this direction that began in 2015 was more expansive and systematic than at any time since 2001. Religion has figured into multiple waves of CVE approaches, at times more directly and intentionally than others.
The White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism convened by President Obama in February 2015 confirmed the place of CVE within his administration’s foreign policy agen- da, spurring a deluge of related conferences, conversations, and considerations globally.4 In addition to institutionalizing strategy and standardizing the lexicon, the summit identified gaps and opportunities in domestic and international approaches. In its wake, regional summits were convened around the globe, inspired by or directly connected with the White House initiative, and in part a response to President Obama’s call on global partners to join the CVE effort in his September 2015 speech to the UN General Assembly.5,6 In May 2016, the Department of State and USAID issued the Joint Strategy on Countering Violent Extremism.7
Debates on the precise definition and parameters of the CVE endeavor continue. The 2016 Joint Strategy defines CVE as “proactive actions to counter efforts by violent extrem- ists to radicalize, recruit, and mobilize followers to violence and to address specific factors that facilitate violent extremist recruitment and radicalization to violence.”8
One particularly tough definitional quandary concerns the meaning of the term violent extremism, which is not spelled out in any detail in the State-USAID strategy document. Indeed, the very terms purportedly being defined—countering, violent, and extremism—are all incorporated into the definition. Violent extremism is in one instance defined as “vio- lence undertaken by nonstate actors that is inspired or justified by, and associated with an extreme political, religious or social ideology.” Like terrorism, the notion of extremism can be highly subjective. Most who work in the CVE space, however, understand it to focus on the intersection of violent behavior and the ideas that inspire, justify, or give mean- ing to that violence—often with a strong emphasis on identifying the contextual factors
The views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace,
which does not advocate specific policy positions.
To request permission to photocopy or reprint materials, email: [email protected].
About the institute The United States Institute of Peace is an independent,
nonpartisan institution established and funded by Congress. Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, promote postconflict peacebuilding, and increase conflict
management tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others
with knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct involvement in conflict zones around the globe.
boARd of diRectoRs Stephen J. Hadley (Chair), Principal, RiceHadleyGates, LLC,
Washington, DC • George E. Moose (Vice Chair), Adjunct Professor of Practice, The George Washington University, Wash-
ington, DC • Judy Ansley, Former Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor under George W. Bush, Wash- ington, DC • Eric Edelman, Hertog Distinguished Practitioner
in Residence, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, Washington, DC • Joseph Eldridge, University Chaplain and Senior Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC • Kerry Kennedy,
President, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Washington, DC • Ikram U. Khan, President, Quality Care Consultants, LLC., Las Vegas, NV • Stephen D. Krasner, Graham
H. Stuart Professor of International Relations at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA • John A. Lancaster, Former Executive Director, International Council on Independent Living, Potsdam,
NY • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA • J. Robinson West, Chairman, PFC
Energy, Washington, DC • Nancy Zirkin, Executive Vice President, Leadership Conference on Civil and
Human Rights, Washington, DC
MeMbers ex OfficiO
Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State • James Mattis, Secretary of Defense • Frederick M. Padilla, Major General, Marine Corps;
President, National Defense University • Nancy Lindborg, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)
USIP.ORG • SPECIAL REPORT 413 3
(psychological, social, political, economic, security) in any given setting that make such ideas seem relevant or attractive.9
Interest and space for including religious actors in the process, discussion, and imple- mentation around policy to counter violent extremism has grown over the past few years. The White House Summit on CVE notably mentioned “religious leaders and faith community engagement” among three stakeholder categories with which to increase collaboration on CVE. The State/USAID Joint Strategy indicates that the two agencies “will support... initiatives aimed at building the capacity of women, youth, religious, and other community leaders to advance CVE objectives.”10 Two recent major think tank studies on CVE also make multiple references to the importance of mobilizing or enlisting religious leaders and insti- tutions to counter violent extremism, emphasizing the point that governments are often ill-suited to directly address the religious dimensions of violence and conflict—a theme to which we will return below.11
Religion as a Driver of Violent Extremism Briefly setting aside the role of religion and religious actors in addressing the challenge of violent extremism, discussions and debates about whether and how religion serves as a driver of violent extremism are critical. A 2016 conference on the relationship between religion and CVE offers a key insight:
The relationship between religion and violence is complex and defies any neat account of direct causation. In some cases of violent extremism, religion is not a primary driver, whereas in others it may be more prominent. Efforts to prevent or counter radicalisation and extremism therefore need to “right-size” religion as both a contributing factor and part of the solution.12
Most of the current thinking about CVE has given up on the idea that it is possible to identify any single root cause of violent extremism. Indeed, the nature of terrorism has itself evolved, becoming increasingly transnational and decentralized, and therefore so have responses to terrorism in adapting to this new reality. Some of the immediate post-9/11 debates on this issue entertained the possibility of there being a single factor associated with most cases of terrorism—such as poverty or ideology. Most recent analysis, however, emphasizes the importance of identifying and understanding localized drivers, as well as the recognition that these factors can vary considerably from setting to setting. This insight has been reflected in policy as well, perhaps most clearly in remarks given in early 2016 by former Deputy Secretary of State Tony Blinken:
So here’s what we know. There is no single type of violent extremism, no single method of recruitment, no single source of motivation or support, there’s no single story, no easy synonym for one region, religious tradition, or culture . . . in short, the nature and range of possible drivers of violent extremism can vary greatly.13
Recognition of widely varying local drivers of violent extremism is now commonplace. At the same time, it is also fair to say that most everyone working in the CVE field operates with the assumption that religion is part of the story—even if its precise role, function, or bearing in each instance of violent extremism is not always fully explained.
What, then, is a more constructive way to think about religion as a causal factor in violent extremism? There is now significant evidence to suggest that high levels of religious devotion or observance are poor predictors of support for or participation in violent extrem- ism.14 Indeed, some leading analysts have suggested that a strong grounding in religion can actually reduce the likelihood of people accepting the narrative of violent extremist groups.15 In policy spaces, the debate about the relative importance of religion as a driver
High levels of religious devotion or observance are poor predictors of support for or participation in violent extremism.
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of extremism has tended to play out as a distinction between those who view CVE primarily as a war of ideas and those who emphasize underlying structural factors in society such as politics or socioeconomic issues. In the years immediately following 9/11, discussions about winning the war of ideas were part of Washington policy discourse, giving way under the Obama administration to greater emphasis on societal drivers. More recently, the Trump administration has signaled renewed interest in foregrounding religion in its approach to violent extremism and counterterrorism, including the possibility of renaming the CVE endeavor to reflect a primary focus on Islam (“Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Terrorism”).16 The most recent iteration of the UK government’s counter- extremism strategy, issued in 2015, also emphasized ideological factors such as religion.17
At one level, the debate about ideological versus structural factors in violent extremism represents a genuine disagreement about the relative importance of different categories of drivers in specific instances of terrorism, but one that—with enough evidence and data— can ultimately be resolved. However, a political dimension to this discussion is important insofar as which side one falls on in this debate often has an important bearing on how one understands the phenomenon of global terrorism more broadly. Emphasizing religious ideology as the primary cause of violent extremism makes it easier to reduce terrorism to the inherent malignancy of foreign ideas, a position that requires no change in US foreign policy. Emphasizing structural factors, on the other hand, entails confronting the idea that violent extremism is sometimes linked to political or economic drivers—which include a direct or indirect function of US foreign policy and global conduct.
Another way of thinking about the role of religion in violent extremism, and one that helps get beyond exclusively quantitative debates about “how much” religion contributes to one or another instance, is to focus on the specific role or function religion can play in particular cases:
• As a source of collective identity and solidarity, religion can aid in mobilization. This can be a particularly effective tool when violent extremist groups are trying to recruit alienated or disaffected young people in settings where they have been blocked from successfully embracing other forms of identity (such as citizenship, ethno-national affiliations, or professional status). For example, extremist recruiters in Europe will often focus on young second- and third-generation Muslims to exploit their sense of being trapped between disjunct national identities (such as British and Pakistani) by offering a new, primarily religious, framework for belonging and collective action.
• As a narrative that helps organize and give meaning to disparate sources of disaffection and grievance, religion may help violent extremist movements to frame world events and political developments in ways that resonate with an individual’s personal life experience.18 Shiv Sena, a far-right Indian political party ideologically based in the Hindutva, or Hindu nationalist, movement is one example in which a religious framework has been employed to rally around and sometimes literally fight for political causes, including, in this case, a “purer” India for Hindus.
• As a justification or “moral warrant,” religion can legitimize extremist acts, including violence. In some cases, nonreligious factors may have brought an individual or group of individuals to a point where they are willing to contemplate the use of violence, but need an additional impetus to convince them to engage in behavior they might otherwise regard as unlawful or unethical. For example, an individual may have suffered mistreatment or violence at the hands of the state but refrained from seeking revenge until provided with a theological basis for engaging in behavior that they perceive as transcending prevailing law.
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• As a way to imbue a higher or eternal purpose, religion can intensify and raise the stakes of a conflict. To emphasize the importance of action, violent extremist groups may instrumentalize religious narratives to transform a conflict arising from conventional political factors into something that needs to be understood as having grand and transhistorical—perhaps even eschatological—significance. For example, some Israeli settler groups that have used violence justify it in terms of territorial claims they regard as based in scripture.
Understanding more precisely how religious factors bear on given cases of violent extremism makes it perhaps possible to design and implement CVE solutions that address religious factors without getting directly caught in the tricky minefield of religious dis- course. For example, when religion serves as a source of identity and solidarity in the absence of other forms of affiliation, a CVE strategy might address those factors in the social environment that make it difficult for someone to find a sense of self-affirmation in other forms of belonging and community membership.
Although much of the policy discourse and action on religion and CVE today is focused on the self-proclaimed Islamic State, al-Qaeda, and other groups claiming a basis in Islam, extremist movements connected with other faiths and ideologies use religion in some of the same ways, even if the language, symbols, and framings vary across traditions. Recogniz- ing this is imperative. Groups such as the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda (Christianity), MaBaTha in Myanmar (Buddhism), Shiv Sena in India (Hinduism), and various white suprema- cist and far-right groups in the United States and Europe (Christianity) have all invoked religion—either directly or indirectly—to explain, justify, and inspire violence by positing the existence of a direct and imminent threat to a particular religious in-group.
In sum, the effort to understand the role of religion in violent extremism is not a matter of trying to crudely calculate the balance of ideational versus structural factors because such an approach offers little analytical utility. Rather, and to quote again from the Wilton Park Statement on religion and CVE, the task is more studying “the interplay between reli- gion and widely varying local or contextual factors such as state violence, corruption, cer- tain kinds of socioeconomic deprivation, localized conflict, youth disaffection and identity crisis.” Only when religion’s bearing in any given instance of violent extremism is more accu- rately understood can we begin to think about how religion might be part of the solution.
Assessing the Policy Discussion to Date Numerous efforts, including policy papers and policy-oriented symposia, have over the past few years acknowledged that the religious sector should be involved at all levels in efforts to counter violent extremism.19 Internationally, policymakers are targeting portions of their CVE strategy to directly work with religious partners, convening gatherings with various stakeholders to better understand whom to engage and how. On a national level, govern- ments are considering the role of religion in various components of violent extremism and, in varying degrees and levels of effectiveness, recognizing that the religious sector can have positive roles in CVE, especially on a local level. But for policymakers and government and security actors to work effectively with religious actors, they must engage carefully and appreciate their unique, sometimes complex roles within their communities.
CVE policy, internationally and domestically, has tended to instrumentalize religious actors—if they are referenced in a positive, collaborative way at all. For example, a govern- ment initiative may…