Posts Tagged: UK

Aktualisiert am 10. Okt. 2016 Von gast Kommentieren

An analysis of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy, CONTEST, and the challenges in its evaluation

by Erika Brady

The UK’s Counter-Terrorism strategy, known as CONTEST, is recognized as one of the most successful soft-focus strategies in the world, with an intended emphasis on community support and what have become known as ‘Prevent’ (or counter-extremism) measures. In all, there are four limbs to CONTEST: PREVENT, PROTECT, PURSUE and PREPARE. While there is much crossover between these areas, for example policing activities take place in all four limbs, each one has a specific focus with its own intrinsic goals. This article intends to provide an overview of CONTEST, and to explore the challenges of evaluating counter-terrorism strategies in general. In doing so, I intend to show that while robust and independent evaluation of CONTEST has not been undertaken from a quantitative approach, some level of evaluation has taken place and can be taken into consideration when moving forward with future analysis of the strategy.

Aktualisiert am 27. Jun. 2016 Von gast 1 Kommentar

Brexit: Droht das Auseinanderbrechen Europas?

von Dirk Peters

Der Brexit ist da. Droht jetzt die Erosion, Implosion oder gar Explosion der EU, das Ende des Friedensprojekts Europa? Droht, wie Premierminister Cameron in seiner Kampagne gewarnt hatte, eine langfristige Gefährdung der britischen und europäischen Sicherheit?

Die kurze Antwort: Es kommt darauf an. Und zwar nicht nur darauf, wie die britische Regierung reagieren wird und ob sich die Finanz- und Aktienmärkte beruhigen lassen. Es kommt vor allem auch darauf an, wie Politik und Gesellschaften im Rest Europas reagieren. Die größte Gefahr besteht darin, einfachen Impulsen nachzugeben und sich darauf zu konzentrieren, die schon seit Jahrzehnten so widerspenstigen Briten nun endlich zu bestrafen, um damit auch andere EU-Mitglieder von Austrittsgedanken abzuschrecken. Stattdessen wird es wichtig sein, mit Besonnenheit zu reagieren und das in zweierlei Hinsicht. Es gilt zum einen, ein Arrangement zu finden, das Großbritannien und die EU zum gegenseitigen Nutzen miteinander verbindet. Zum anderen muss bei den verbleibenden EU-Mitgliedern die Botschaft des britischen Referendums ernst genommen werden.

Aktualisiert am 10. Apr. 2016 Von gast 2 Kommentare

Patterns of far right and anti-Muslim mobilisation in the United Kingdom

Icon Blogfokus Far Right

This is the eleventh article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Graham Macklin

Far right and anti-Muslim politics in Britain have become increasingly fragmented. The British National Party (BNP), once the leading far right party, has largely collapsed. During the 2010 general election the BNP polled only 1.9% of the vote and was overshadowed by the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), a right-wing, anti-immigration populist party unencumbered by the BNP’s debilitating historical baggage. Thereafter, the BNP leadership descended into demoralization, bitter recrimination and factional rivalry, hastening the departure of its activist base, the collapse of its membership and leading, ultimately, to the expulsion of its chairman, Nick Griffin, as the party continued its further descent to political irrelevance. The BNP appears ‘finished’ as a political force, its ‘quest for legitimacy’ at an end.

Aktualisiert am 29. Mrz. 2016 Von gast 1 Kommentar

Right Wing Terrorism & Hate Crime in the UK: A Historical Perspective

Icon Blogfokus Far Right

This is the fifth article in our series Trouble on the Far-Right. For more information on the series, please click here.
Logo: Strike a Light by Rob Howard under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

by Alex Carter

The threat that the far right poses to civil society changes across time and space. In Britain this threat has generally been in the form of hate-crimes and public disorder, yet in the past two decades there has been a shift towards solo-actor terrorism. By examining far right groups in the UK in the post-war period this paper explores the drivers of this change; namely, how membership in extremist groups combined with the proliferation of far right networks created by the internet can create a pathway to radicalisation which ends in acts of terror.