Cities’ Policies: the Work of European Cities to Counter Muslim Radicalisation

Intercultural relations might form the foundation for new developments and can stimulate energy in modern cities, but in some cases, these relations can also become the source of divergence and conflict. In the last decade, several European cities have been confronted with violent incidents related to some form of extremism. Some cities had to cope with violence by Muslim extremists, for instance Amsterdam, which dealt with the murder of Theo van Gogh. Other cities experienced violence from anti-immigrant or extreme-right movements, for instance London, where mosques were attacked. Radicalisation of small groups of immigrants or autochthonous people, who are distressed about intercultural relations, seemed to lie behind these incidents. Pressured by such events, some administrations in Europe developed policies. In this paper, we will discuss a number of examples of such local policies. We will discuss some programmes that we observed in cities that took part in our own fieldwork, the Cities Local Integration Policies (CLIP) project, which took place from 2007 to 2011.. Our results show that both cities that do have de-radicalisation policies and cities that do not actually work on what phase theorists would call the breeding ground for radicalisation and on the final violent stage of terrorist acts. The difference between the two mainly lies in (not) addressing religious conservatism. We conclude the article with some remarks regarding this choice, also reflecting on the impact of the phase model supported at that time.