Understanding the Interplay of Counter-Extremism Trends and Muslim Communities in Europe

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violent extremism as health or safety issues would be tackled; 3/through the countering of negative and undesirable individual-level behaviors for the protection of society (Eisenman et al. 2019, p. 47).Such approaches are predicated, at least to some extent, on the logic (if not the language) of 'conveyor belt' theories, which aim to identify and tackle particularly behavioral, ideological and psychological mechanisms on the basis that they may act as enablers for later engagement in acts of violence (Sardoč and Deželan 2018), as well as an inversion of traditional factors of vulnerability (society as 'vulnerable' to, and to be protected from, the individual).The process of protection from extremism is modeled programmatically through the construction of the Primary, Secondary and Tertiary (PST) pyramid, with the widest Primary focus on prevention through addressing contextual conditions, behaviors and attitudes that may lead to radicalization, a more refined Secondary focus on individuals deemed at risk to extremism, and a highly focused Tertiary level which aims at deradicalizing those identified as directly linked to extremism or violence (McNeil-Willson 2017).
It has been suggested that the expansion of the securitized lens seems to represent, at least in part, a crisis in counter-terrorism, reflecting failures in adequately tracing the causes of terrorist-style violence (Jackson 2015).This expansion into CVE, however, has not assuaged underlying issues, with CVE policy and approaches struggling to establish a clear and compelling definition as a field, thereby creating: a catchall category that lacks precision and focus; reflects problematic assumptions about the conditions that promote violent extremism; and has not been able to draw clear boundaries that distinguish CVE programs from those of other, well-established fields, such as development and poverty alleviation, governance and democratization, and education.(Heydemann 2014, p. 1) These porous boundaries represent a structural fault at the foundational level of CVE, with the definition of extremism often dependent on the specific government in power at one time; extremism therefore becomes 'a normative, relational and context-specific value: one is judged radical or extremist against culturally specific benchmarks, and this label is dependent on who is doing the labelling' (McNeil-Willson et al. 2019, p. 5).As such, it is more accurate to consider CVE as the construction of 'extremisms' through several interactive 'counter-extremisms'.
The first task in assessing the impact of CVE on Muslim communities, therefore, is to understand how different governments and States address this definitional problem.Due to these highly malleable definitional boundaries, CVE approaches are diverse, conceptualizing the problems and factors that lead to 'radicalization' differently to create a variety of suggested responses, including: the expansion of preventative policing; ideological intervention; social and psychological care; the addressing of political grievances and engagement with 'moderate' views; prison deradicalization; intercommunity cultural projects; anti-migration laws; integration and assimilation of minorities; alternative pathways to joining violent extremist groups; and community resilience building around social cohesion (Rundle-Thiele and Anibaldi 2016, pp. 55-56).Contemporary CVE thus presents us with a bewildering array of policy, programmes and institutions that tackle posited causes of extremism in a variety of different ways, fields and communities across Europe.
This chapter will map a coherent understanding of these broad (and broadening) rhizomes of CVE across Europe, to consider how they differ between each national context, with the initial research question: i.How do we characterize the trends of CVE on a State level, to provide a comparative analysis of the approaches taken by European governments and civil society?
This will provide the foundation to consider how such approaches interact with Muslim communities directly through programmatic engagement, as well as indirectly by shaping national debates around security, immigration and integration, for instance.Having considered the different characters and conceptualizations of CVE across Europe, the second part of the chapter will focus on the following research question: ii.How can we understand the interaction that such focuses have with European Muslim communities across varying national contexts?
Such a wide range of terminology reflects both the difficulties in conceptualizing the causes of terrorist-style violence and the inability of policymakers to adequately codify extremism in law and practice (Sardoč and Deželan 2018;Lowe 2017).This approach has, inevitably, brought a host of new movements, organizations and communities under the lens of security within counter-extremism legislation (McNeil-Willson 2019;Dodd 2020;Speckhard and Ellenberg 2020).Critically, comparatively more Muslim community organizations and actors have fallen under the definition of 'extremist' in contrast to other groups-communities already labelled 'suspect' in conceptualizations of pre-CVE counter-terrorism (Pantazis and Pemberton 2009;Smyth 2009;Ragazzi 2017).
As a direct consequence of definitional vagaries and the expansion of groups problematized under a security lens, CVE has been critiqued as leading to the dis-inclusion and alienation of many Muslim community groups from authorities, including those that may be ethically or actively opposed to violent extremism, whilst also exacerbating factors that could lead to violence (Holmwood and O'Toole 2017, pp. 57-58)-although the extent of this institutional disengagement is contested (Shanaah 2019;Lindekilde 2015).Indirectly, there are serious concerns that the rise of CVE is enabling polarizing trends in European politics, including the creation of 'a symbiotic relationship between Islamophobic counter-extremism policies and the Islamophobic far right', whereby liberal counter-extremism rhetoric from the State is appropriated by Far-Right movements (Aked 2017, p. 163).The resurgence of Far-Right movements in Europe, therefore, may be nurtured by the War on Terror and its latest CVE manifestations; indeed, much of the European Far Right has found common cause in Islamophobic sentiment and action which echoes and amplifies securitization narratives against Muslim faith practices and communities (Kallis 2018;Abbas 2019).
This chapter takes a macro-level view, looking to track national trends of CVE and how they are interacting with Muslim communities in Europe.Whilst this chapter cannot claim to prove specific or unilateral mechanistic impacts running from national CVE approaches towards European Muslim communities, it does attempt to interpret how certain CVE practices, focuses and assumptions may draw from, and in turn shape, national discussions around European Muslim minorities.The chapter is founded upon the understanding that what 'violent extremism' is (and is not) differs between States-dependent on governmental focus and ideology-and therefore the establishing of national characteristics of CVE practices in Europe enables us to better discern security-based discussions affecting European Muslim communities.

Constructing a Characterization of National CVE Practices in Europe
This section develops an understanding of the ways in which 'counterextremisms' (and therefore 'extremisms') are conceptualized and articulated.This provides us with an adequate structure for gauging the potential interaction they have with Muslim communities.
A dataset of 697 CVE policies, programmes and institutions, all of which specifically cite 'countering violent extremism' as their focus and goal, which were active between 2014 and 2019, were collected from ten European case study countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and the UK.This research was gathered as part of the EU Horizon2020-funded Coordination and Support Action Project 'Building Resilience against Violent Extremism and Polarisation' (BRaVE), based at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.The ten most important policies and institutions, as well as the 40 most important projects, were gathered by researchers across Europe-although in some cases, this was exceeded.The resultant 697 policies, programmes and institutions were then coded using a set of 42 keywords drawn from the language of their aims and activities, to characterize their focus (e.g., 'hate crime', 'integration', 'interfaith', 'resilience').This formed a basic dataset of CVE practice from across Europe.
This dataset was condensed through a second round of coding, in which keywords that expressed similar ideas were matched.For example: projects linked to keywords such as 'deradicalisation programs' were, in turn, linked to programmes that used keywords such as 'online deradicalisation', as both describe similar activities taking place in different contexts; projects using the keyword 'economic inequality' were linked to those using the keyword 'equality', both dealing with socio-economic factors; and projects using the keyword 'integration' were linked to those that cited 'assimilation', as both were centred on minority communities and their role in society.This process was conducted until no more linkages were able to be made, resulting in six final areas of focus: identity; migration and minorities; socio-economic factors; deradicalization; safeguarding; and political engagement.
Each of these areas represents a very different categorization of CVE.The area of identity focuses on discussions of beliefs, race and faith.It conceives of both the causes behind extremism and the responses to it as very strongly linked to ideological processes, and includes the keywords of 'identity', 'counter-narratives', 'anti-racism' and 'anti-discrimination', for example.The area of migration and minorities specifically focuses on foreign and minority communities as key in extremism and counterextremism, and include the keywords of 'integration', 'assimilation' and 'minorities'.The area of socio-economics is comprised of keywords such as 'economic inequality', 'crime', as well as 'community development'.Deradicalization lists the stronger articulations of CVE which are deployed to deal with individuals deemed to be already engaging in actions, beliefs or networks seen as extremist (leaning towards Tertiary articulations of CVE).Safeguarding involves projects, policies or institutions that are concerned with issues such as 'risk', 'online safety', 'abuse and neglect' or 'psychological care'.And finally, political engagement details practices in which 'political engagement', 'positive citizenship' or 'human rights' were associated.These six keywords were then mapped across each national context, to provide an basis for understanding the national characters of CVE.

Findings on the Characterization of National CVE Practices
The following findings were drawn from the coding process.Each country case study exhibited different CVE focuses, prioritizing certain practices and excluding others when countering the perceived threat of extremism.
The number of times that each CVE programme, policy and institution was linked to a keyword in the six main areas of focus is shown below.Due to small variations in the number of CVE projects, policies and institutions collected per country, the national total of keywords differs (Table 8.1).This dataset is developed below to show the percentage that each keyword was used within each national CVE dataset 1 (Table 8.2).
Finally, these are expressed as a set of radar graphs, designed to visualize how CVE is rendered differently in different national contexts.Such 1 Not all keywords used are listed in the final six areas of focus.Broader keywords, such as 'extremism' or 'countering violent extremism', were used in the initial dataset of 42 but left out of the second coding process as they were too broad a classification to be useful.The dataset can be accessed at www.brave-h2020.eu/database.a visualization gives an indication of the specific areas that projects, policies and institutions in each country have deemed necessary to prioritize and which forms and causes of extremisms each country has perceived to be most important (Figs. 8.1,8.2,8.3,8.4,8.5,8.6,8.7,8.8,8.9,and 8.10).

The Implications of National Trends on Muslim Communities in Europe
Having mapped the national trends of CVE throughout Europe, we are presented with a clearer way to consider the implications and interactions such key areas have had, and continue to have, on Muslim communities in Europe.

Identity
Discussions over identity form a central component of European CVE but are particularly evident in the counter-extremisms of France and Hungary.Lesser focusses were placed on identity in Danish, Polish and British CVE.CVE in France and Hungary, whilst both focusing on identity as a core component of extremism and counter-extremism, have had significantly different interactions with Muslim minorities: in France, centralized, State-led CVE approaches have problematized Islamic activism and identity, framing certain articulations of religiosity-particularly Islam-as existing in opposition to laïcité (broadly translated as French national 'secularism').This overbearing focus on identity has led to the linking of French Muslim communities with extremism, whilst also a squeezing of civil society opposition to CVE, nullifying the spaces in which NGOs can form a resilient challenge to issues of civil and religious rights.
In Hungary, we see a similar problematization of Muslim identity as existing in opposition to Hungarian national or European (Christian) values.However, the limited governmental strategy around CVE, as well as general concern about active Far-Right movements, has resulted in community-led actors being able to seize the CVE space to target hate speech and racism perpetrated by both violent Far-Right actors and elements of the government.As such, the limitations of governmental approaches to extremism have meant that, in part, NGOs have utilized articulations of CVE to create an attempted bulwark against the most polarizing and Islamophobic national-political discourse.
In France, we see a very strong framing of extremism in value-laden tones, as a growing overlap has developed between French republican values and internal security, particularly against the dangers of djihadisme.
French authorities have particularly focused on perceived links between terrorism, religiosity and crime, with extremism framed as the replacement of French secular values with religious conservatism, mixed with exposure to criminal elements of the French lower/under-classes.
France's focus on identity factors is matched with strong practices of deradicalization, and these dual pillars of France's CVE are activated in the two key sites of French CVE: the prison and the banlieue.Between 2015 and 2018, three significant deradicalization programmes were introduced which targeted French prisons, including the creation of 1,500 places in separate prison wings in 2018 'especially for radicalized inmates' (FRANCE24 2018).The emphasis of the role of criminality within radicalization processes is combined with discussions on national identity and the conceptualization of the terrorist threat as both highly racialized and primarily ideological.
Classes and communities that are therefore more likely to be exposed to street or gang crime-such as minority communities with more limited access to education, employment and mainstream societal engagementare now conceived as being those communities at risk from terrorism.French counter-terrorism thus represents a class and racial bias that, whilst clearly seen in other European states, is particularly overtly articulated.The securitization of visible elements of Muslim identity as potentially antithetical to French Republican laïcité has gained pace following the mainstreaming of specific discourses that frame terrorism as the result of the interweaving of religious conservativism and criminal activity.Not only has this created inappropriate and ineffective responses to narrow issues of terrorism, it has led to the wider problematization of minority identity and faith markers, reproducing institutionalized Islamophobia.
In France, the rhetoric that has characterized the long 'War on Terror' which, in the USA, has been wound so tightly around the interests of US capital (Lea and Hallsworth 2012), has been reconceptualized as a fight to save and safeguard secularism (D'Amato 2019).Republican values, norms and identity, built around a devotion to state secularism, have been mobilized in the response against terrorism in France, leading to the development of a specific national formula for understanding terrorism as the result of religion when added to criminality.Such a conceptualization was given further impetus with the Charlie Hebdo attack-a publication singled out by violent actors because of its religious irreverence-which has led to a hardening of public opinion that French national secularism represents the incompatible counterpoint to extremist, religious (Islamic) values.This has had a significant impact not only on the development of counter-terror responses but has also dictated to some extent the response of French civil society to terrorism and counter-terrorism.
In viewing extremism as the result of ideological and specifically quasireligious opposition to French values, counter-terrorism approaches have isolated French civil society groups that have sought to challenge the government.This focus on French Republican secular identity as a vaccine against extremism has also contributed towards a widespread consensus in France in favour of CVE, whereby 'criticism of the system… in French civil society has been rather tepid' (Shapiro 2008).Human Rights Watch has raised the same point, stating that 'France has not experienced the same public debate or media scrutiny [on counter-terrorism and Islamophobia] as have Germany and the UK' (HRW 2010).
Similar framing of elements of CVE which place certain Islamic identities in opposition to national values are evident in the analysis of Hungarian CVE practice.This reflects wider national-political discourse, with the Hungarian Government using hardened nationalist rhetoric to frame itself as a bastion against the 'Islamization' of Europe.CVE-linked devices have been used by the government across several public institutions to encourage stronger national identity, including education, the national curriculum, media and symbolic politics.This national identity is often couched in homogenizing terms through policy and authority approaches which openly problematize Muslim minorities, as well as Roma, LGBTQ+ communities-cast as an anathema to the traditional family unit and family values-and the utilizing of obscured yet potent articulations of anti-Semitism (Bustikova 2019).
Whilst the Fidesz Government has regularly used polarizing rhetoric against Muslim communities and migrants, it has also attempted to weaken Hungarian Far-Right movements, including parties such as Jobbik (Jobbik Magyarországért Mozgalom, or the 'Movement for a Better Hungary'), through a clampdown on militant activism and the removal of certain Far-Right online content through the Digital Child Protection Strategy ("Magyarország Digitális Gyermekvédelmi Stratégiája" 2016).However, certain Far-Right discourses are, in turn, encouraged or enabled, including elements of Holocaust denial and Islamophobic tropes.
This increasing focus on hardened formations of identity has interacted with wider trends in Hungarian society, whereby there has been rising tide of xenophobia and Islamophobia.In 1992, 15% of Hungarians expressed xenophobic attitudes, rising to 39% in 2014, and again to 67% by 2018 ('Nyomkodja a kormány a pánikgombot, így egyre jobban irtózunk az idegenektől' 2018), whilst 72% of Hungarians have been recorded as holding unfavourable views of Muslims, far above the EU median of 43% (Manevic 2016).This language of Islamophobia has leaked from the Fidesz Government into national CVE discourse and policy, which has linked Islam to crimes and terrorism, depicted Islam as inclined towards totalitarian, suggested that Muslims are unable to integrate and positioned Muslim minorities as representing a threat to 'Christian Europe' (Krekó et al. 2019).This has enabled patterns of hostility towards Muslim identity in Hungary.
Whilst governmental CVE has been limited and mixed, much of the actual Hungarian countering extremism delivery has been led by NGOs, who have utilized elements of CVE against hate speech, racism and extremism.Research by Political Capital and Eötvös Loránd University found that most interventions against racism and Islamophobia were conducted on a community level by NGOs, often coopting CVE practice whilst operating in opposition to governmental security approaches (Kende et al. 2018).There have also been attempts by NGOs ostensibly involved in CVE to enforce legal action against those who perpetrate hate crimes, hate speech and discrimination-as inscribed in the 2014 Civil Code and the 2016 Criminal Code, designed to protect minority national, ethnic, racial and religious groups.Generally, very few hate crime cases are brought to court, and it is more often used to prosecuted minorities such as Muslims and Roma than majority communities (Jovánovics 2017).The central work of NGOs in attempting to enforce sometimes repurposed elements of CVE against Islamophobia and xenophobia has, in turn, led to the Hungarian Government launching a series of campaigns against NGOs by framing their international links as a threat to Hungarian security.
In France and Hungary, whilst both CVE approaches are strongly linked to identity-a process which often results in the problematization of Muslim minorities in way which feeds into wider trends of Islamophobia-the way in which these trends play out in the different national context through CVE practice differs widely.

Migration and Minorities
The countries that suggest CVE approaches as strongly orientated towards migration and minorities are the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Italy.
Whilst the nature of Belgium, with its three regions (Flanders, Wallonia and Brussels) and complex system of governance, makes it challenging to understand sweeping national responses, the coding suggests that CVE practice in Belgium has strongly privileged discussion on migration and minorities, in which they have been singled out as more likely to engage in violent extremism.
Similar patterns are seen in a critical exploration of Dutch CVE.Specific concerns about Dutch counter-terror and counter-extremism approaches have been raised with regard to the way in which it has acted to stigmatize members of minority and migrant communities.Counterterrorism practices have been singled out for criticism by leading Dutch and international groups (including the Dutch section of the International Commission of Jurists, the Anne Frank Foundation, Buro Jansen and Janssen, and the Humanist Committee on Human Rights and the United Nations) as having 'a polarising influence on Dutch society, giving support to those who wished to conduct hate crimes against minority citizens by reinforcing the immigration-crime-terrorism trope', thereby fuelling Far-Right extremism (Manjikian 2017, p. 381).Eijkman et al. have further argued that the highly politicized nature of Dutch law enforcement has meant that clashes between police and criminals or instances of civil unrest were significantly more likely to be labelled as 'terrorist' by authorities than in other countries (Eijkman et al. 2012).
CVE in the Netherlands can broadly be characterized as focused on tackling segregation as the key means of tackling extremism-although the broader impacts of societal segregation, structural racism and security measures on minority communities are not common nor much debated in the Netherlands (Eijkman et al. 2012, p. 8).The focus by Dutch authorities on creating a coordinated response to migration from the Middle East and North Africa are revealed in the concerns raised by the Algemene Inlichtingen-en Veiligheidsdienst (the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service, or AIVD) that refugeed people entering the Netherlands, following the start of the Syrian Civil War and other Muslim-majority areas of instability, are being targeted by jihadist groups for recruitment.However, there is still limited evidence that this is the case, and this may rather reflect the tendency of Dutch authorities, policy and discourse to focus on or overstate the risk from jihadist networks within the Netherlands.As van Wijk and Bolhuis (2017) find, the Dutch intelligence services, the AIVD and the Militaire Inlichtingenen Veiligheidsdienst (the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service, or MIVD), are yet to produce quantifiable results of their CVE work and may not only be ineffective and inefficient in their response but actively creating and perpetuating processes of over-reporting and stigmatization of Muslims and minority communities.
The disproportionate focus by Dutch authorities on so-called violent 'Islamist' or jihadist forms of violent extremism endures today.The National Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding en Veiligheid (National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, or NCTV), in a 2018 assessment, for instance, concluded that whilst there is concern over the rise of the far-right in the Netherlands, there were 'no indications in the Netherlands of far-right terrorist structures or groups'.Despite this, there has been notable instances of an increase in far-right activity and irregular instances of racism.In 2017, for instance, the Anne Frank Trust identified 4,038 anti-Semitic or racist incidents, along with high peaks in anti-Semitism in 2014 and in Islamophobia in 2015, likely in response to attacks in Europe.
Denmark has also increasingly focused on migration and minorities in articulations of CVE.One such indication of this is the legislative package Ét Danmark uden parallelsamfund -Ingen ghettoer i 2030 ('One Denmark without parallel societies -No ghettos by 2030').The 2018 policy aims to tackle 'parallel societies/communities' through a series of measures designed to prevent the establishment of non-integrated communities that are deemed vulnerable to extremism.This is done through the designation of 'ghetto areas', identified as having both a high number of low-income workers or benefit claimants, and Muslim minorities.The multi-ethnic Nørrebro District in Copenhagen, for instance, contains three areas which were identified by the Danish Government as 'ghettos' under current definitions.One of the most noted examples is Mjølnerparken, Nørrebro-an area where 92% are first-or secondgeneration immigrants and 60% of the area are of Lebanese, Iraqi or Sudanese origin (Hussain et al. 2011).
Increased securitization of migrant and minority communities within national-level political discourse in Denmark has contributed towards a rise in reported instances of racism and hate crime.As Karagiannis states: '… Danish politicians bear a huge share of responsibility for the rise in Islamophobia and hateful rhetoric that has become quite common in Denmark', leading to an increase in attacks 'not only on social media but also at congested places and in broad daylight, verbal and physical assault' (Karagiannis 2018, p. 68).
The focus of such programmes on minority cultural and political communities by governmental-led bodies has risked creating a greater sense of political injustice, although community mechanisms between authorities-most notably meetings between a relatively transparent security service in the form of current strategies by the PET-have been suggested as creating positive outlets for frustrations towards authorities (McNeil-Willson 2017).
A national discourse has linked the construction of 'Danish values' around 'freedom of speech' and equality, with concern that Muslim minority communities pose a threat to the articulation of these concepts in Danish society.This can be observed in a significant shift rightwards in Denmark from mainstream parties in terms of policy on issues such as integration, immigration and minority rights.Such a process has been felt particularly strongly amongst Muslim minorities, with Left and Centre-Left taking over and shaping anti-Islam debate, often framed around the guise of ensuring women's rights and equality (McNeil-Willson 2019).Ultimately, a mix of nationalism, protectionism and anti-immigrationism has come to dominate much of Danish politics and has distorted what was already a non-traditional split between Left and Right-wing politics-the generally linear nature of which is lacking in the Denmark political context.As such, much of the discourse that has problematized or securitized Muslim communities, faith or practice has come to be led from parties or groups more traditionally associated with the Left, creating a sense of political disengagement amongst Muslim communities in Denmark who face hostility from across the political spectrum, and manifesting itself in policies that aim to specifically target 'extremism'.

Socio-Economics
Socio-economic focuses were seen consistently throughout European CVE practices, although were particularly evident in the coding of approaches by Poland, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK.This represents two processes: either, 'extremisms' amongst Muslim and other minority communities are being linked to socio-economic inequality-as is the case in the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy-or there is concern over socio-economic drivers in Far-Right militancy-as is the case in Poland and Greece.Whilst these discussions seem not too dissimilar, the way in which these they interact with Muslim communities varies greatly and, it seems, there is evidence that some of these CVE approaches may reinforce the socio-economic inequality of many European Muslim communities.
In Belgium, CVE has strongly linked socio-economic deprivation with minorities and migration.In terms of migrant inequality, Muslims and other minorities-such as Belgium's Congolese community-suffer significant segregation and racism in most social domains, including education, housing and employment.Such problematization and securitization of migration are also reflected in the labour market, whereby people with an immigrant background are significantly over-represented in temporary, low-paid or physically demanding jobs, and underrepresented in more valued jobs.Segregation has also been noted in the educational systems, with a majority of political and policy decisions taken at regional levels resulting in a lack of consistency or coordination in efforts to address deeply rooted issues such as racism, anti-Semitism and discrimination.The framing of Muslim minorities as a greater threat to Belgium security, using the language of the War on Terror, has further entrenched the socio-economic difficulties that Muslim communities, particularly Turkish and Moroccan communities, face (Zemni 2011).
Even though Belgium defined itself as a multicultural state from an early stage in its modern development, it appears that there is a growing polarization of the Belgian society when it comes to Islam, and discrimination of migrants and minorities has been linked to CVE discussions (Frounfelker et al. 2019).Institutional racism, particularly towards Muslims, has been recorded in the fields of employment, education, State bureaucracy and the media, whilst neo-liberalism, the deregulation of information and security concerns surrounding terrorism have been seen to degrade traditionally multicultural policies of the Belgian State (Touag 2017).
Countries such as Greece, in contrast, were also found to have certain focuses on socio-economic factors as driver in and responses to extremism, and these were often used as part of deradicalization programmes.However, the linking between deradicalization and socioeconomic factors is reflective of concern over the most visible case of extremism in Greece-that of neo-Nazi parties, such as Golden Dawn or more recent manifestations (Fielitz 2016).The surge of this Far-Right party has fed off and further stoked resentment towards refugeed communities in Greece fleeing the Syrian Civil War from 2011 onwards, coupled with the high levels of deprivation and precarious economic conditions that have plagued Greece since the Eurozone crisis in 2009 (Toloudis 2014).
Articulations of CVE in Poland also show evidence of a strong focus on addressing socio-economics as a driver of extremism, linked with additional focuses on identity and political engagement.However, this has been coupled with sometimes Far-Right language from the governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) which has routinely problematized Muslims, minorities, women and LGBTQ+ communities (Pustulka and Król 2018).Government policies and rhetoric have routinely signalled these groups as an 'other' within Poland, unrepresentative of traditional values and constituting a potential threat to Polish national security.In line with such policy and rhetoric, the PiS government has often reinforced or validated senses of injustice common amongst right-wing extremists in Poland.It is also important to note that there is a low level of trust in state authorities to combat issues of racism in Poland, evinced by gaps in legal (e.g., 'hate crime') protections for some vulnerable minorities (e.g., LGBTQ individuals) and by the under-reporting and under-recording of hate crimes where legal protections do apply (Wąsik and Godzisz 2016).
Thus, we see socio-economic discussions in CVE linked differently to Muslim communities within the context of CVE.In some instances, such as Belgium and the Netherlands, socio-economics is seen as a driver within Muslim communities towards violent extremism, although such discussions may in fact be reinforcing socio-economic inequality.In other contexts, such as Poland or Greece, where socio-economics are framed as drivers of the Far Right, Muslim communities are often targeted by extremist violence due to concern about economic disparity.However, Greece, with limited CVE approaches, and Poland, with a government that has often echoed elements of Far-Right discourse, only offer limited salve to the risk that Muslim communities face from Far-Right movements.

Deradicalization
'Harder' articluations of counter-extremism and deradicalization practice are evident in France, Greece and Italy.France's deradicalization processes are very much linked to identity, Greece's deradicalization processes are linked to socio-economics, whereas Italy demonstrates a crucial example of recently created deradicalization practices.
Italy's CVE has been shaped by a marked form of exceptionalism or 'Italian advantage', in which instances of terrorist-style violence have been rare and numbers leaving for Islamic State low (Cominetti 2018;Beccaro and Bonino 2019).This has led to a conceptualization of the threat from terrorism and extremism being often cast by policy-makers in external terms, 'far away, beyond Italian borders, and even in the case of their presence within the country, still outsiders' (D'Amato 2019, p. 163), with counterterror concerns instead focused on irregular migration, jihadism and international criminal networks (Vidino 2014).It has also led to Italian CVE and counter-terrorism being characterized as 'harder' in its articulations, with tough sets of laws implemented around migration, travel and citizenship, particularly during the Lega-Cinque Stelle coalition government.This has included greater powers to strip citizenship and enable deportations of those whose presence is deemed as potentially favouring terrorist organization and activities, even without conviction of a crime.Meanwhile, early attempts to codify preventative approaches-such as the 2016 Dambruoso-Manciulli 'proposta di legge' on 'Misure per la prevenzione della radicalizzazione e dell'estremismo jihadista'-were unsuccessful, leaving Italy without preventative approaches to extremism.
However, recent years has seen this framing of an external threat start to change, as the mainstreaming of discourses about irregular migration from the Southern Mediterranean, the rise of Matteo Salvini's La Lega as a political force, and political and societal shifts in Italy, have collectively led to a drive to align Italian counter-extremism approaches with much of the rest of Europe (Simcox 2019).This has included the introduction of measures that have borrowed heavily from French approaches, including prison-based deradicalization programmes and projects designed to promote Italian cultural identity as a means of combating extremism.
The 2017 Anti-Radicalization Strategy (Law C-3558) marked a turning point in Italian CVE whereby the Italian Government looked to review and refresh their approach towards extremism, bringing it more in line with other EU28 countries through a holistic approach, rather than a strategy based upon reactive response.Prior to this, Italian exceptionalism had seen counter-extremism focusing on the use of more heavy-handed force against instances that could be defined as terrorism or terroristrelated activity.However, the new national strategy has expanded existing responses to include focus on tackling extremism on wider, 'cultural' levels, taking the lead from elements of French counter-extremism policy and programmes.The strategy has involved the development of a new parliamentary committee and body under the guidance of a National Center on Radicalization (CRAD), implemented at a local level through Regional Coordination Centers on Radicalization (CCR).It has also explored means of tackling and preventing radicalization in schools and universities by supporting the adoption of specific programmes aimed to empower intercultural and interfaith dialogue.Interfaith and counterradicalization projects have been implemented in prisons, particularly towards Muslim inmates.As such, we see the creation, adjustment or growth of several projects aimed at supporting interfaith and intercultural activity, particularly in public sectors such as education and justice.
This 'cultural turn' in Italian CVE has, however, gone hand-in-hand with continued expansion of 'hard' articulations of security, such as the implementation of Article 14 of the 2018 Decree Law, which aimed to deter individuals engaging with violent extremism and terrorism, particularly in the context of Islamic State, by enabling the revocation of citizenship of those convicted under counter-terror legislation-a process determined solely by the Minister of Interior (at the time if implementation, Matteo Salvini).As this law applies only to naturalized citizens or those who have acquired Italian nationality after birth, it has been critiqued as creating two categories of citizens-those of birth and those of naturalization-whose crimes within the context of violent extremism are treated differently.Furthermore, this law does not exclude the possibility of statelessness occurring if the acquisition of Italian citizenship had resulted in the loss or relinquishment of a former citizenship status, risking leaving individuals stateless, in breach of international law.
As well as the revocation of citizenship, Italian counter-terrorism laws have also enabled deportations to happen with greater ease, enacted against those whose presence 'could favor in any manner terrorist organisation and activities', despite the individual in question having been neither convicted nor even accused of a terrorism-related crime.Between the start of 2015 and the end of 2017, for instance, 221 'security threats' were deported from Italy.This has led to cases being bought to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), such as the attempted deportation of Nassim Saadi, a Tunisian national who faced torture in Tunisia, and criticism of Italy from the Council of Europe as taking an attitude towards human rights of terror suspects that is 'disgraceful' and 'intolerable'.
Borrowing heavily from French practices, Italian CVE has notably sought to develop and implement several prison deradicalization programmes.The creation of the Italian Prisons Department Centralized Investigative Unit in 2017 sought to enable the further investigation and research into the risk posed by terrorist-linked recruiters in Italian prisons, as well as to provide an early and targeted response to those identified as at risk from becoming radicalized.The unit works to support counterradicalization programmes from the Italian Prisons Department, as well as sharing information on issues of radicalization within Italian prisons, working to classify the individual risk of prisoners according to models of radicalization and recruitment.
The Italian Prisons Department and Italian Union of Islamic Communities and Organisations Partnership represent another exploration of prison-based responses to recruitment into violent extremist groups.Targeting prisoners at risk from radicalization, the project aims to provide support for Italian prisoners in line with 'Italian values', to combat the risk of recruitment into violent milieus.It works to provide resources and support for the Italian Prisons Department to respond to prisoners deemed at risk from radicalization, as well as providing a framework for ensuring that all prison imams are vetted and committed to promoting principles of 'equality, citizenship and Islamic pluralism'.This involves the inviting to prisons of imams who have been vetted to make sure they espouse what are termed 'moderate views' to counter-radicalization of inmates-an issue that was raised due to only 47 imams working in 200 prisons in Italy as of 2017, which was deemed as providing potential space for exploitation by charismatic recruiters from extremist milieus.
The pairing of issues of concern over migration and minorities with deradicalization programmes is indicative of a specific situation for Muslim communities in Italy.There is a significantly smaller Muslim population than other similarly sized Western European states like France, Germany or the UK and, in the words of Vidino, '[w]ith possibly the exception of two neighborhoods in Turin, Italy has no Muslim ghettos, which are an unfortunate reality in industrial areas such as the British Midlands or the suburbs of various French cities' (Vidino 2008, p. 8); Italian Muslim communities are also generally not drawn from former colonies as is the case in Britain and France, but mostly have migrated from Morocco and Albania.Islamophobic discourse and anti-Muslim violence have also been largely predicated on 'simpler' versions of racism, targeting skin colour over and above attacks on articulations of Islamic identity more commonly found in countries such as France and Britain (Mathews 2018).
In Italy, the continued framing of terrorism and extremism as connected to external factors-in contrast to France, which has focused on internal cultural identity, or rejection thereof-has fed an association of Muslims and minorities as external and dangerous.This has risked enabling a rise in racism and Islamophobia seen in recent years, along with growing online hate speech from the significant online presence of Italian neo-fascist groups such as Forza Nuova and Casa Pound, and a proliferation of online Italian anti-Islam pages (Giacalone 2016).

Safeguarding and Political Engagement
Finally, the codes of safeguarding and political engagement are dealt with together, as there seems to be significant links between the two.The UK, for instance, records high levels of safeguarding and low level of political engagement, whilst Germany records the opposite, low levels of safeguarding and a high focus on political engagement.As such, it may be that a greater safeguarding focus may look to cast extremism as a more technical (and therefore less political) problem, in contrast to other States that see political issues as an integral part of extremism and counter-extremism.This also has impacts on the way in which Muslim voices can engage with national-political platforms, with suggestions that approaches that attempt to apoliticize terrorism may lead to the stigmatization or marginalization of Muslim voices at a media and policy level (Githens-Mazer 2012; Lindekilde and Sedgwick 2012).
The UK has developed a strong focus on safeguarding within CVE, as seen in actions including the passing of the PREVENT Duty (2015), which places obligations on public bodies to provide adequate protect against violent extremism, or else face legal action.This has been combined with a growing focus on encouraging hardening formations of identity in terms of 'British values' as a means of locating and preventing violent extremism.This language of safeguarding has attempted to position counter-extremism within similar lines as child protection.As the 2015 PREVENT Duty states: Protecting children from the risk of radicalization should be seen as part of schools' and childcare providers' wider safeguarding duties, and is similar in nature to protecting children from other harms (e.g.drugs, gangs, neglect, sexual exploitation), whether these come from within their family or are the product of outside influences.("The Prevent duty: Departmental advice for schools and childcare providers" 2015) Such an approach has seen the attempted linking of educational institutions, prisons, and social and healthcare providers (amongst others), under an umbrella of countering extremism.However, the consistency of the language of safeguarding has been questioned, particularly in response to instances such as that of Shamima Begum, stripped of the UK citizenship despite Home Office guidance stating that individuals in such situations should be treated as victims of underage ideological grooming and sexual abuse.
A similar, but more embedded, safeguarding approach is seen in Danish CVE, which aims to bring together social sectors and support structures to offer support for tangible grievances around relative deprivation (McNeil-Willson 2017).At the heart of the Danish approach to violent extremism is the attempt to address inequalities and relative deprivation through providing access to structures for successful CVE, deradicalization and/or re-integration to occur.This is indicative of the 'joined-up' approach to countering violent extremism which seeks to strongly align public structures in a multi-agency approach to crime prevention.The SSP-network forms the basis of much Danish CVE and is grounded in the concept of 'proximity policing', a practice designed to ensure sections of police and local services are reaching out to local communities, sharing information and networks between local and municipal schools, social services and police (SSP) (Holmberg 2002, p. 34).
In Germany, there is notably low levels of safeguarding language deployed in CVE, but a very high comparative presence of politicalfocused responses.This is partly due to focus on Far-Right extremism, but also due to the founding of much of German CVE in theories of 'Group Focused Enmity'-the devaluation and discrimination of people solely on the basis of their actual or attributed membership of groups, irrespective of individual behavior.Different prejudices, such as xenophobia, racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia or sexism, are understood as elements of the syndrome of group-focused enmity and are accordingly linked to each other.All these elements are based on an 'ideology of inequality' (Zick et al. 2011), which looks to combat extremism through addressing all forms of prejudice and discrimination and to provide the best possible support to people affected by Multiple Discrimination.This openly includes access mainstream political channels for reprieve and response as counter to engagement with violent extremist organizations and milieus.
UK CVE, in contrast, shows a notably low number of approaches that conceptualize political engagement as a key element in creating extremism (via disengagement from mainstream political channels) or countering it (via supporting political responses).Critics of UK CVE have highlighted these depressed focuses on political engagement and high levels of safeguarding as forming part of a 'depoliticization' process-the 'hegemonic eradication of politics' (Poynting and Whyte 2012, p. 4)-in which extremism is cast as a technical problem, 'devoid of any content other than security or protection', which therefore requires a technical (rather than political) solution (Poynting and Whyte 2012, p. 6).This de-emphasizing of political factors in extremism/CVE seem to be directly linked to higher levels of safeguarding language, wherein countering violent extremism has been framed in concepts of 'risk' and 'vulnerabilities', and linked with notions of abuse, neglect or health care-an approach less prevalent in other countries.
The impact of this has been to create concern over how British and Danish CVE may be enabling structural Islamophobia at a political level.In depoliticizing CVE, the designation of extremism-more often cast against often legally operating Muslim groups-represents an explicitly political weapon in the hands of those that wield it.It also problematizes the role of Muslim identity within the spheres of mainstream media and policy, seeding the mainstreaming of Islamophobia.As such, the role of safeguarding perhaps represents a problematic element of CVE that, whilst attempting to link together public bodies to create a societal-wide response, may also create new barriers to Muslim political engagement and enable malicious actors to delegitimize the voice of Muslims in mainstream debate.

Conclusions
In this chapter, CVE trends across Europe have been highlighted as interacting with several discussions impacting on European Muslim communities.This includes issues of Muslim identity, the securitization of migration and minorities, socio-economic inequality, as well as discussions on deradicalization, safeguarding and minority political engagementboth in terms of how these factors may lead to violent extremism, and how CVE may exacerbate existing problems in these areas.
To understand this, the chapter has taken a dataset of 697 key policies, programmes and institutions, operating across 10 European case studies, determining national characteristics of different 'counter-extremisms', to understand how extremism (and its causes) have been conceptualized in different national contexts.It has found a complicated picture in which CVE has been used to both embed elements of Islamophobic identityformation and to provide a bulwark against it; added to and detracted from the linkage between migration and security; been wielded to deal with socio-economic inequalities and helped to reinforce them; used political engagement both as a tool for countering extremism and been pushed aside in favour of explicitly non-political, safeguarding approaches.
The impact of this on Muslim communities in Europe is difficult to trace with great confidence-certainly in the limited confines of this chapter-and the focus on certain national practices lends itself to perhaps overly highlighting the negative impacts and discourses that elements of CVE are built on and interact with.Further exploration is clearly necessary to broaden how counter-extremisms may exacerbate or offer a salve for existing inequalities that Muslim minority communities face in different European State contexts.But, this chapter does offer a template of further contemplating and methodically considering how CVE interacts, at least in a broadest sense, with wider political discussions on Islam and security in Europe.

Fig. 8 .
Fig. 8.2 CVE characteristics of Denmark (Source Author's creation based on research conducted as part of the BRaVE project)

Table 8 .1
The number of keywords used by CVE in each national case study