Countering Islamist Radicalisation in Germany - A Guide to Germany's Growing Prevention Infrastructure

Countering and Preventing Violent Extremism (CVE & PVE) has become a main subject for nation states as well as for international organisations, like the UN or the OSCE, which are deeply engaged in finding good practice examples among their member states. Some states such as the UK or the Netherlands have adopted national strategies against violent extremism. Others, such as France have favoured a more securitised rather than a preventive approach. Set against this context, the present policy brief provides a look at Germany’s extensive experience with CVE and PVE, which the country has acquired over the last several years, in order to inform the debate and contribute insights to the benefit of experts and policy advisers working on these topics. Although Germany’s programs do not use the terms of CVE or PVE they can rightly be attributed to these concepts in that they are based on preventing involvement in extremism or countering its growth, rather than solely on repressive responses to extremist or terrorist incidents. The insights portrayed in this paper are both based on the professional experience of its authors, who have worked in this policy field for the past eight years as well as from open source material.