Counter-terrorism on campus: English universities' engagement with the prevent duty
Keywords: counter-terrorism
higher education
prevent duty
security
extremism
securitisation theory
radicalisation
prevent
universities
policy enactment

The present study explores how English universities respond to their legal obligation to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. Several scholars have argued that the Prevent duty securitises universities. Specifically, they have raised concerns that the obligation to spot and report signs of radicalisation, combined with practices aimed at shielding university members from potentially radicalising thoughts, stands in direct opposition to universities’ primary function to foster critical debate, freedom of speech, and academic freedom. Such scholars have also suggested that the duty may encourage university administration and scholars to spy on and discriminate against their Muslim students in particular. However, scholarship that actually investigates how universities have implemented the Prevent duty is still scarce. In turn, we currently lack empirical evidence that allows for an in-depth insight into universities’ enactment of Prevent, and into the extent to which they have become securitised as a result of their duty.
Drawing on a comparative case study comprised of over seventy policy documents, interviews with twenty-one Prevent committee members from seventeen universities, and three Regional Prevent Coordinators (RCs), this thesis explores (1) how English universities respond to the objectives of the Prevent duty, and (2) whether they engage in securitising activities through their enactment of Prevent. Combining securitisation theory with Ball’s theory of policy enactment and Lipsky’s understanding of ‘street-level bureaucracy’, the thesis evaluates whether Prevent has generated ‘university securitisation’.
My findings show that RCs have reacted to universities’ initial rejection of Prevent by appealing to institutions’ culture of care towards their students. However, in their effort to de-securitise Prevent by highlighting the duty’s safeguarding focus, the RCs have contributed to a conflation of safeguarding and security. Vulnerable individuals are not only perceived as potential victims, but also as potential threat sources, who, if left without intervention, will inevitably engage in violent extremism and terrorism. Consequently, Prevent does not merely consist of practices that are traditionally subsumed under welfare and care activities.
My empirical investigation of universities’ approaches to enacting Prevent as part of their safeguarding, external speaker, and IT policies and procedures provides compelling evidence for the conclusion that some universities have been drawn into the security apparatus of the state by engaging in proactive online surveillance and censorship and by carrying out increased intelligence exchange with law enforcement agencies. However, other universities seem to have largely rejected the securitising move by challenging the perception of students as potential threats, and by limiting their Prevent delivery to previously established safeguarding and wellbeing activities. The majority of my participants’ accounts suggest that their institutions lie somewhere in between these two poles, having accepted certain narratives and practices and rejected others. The study thus argues that securitisation is a nuanced and complex process that does not only differ across institutions, but also within policy areas.
In particular, the study finds that universities have different ‘risk profiles’ which are shaped by interconnected factors associated with universities’ student demography, location, prestige, size, and governance. Most notably, the risk of radicalisation on campus is associated with increased extremist activities in universities’ local environments, and the prevalence of socio-economically disadvantaged and ‘diverse’ students (e.g. Muslim students, especially those with conservative views and ties to local communities). Those factors converge with universities’ reputation, as the research-intense, prestigious pre-1992 universities are well known to host the least diverse and most advantaged students in the country. The study finds that universities’ divergent characteristics and risk profiles either widen or limit their scope for autonomy and thus for resisting securitisation.