Neoliberal Terror: The Radicalisation of Social Policy in Europe

Project Information

NeoliberalTerror

Grant agreement ID: 851022

DOI

10.3030/851022

Project closed

EC signature date 17 January 2020

Start date 1 February 2020

End date 30 April 2025

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 434 362,00

EU contribution

€ 1 434 362,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 4 - NeoliberalTerror (Neoliberal Terror: The Radicalisation of Social Policy in Europe)

Reporting period: 2024-08-01 to 2025-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The shock of domestic terrorist events, from 2002 onwards, encouraged policymakers and civil society to turn towards 'upstream' methods of early intervention - despite incomplete evidence on who will become a terrorist offender. They turned to social crime prevention methods upon individuals deemed 'vulnerable', and created a new field of terrorism professionals to implement this. Doctors, nurses and social workers are asked to report clients they feel might be radicalising. As this is not a traditional professional duty for care professionals, the Neoliberal Terror project investigated how and why national security has become part of the professional duties of health and social care workers. This is important for society because the integration of security into caring professions has important consequences for healthcare ethics, the avoidance of stigmatisation and discrimination, and data protection. These changes also speak to potential shifts in foundational understandings of care, and security, in European societies.

Our objectives were to understand: 1) What drives states to implement counter-extremism policy - is it linked to neoliberal governance? 2) How have counterterrorism responsibilities entered the healthcare sector, and in which countries? 3) What are the experiences of individuals referred to the UK's Prevent program?

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We have created the first index of CVE implementation across European, North American and Australasian societies. We have used the index to highlight the variance in P/CVE implementation between 38 'western' nations and to identify the drivers of high CVE implementation. We explored whether neoliberal economic policy, GDP, population demographics and previous terrorist attacks are factors in high implementation of P/CVE. We were interested in the relationship between neoliberal economic policy and P/CVE because, in Criminology, the argument is often made that neoliberal economics underpins the turn to risk-based, preventive policy.

Results show no association between neoliberal economic policy and the amount of P/CVE implemented by state. Neoliberal economics is not driving P/CVE implementation. However, other factors (such as the recent experience of terrorist attacks, and the size of minority ethnic populations) have a stronger association with the implementation of prevention policy. Our findings show that - despite their being no association between Muslim minority population size and terrorist attacks - Muslims are securitised as threats by many nation states, driving the implementation of P/CVE policies.

We have conducted in-depth qualitative case study research into the implementation of P/CVE in England, Scotland, Czechia, Croatia, Norway, Lithuania, Finland & France exploring the development of P/CVE policy architectures and how/if each nation implements terrorism prevention through the healthcare sector. Our findings show that national understandings of civil society affect the translation of P/CVE to each country. France's constitutional Republicanism has, for example, precluded the implementation of pre-emptive P/CVE - in favour of strong protections of free thought and speech. In Britain, longstanding 'nudge' governance has led the country to implement the largest pre-emptive P/CVE intervention program in the world, but significant controversy exists around the tensions Prevent causes with civil liberties, free thought, and equality. England & Wales have also established 'vulnerability support hubs' which share the medical information of people referred to P/CVE referral schemes with counterterrorism police. This health information (regarding psychiatric illnesses) is then used by police & psychiatrist teams to enact interventions upon persons - including hospital detention on the grounds of public protection. We highlight the racialised and unethical dynamics of this program in our co-authored report (by Hil Aked, Tarek Younis & Charlotte Heath-Kelly) 'Racism, Mental Health and Pre-Crime Policing: The Ethics of Vulnerability Support Hubs' (MedAct 2021). We have since published a follow-up study of the transformation of the Hubs into the national CT CCS program ('Unhealthy Liaisons: NHS Collaboration with the Counter Terrorism Clinical Consultancy Service').

Finally, we have produced a documentary film of the experiences of people referred to the UK's Prevent program. The review of counterterrorism policies rarely includes their impact upon marginalised communities, so we collaborated with our NGO partner Preventwatch to film the stories of those who've been referred to Prevent - and the impact this had upon them.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

In WP1, we quantitatively modelled P/CVE implementation across 38 countries - completed by using an expert survey methodology and regression analysis. We disproved our original hypothesis that neoliberal social and economic policy has a direct effect on the implementation of P/CVE policies. Our research showed that the drivers of CVE implementation were the frequency of terrorist attacks in each nation; and the size of Muslim minority populations. These findings marked the completion of our first research objective: to understand the drivers of P/CVE implementation in states. We published our findings in the Terrorism and Political Violence journal in 2023.

Our qualitative research in WP1 involved our researchers tracing the development of P/CVE policies across four major International Organisations (the UN, the Council of Europe, the EU and the OSCE) and their subsequent diffusion. We discovered the origination of proto-P/CVE in the OSCE (with particular application to Russia and the Caucasus region) before the discourse of radicalisation emerged in Western Europe.

WP2: This work package centred research interviews with professionals working within P/CVE apparatuses across seven European countries, particularly where that work intersected with Health and Social Care infrastructure. Our findings on the integration of P/CVE into health systems showed that there is no cross-European model for this work. Britain, France and Norway have some degree of integration between P/CVE and the provision of (mental) health services. The work is most advanced in Britain where a controversial program led by Counterterrorism Policing accesses the medical diagnoses and treatment compliance of persons of interest, in order to profile their risk and design covert interventions. We published our findings on this project through two research reports with the NGO Medact (2021; 2024) and an article in the top journal Security Dialogue (2024).

WP3: this work package focused at the individual level on the effects of P/CVE intervention. We made a film with people referred to the UK's Prevent program. The film was completed in 2023 and features four filmed testimonies from individuals referred to Prevent about the impacts on them and their families. Our major finding from WP3 was that low level referrals to the UK's Prevent program (i.e. which were not progressed to Channel interventions) still caused inordinate anxiety and stress for individuals and their families.

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