The Attitudes-Behaviors Corrective (ABC) Model of Violent Extremism

James Khalil, John Horgan and Martine Zeuthen

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2022, vol. 34, issue 3, 425-450

Abstract: Progress in understanding and responding to terrorism and violent extremism has continued to stall in part because we often fail to adequately conceptualize the problem. Perhaps most notably, much of our terminology (for instance, “radicalization”) and many variants of our existing models and analogies (including conveyor belts, staircases and pyramids) conflate sympathy for this violence with involvement in its creation. As its name suggests, the Attitudes-Behaviors Corrective (ABC) model seeks to overcome this issue by placing this key disconnect between attitudes and behaviors at its core. In this paper, we first present the key elements of our model, which include a graphic representation of this disconnect and a classification system of the drivers of violent extremism. The former enables us to track the trajectories of individuals in relation to both their attitudes and behaviors, while the latter helps ensure that we consider all potential explanations for these movements. We then adapt these elements to focus on exit from violence, applying the dual concepts of disengagement and deradicalization. Finally, we conclude with a section that aims to provide the research community and those tasked with preventing and countering violent extremism with practical benefits from the ABC model.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09546553.2019.1699793 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ftpvxx:v:34:y:2022:i:3:p:425-450

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ftpv20

DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2019.1699793

Access Statistics for this article

Terrorism and Political Violence is currently edited by James Forest

More articles in Terrorism and Political Violence from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().