Counter-radicalization policies and policing in education: making a case for human security in Europe

Abstract

Research on counter-radicalization policies and policing in education in Europe is currently patchy and often focused on the United Kingdom. Scholars have observed that counter-radicalization policing in education is a threat to human freedom, human rights and dignity, and safe learning environments. However, scholars generally have not examined this issue from the viewpoint of human security. This paper examines the policing policy matter from the perspective of the personal security form of human security. The concern is that such a policing policy-related threat is antithetical to the concept of human security promoted by the United Nations (UN) and which the European Union (EU) and some European states had adopted. The study aims to find out how the current educational counter-radicalization initiatives and their effects could be used to argue for human security in Europe. The goal is to see how we can learn from past mistakes and improve future directions. The primary data are sourced from selected national, EU and UN policy documents, and a national media report. This work employs descriptive discourse analysis to analyse its data. The findings reveal that the present educational counter-radicalization policies of selected cases are grossly and/or explicitly deficient in the principles and language of human security. This has a negative impact on our understanding of the counter-radicalization policy effects in Europe. The study shows that the counter-radicalization strategy could trigger insecurity and negative security-oriented education for citizenship than we previously acknowledged in the literature. This piece suggests that the adverse consequences and tendencies could have been prevented had the appropriate human security elements been used in formulating and promoting the policy/strategy.

Abstract

Education; Counter-radicalization policy; European union; Extremism; Finland; Human security; Policing in education; Radicalization; Terrorism; United Kingdom.