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“Understanding why 

individuals engage in violent 

extremism is critical not only 

to developing effective and 

appropriate strategies to 

counter potential violence 

but also to promoting the 

empathy needed to provide

openings for these measures.”

September 2014

Creating Spaces for Effective 

CVE Approaches

Georgia Holmer

E-mail: gholmer@usip.org

PEACEBRIEF178

The neighborhood of Eastleigh in Nairobi, sometimes referred to as little Mogadishu, is home to a 

significant ethnic Somali population. It is an insular and separate community, enmeshed in Somali 

clan culture, politics and business, and has an identity apart from the rest of the city, and indeed the 

country. It is also the focus of law enforcement crackdowns by Kenyan police and security forces, 

who in the aftermath of the devastating Westgate attack in September 2013 have been conducting heavy-handed raids and filling detention camps with “potential suspects.” These tactics have 

come under increasing criticism from human rights groups internationally, even as the violence of 

al-Shabaab persists and terrorism remains Kenya’s security priority. Many see the Kenyan security 

services as engaged in a dangerous cycle of violence, in that blunt and hardened security responses 

generate more recruits and further polarize the Kenyan and ethnic Somali communities in country. 

Understanding who poses a threat or who is at risk of radicalizing and joining the violence is a 

complicated inquiry. Stories have emerged of boys from Eastleigh as young as thirteen joining in 

the “fight,” enabled and encouraged by their families, their clan and community leaders. Some have 

articulated the social and financial benefits of joining al-Shabaab, seeing participation as an opportunity for boys to become men, to earn status in the community and to bring financial support to 

their families. Others have talked about the fate of boys who traveled north to Somalia and returned 

traumatized and damaged. Mothers, in particular, bear the burden of providing and protecting these 

boys, some of whom are destined to spend their days hidden—both out of shame because the 

experience did not reap the expected rewards and to avoid detection by the Kenyan authorities. 

Summary

• Countering violent extremism efforts strive to prevent at-risk individuals from being recruited 

into or joining extremist groups. Identifying who is at risk and who poses a threat, however, is a 

complicated inquiry.

• In Kenya, as in many other places experiencing violent extremism, the young, the undecided, the 

coerced and others might—if properly guided—move away from rather than toward violence. 

• Many at risk of becoming involved in violent extremist groups are too quickly categorized as an 

enemy and given no opportunity to move in a different direction.

• Empathy is critical both to learning why individuals are vulnerable to engaging in violent 

extremism and to creating the space and willingness in a community to help those at risk.
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Creating Spaces for Effective CVE Approaches

page 2 • PB 178 • September 2014

These scenarios, anecdotal as they are, represent a singular but important level of insight into 

radicalization in Kenya and elsewhere. Certainly, many engage in violent extremism for other reasons and their participation is deeper, darker and more committed. As in many conflicts, however, 

the young, the undecided, the coerced and others might still change their trajectories away from 

rather than toward violence—if properly guided and supported. What happens, then, to those who 

come close to violent extremist groups and are at high risk of becoming more involved, if they are 

prematurely labeled the enemy and have no opportunity to change direction? As much research 

on radicalization underscores, a true commitment to the ideology or mission of a violent extremist 

group often occurs after an initial experience of participation or exposure to violence. The absence 

of a chance to move in another direction, and to retreat and start anew, reinforces this likelihood. 

This is precisely the focus in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE): preventing individuals at risk of radicalization from being recruited into or joining violent extremist groups. Although 

part of larger counterterrorism strategies, CVE is a different realm. It is not centrally aimed at 

apprehending or stopping those who are already committing acts of violence, but instead those 

who are vulnerable to joining them and those who sympathize with them and enable them to 

persist in their violence. CVE is a decidedly complex endeavor, largely because the reasons individuals become involved in extremist violence are in themselves complex and the dynamics are unique 

to each conflict. 

Understanding why, on a human level, an individual might become part of a violent extremist 

group or endorse its tactics, however, does more than inform counter strategies—it also allows for 

empathy, a crucial and often overlooked component in effective CVE. Empathy is not only necessary 

to fully appreciate why an individual is vulnerable to the influence of violent extremism, it is also a 

prerequisite for programs that aim to disengage and reintegrate the potential violent extremist into 

the community. CVE only works in environments with space for forgiveness and understanding and 

a willingness to build “exit ramps”—opportunities for individuals to retreat from the influences of 

extremism, even if they have dabbled in the experience.

Many CVE programs rely on models of radicalization to explain the complexity of the why of 

violent extremism. These analytic frameworks, however, often stop short of a full explanation and, 

more important, do little to inspire empathy. Some have even begun to dismiss such constructs 

and claim that the concept of radicalization itself is rapidly becoming outmoded. As one scholar has 

suggested, radicalization is “a deeply flawed, conceptually misleading, and problematic paradigm.”1

The idea of radicalization as a process by which a person becomes engaged in violent extremism is rooted in several key—and imperfect—assumptions. First, it assumes a causal relationship 

between radical beliefs and extremist violence. 

Those closely examining the dynamics that surround groups such as al-Shabaab know that many 

of the fighters have joined for a range of overlapping reasons that have little to do with extremist 

ideology. They have joined to become men, for financial gain, because they were coerced, because 

they were vulnerable to peer pressure, to obtain status, to seek revenge or to establish their identity. 

Often the experience of being a violent extremist is deeply intertwined with criminal activity and 

motivations. None of these drivers renders the ideology irrelevant because these groups are run 

on the engines of the ideologues and their activities are justified by the radical beliefs. Counternarrative is always an important component of a holistic CVE strategy. At the same time, however, it 

underscores the reality that the key factors that lead an individual toward violent extremism may 

not always reflect a social-psychological process that evolves from radical beliefs to violent action. 

In addition, many analytic models of radicalization incorrectly assume or suggest that signs of 

radicalization in an individual are linear or progressive and are observable in a meaningful—and 
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Creating Spaces for Effective CVE Approaches

page 3 • PB 178 • September 2014

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public—way. This reality is particularly problematic for law enforcement and security agencies, 

whose jobs are to prevent violence and terrorism and to detect potential problems. One telling 

political cartoon in a recent wide-distribution Kenyan newspaper depicts Kenyan police apprehending a man dressed in Muslim religious garb as a Western-dressed Kenyan, weapons peeking from 

his clothing, passes unnoticed.2 False assumptions about why individuals participate in violent 

extremism and who is at risk of joining can only damage relationships between communities and 

the police, whose job it is to protect communities from such threats. It is those closest to those at 

risk—family and community members—who have the greatest insights into who is vulnerable 

to becoming involved in violent extremism and why. The police can have privileged access to this 

information only if they have cultivated a solid trust-based relationship with the community. In 

Eastleigh, however, fearful of their presence, “children rush to alert their parents when they see a 

policeman passing by.”3

Would it be possible to create an environment in Kenya in which the notional thirteen-year-old boy 

from Eastleigh who has “met” al-Shabaab is given a second chance and supported in finding a different 

path in life? Effective CVE approaches require a willingness not only on the part of the state authorities 

to allow for exit but also among the community, who themselves are suffering from the threat of terrorism, to expand their understanding of what and who drives the violence. All must cultivate some level 

of empathy, and some space for forgiveness, for those vulnerable to becoming involved. 

These factors suggest a need for integrating more innovative methodologies into CVE capacitybuilding and training programs that promote a nuanced appreciation for the complexities of why 

an individual might become engaged in violent extremism. Radicalization is still a useful term in 

helping explain motivations, as long it is carefully unpacked, contextually relevant and not mired in 

outdated and irrelevant assumptions about causality. CVE practitioners should explore rigorously 

the varied and multifaceted reasons about why youth become involved in violent extremism 

and help others move away from simplistic causal explanations for terrorism. Understanding and 

humanizing those at risk creates the space and willingness needed for effective approaches to 

preventing youth from becoming the next generation of terrorists. 

Notes

1. John Horgan, “Discussion Point: The End of Radicalization,” September 28, 2012, www.start.umd.

edu/news/discussion-point-end-radicalization. See also Peter Neumann, “The Trouble with 

Radicalization,” International Affairs 89, no. 4 (July 2013).

2. The Daily Nation, May 6, 2014, p. 12.

3. “Cracking Down on Nairobi Somalis,” Aljazeera.com, April 22, 2014, www.aljazeera.com/indepth/

features/2014/04/cracking-down-nairobi-somalis-201442012628685801.html.

About This Brief

Georgia Holmer is the deputy 

director of the USIP’s Rule of Law 

Center. Previously, she led the 

Women Preventing Extremist 

Violence project, which seeks to 

identify and strengthen the roles 

women play in building community 

resilience to violent extremism, 

for USIP’s Center for Gender 

and Peacebuilding. Using Kenya 

as an example, and drawing on 

observations from a recent visit, the 

author explores how promoting a 

more nuanced understanding of 

radicalization can help reach those 

who are at risk of being pushed 

and pulled into extremist violence.