Description
Since UK’s counter-radicalisation strategy Prevent was first released in 2006, almost all research on Prevent shows that it is problematic on the grounds that it does not work, creates suspected communities, challenges Britain’s democracy, and makes a negative impact on Muslim communities by alienating them to the country that they live in. Not only the academic circles but also the NGOs and minorities have criticised the Prevent strategy harshly. However, British policy makers insist on pursuing the Prevent strategy, and the reason for this persistence is almost vague. Despite all the debates, the UK governments have expanded the Prevent strategy with new updates since 2006, and this extension included even schools, universities, and hospitals in 2011. Moreover, the last two revisions of Prevent in 2011 and 2018 put the integration of immigrants and immigrant-origin British citizens into the centre of Prevent, as if they pose a threat to the national security of the UK. This expansion and focus on integration in Prevent made it crucial to have an insight into the security and threat perceptions of British elites who are involved in producing or implementing security policies. A clear view of those perceptions will be quite helpful to understand the convergence of integration and counter-terrorism. Therefore, this study is concerned with understanding British policy makers’ security and threat perceptions that make them first create the Prevent policy and then believe that it is a successful strategy, and the way and reason that they link a counter-terrorism policy to integration, and migration. To this end, answering the following three main questions will consist the basis of this study. First, what shapes British policymakers’ views of Prevent as an effective strategy and a key component of UK counter-terrorism? Second, what visions of security and threat underpin the creation of Prevent? Finally, how do integration and immigration issues animate policymaking around Prevent? To provide answers for these questions semi-structured elite interviews with MPs, security officials, bureaucrats, and former ministers have been carried out. The non-probability sampling method has been used to choose the interviewees, and the qualitative data software NVivo has been used to transcribe the interviews and to analyse the raw data. Three main findings are noteworthy. First, security and threat perceptions play an important role in producing counter-terrorism strategies. Second, the media is quite effective in shaping the British elites’ perceptions. Third, most of the interlocutors strongly believe that Prevent is and should be the backbone of UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, and the success of Prevent relies on integration since they believe radicalisation is the result of lack of integration into the British society.
