Global Change, Peace & Security

formerly Pacifica Review: Peace, Security & Global Change

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Homegrown terrorism and transformative

learning: an interdisciplinary approach to
understanding radicalization

Alex S. Wilner & Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz

To cite this article: Alex S. Wilner & Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz (2010) Homegrown terrorism
and transformative learning: an interdisciplinary approach to understanding radicalization, Global
Change, Peace & Security, 22:1, 33-51, DOI: 10.1080/14781150903487956

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Global Change, Peace & Security
Vol. 22, No. 1, February 2010, 33 –51

Homegrown terrorism and transformative learning: an interdisciplinary

approach to understanding radicalization
Alex S. Wilnera and Claire-Jehanne Duboulozb
a
Centre for Security Studies, ETH-Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), Zurich,
Switzerland; bSchool of Rehabilitation Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada

Since 2001, a preponderance of terrorist activity in Europe, North America, and Australia, has
involved radicalized Westerners inspired by al Qaeda. Described as ‘homegrown terrorism’,
perpetrators are citizens and residents born, raised, and educated within the countries they
attack. While most scholars and policy-makers agree that radicalization plays a central
role in persuading Westerners to embrace terrorism, little research properly investigates
the internal and cognitive processes inherent to radicalization. Transformative learning
theory, developed from the sciences in education, health, and rehabilitation, provides an
unconventional and interdisciplinary way to understand the radicalization process. The
theory suggests that sustained behavioural change can occur when critical reflection and
the development of novel personal belief systems are provoked by specific triggering
factors. In applying transformative learning theory to homegrown terrorism, this study
helps explain how formerly non-violent individuals come to condone, legitimize, and
participate in violent behaviour.

Keywords: homegrown terrorism; radicalization; transformative learning theory

Introduction
In the years since al Qaeda’s 2001 attack on the United States, there has been unprecedented
growth in violent activity inspired by radical Islamism and perpetrated by individuals of Euro-
pean, Australian, Canadian and American descent (second and third generation immigrants,
long-term foreign residents, and Muslim converts). This phenomenon, loosely labelled ‘home-
grown terrorism’, represents an evolution in militant jihadism. Until recently, acts of jihadi
terrorism against Westerners were committed by individuals living ‘over there’, who held
particular grievances associated with their immediate socio-political environments, radicalized
with the assistance of local facilitators, prepared acts of violence within their community, and
travelled to their Western targets to carry out attacks. While domestic terrorism originating
from within Western states is not a novel development, the difference today is that homegrown
jihadi terrorism is far more destructive, usually involves mass-casualty bombings, almost exclu-
sively targets civilians, and is generally associated with transnational socio-political grievances
not easily addressed unilaterally or at the local level. It is an altogether distinct and complex
security challenge.1


Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
1 Terrorism, for the purpose of this paper, is the use of indiscriminate violence against non-combatants by non-state
actors with the purpose of generating fear in order to ‘signal’ and advance particular socio-political objectives.
This definition implies that terrorism is meant to ‘intimidate a larger audience’ beyond those directly targeted
with violence. Non-state terrorist organizations act independently from states and lack sovereign territorial
control. Homegrown terrorism is autonomously organized by radicalized Westerners with little direct assistance
from transnational networks, is usually organized within the home or host country, and targets fellow nationals.
Bruce Hoffman and Gordon McCormick, ‘Terrorism, Signaling, and Suicide Attack’, Studies in Conflict and
ISSN 1478-1158 print/ISSN 1478-1166 online
# 2010 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14781150903487956
http://www.informaworld.com
34 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

Homegrown terrorism stems in part from the appeal al Qaeda has found in certain pockets of
Western society. For the most part, homegrown terrorists have been citizens and residents born,
raised, and educated within the countries they attack and groups have been self-generated and
independently organized. A recent study of over 200 European jihadists, for instance, found
that over 90% were residents of a European country and almost 60% retained European citizen-
ship.2 While some experts challenge the ‘grass roots’ thesis inherent to homegrown terrorism
given the assistance some have received from al Qaeda and others, these arguments fail to
negate the increasingly prevalent role Westerners have in organizing jihadi violence against
fellow nationals.3
The purpose of this paper is to investigate this emerging trend by focusing on the individual
processes that are associated with the jihadi radicalization of Westerners. Doing so is important
for two reasons. First, international Islamic terrorism continues to evolve in nature and scope.
While remnants of al Qaeda continue to exist in some functioning form along the Pakistan –
Afghan border and in pockets of Yemen, Uzbekistan, Iraq, North Africa, and elsewhere, and
carry on organizing acts of terrorism both regionally and globally, al Qaeda-inspired terrorism
is a novel development. It involves unaffiliated individuals and groups tapping into al Qaeda’s
message to justify violence against Western states and citizens. With a little encouragement,
individuals predisposed to accept al Qaeda’s vision of international relations create small net-
works and independently prepare acts of violence. Because radicalization is a lynchpin to the
homegrown process, gaining a better appreciation of the phenomenon will allow for a more
informed response. Second, research on homegrown terrorism has focused primarily on the
pre-conditions and factors that prompt individuals to join or establish such groups. Much less
research is associated with the processes of radicalization at the individual level, and almost
none explores in particular how formerly non-violent individuals transform into persons who
accept, legitimize, and partake in terrorism. The studies that do investigate the processes
of Western jihadi radicalization are primarily oriented towards the structural characteristics of
the phenomenon, identifying the various step-like phases individuals travel through on their
way toward conducting terrorism.4 What these studies do not explore is the transformation
of meaning perspective – the individual’s cognitive construction of new definitions of self
and behaviour – that is necessarily associated with radicalization and violent action.
This paper addresses this research gap by employing an educational perspective of adult
learning to explore the internal processes and personal transformations associated with radica-
lization and homegrown terrorism. It does so by investigating how transformative learning
theory relates to the pathways of radicalization. First developed in the sciences of education,

Terrorism 27 (2004): 243; Walter Enders and Todd Sandler, ‘After 9/11: Is it All Different Now?’, Journal of Con-
flict Resolution 49, no. 2 (2005): 260– 61; Daniel Byman, ‘Understanding Proto-Insurgencies’, Journal of Strategic
Studies 31, no. 2 (2008): 167–70; Aiden Kirby, ‘The London Bombers as “Self-Starters”: A Case Study in Indigenous
Radicalization and the Emergence of Autonomous Cliques’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 30 (2007), 415–19;
Marc Sageman, Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century (Philadelphia, PA: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 2008), chs. 4 and 7.
2 Edwin Bakker, Jihadi Terrorists in Europe: Their Characteristics and the Circumstances in which they Joined the
Jihad (The Hague: Netherlands Institute of International Relations, 2006), 36– 7.
3 Bruce Hoffman, ‘The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism: Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters’, Foreign Affairs 87, no. 3
(2008); Bruce Hoffman, ‘Terrorism in the West: Al-Qaeda’s Role in “Homegrown” Terror’, Brown Journal of World
Affairs 13 (2007): 91–9.
4 Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Laura Grossman, Homegrown Terrorists in the U.S. and U.K.: An Empirical Examin-
ation of the Radicalization Process (Washington, DC: Foundation for Defense of Democracies, 2009); Tomas Precht,
Home Grown Terrorism and Islamist Radicalization in Europe: From Conversion to Terrorism (Danish Ministry of
Justice, 2008); Clark McCauley and Sophia Moskalenko, ‘Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways Toward
Terrorism’, Terrorism and Political Violence 20, no. 3 (2008): 414–33; US Federal Bureau of Investigation, The
Radicalization Process: From Conversion to Jihad (2006); New York Police Department (Intelligence Division),
Radicalization in the West: The Homegrown Threat (2007); and Rik Coolsaet, ed., Jihadi Terrorism and the Radi-
calisation Challenge in Europe (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008).
 Global Change, Peace & Security 35

transformative learning theory has been clinically applied to the study of rehabilitation in health
science and nursing to illustrate how individuals (re)construct personal meaning perspectives
when confronting and coping with health crises and injury. This article suggests that similar
cognitive transformations take place in radicalizing individuals, whereby previously held con-
ceptions, beliefs, and identities – along with associated behaviours – are reconstructed and/
or replaced. By addressing homegrown terrorism from a transformative learning perspective,
this investigation offers an unconventional and intrinsically interdisciplinary lens with which
to study radicalization in Western society. In so doing, the article offers a more nuanced under-
standing of how once-passive and westernized individuals come to accept extremist interpret-
ations of Islam, identify with international jihadism, condone and later endorse indiscriminate
violence, and eventually participate in terrorism against their neighbours.
The argument is structured as follows. After briefly describing the homegrown terrorism
phenomenon, section two reviews the literature on radicalization and the precursors of home-
grown terrorism. An introduction to transformative learning theory, along with a description
of its core tenets and existing research agenda within health science, nursing, and education,
follows in section three. In section four, transformative learning theory is applied to the radica-
lization process. The article concludes by drawing out the theoretical implications of the analysis
and suggests avenues for further research.

Homegrown terrorism: a primer

Western militant jihadism is not limited to one country or region. Emerging trends suggest that a
widening political and geographic area is threatened by homegrown terrorism.5 In Europe, the
United Kingdom is considered the stronghold of violent homegrown Islamic radicalism. Of
the recent acts of terrorism organized within and against the UK by British citizens, a few
stand out. In December 2001, Richard Reid, a British convert to Islam, failed to detonate a
bomb concealed in his shoe while aboard American Airlines Flight 63. In 2004, a British-
Pakistani terrorist cell was disrupted. Its leader, a Muslim convert, and seven members were
eventually imprisoned in 2007. Two sets of suicide attacks on London’s transit system (one
of which failed) were conducted in July 2005 by British citizens of Pakistani, Jamaican, and
East African descent; over 50 were killed and 700 injured. The foiled 2006 liquid-bomb plot tar-
geting transatlantic aircraft flying from London to Canada and the US involved a number of
British-born individuals and at least three converts to Islam. The 2007 car bombing of Glasgow’s
International Airport (along with two foiled car bombing attempts in London) involved four
British doctors. And in October 2008, a 22-year-old convert, ‘encouraged’ by internet-based
jihadi literature, detonated an explosive in an Exeter restaurant. All of these events have
taken place against a backdrop provided by British authorities that suggests a dramatic increase
in terrorist activity since 9/11, with terrorism-related investigations jumping from fewer than
250 in 2001 to over 500 in 2004, 800 in 2005, and 1600 in 2006.6
A similar pattern is evident elsewhere in Europe. In France, long a target of Algerian-linked
terrorist organizations like the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA), security officials now posit that

5 Frazer Egerton and Alexandre Wilner, ‘Militant Jihadism in Canada: Prosecuting the War of Ideas’, Justice, Policing,
and Security (Ottawa, Canada: Citizenship and Immigration Canada, 2009): 2– 5; Robert Leiken and Steven Brooke,
‘The Quantitative Analysis of Terrorism and Immigration: An Initial Exploration’, Terrorism and Political Violence
18, no. 4 (2006): 507–10; Petter Nesser, ‘Chronology of Jihadism in Western Europe 1994–2007: Planned, Prepared,
and Executed Terrorist Attacks’, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 31, no. 10 (2008): 924–46; Kimberley Thachuk,
Marion Bowman, and Courtney Richardson, Homegrown Terrorism: The Threat Within (Washington, DC: National
Defense University, 2008): 9 –36; and Alex Wilner, Enemies Within: Combating Homegrown Terrorism in Canada
(Halifax, Canada: Atlantic Institute for Market Studies, 2008), 5 –15.
6 House of Commons, Intelligence and Security Committee, United Kingdom, Report into the London Terrorist
Attacks on 7 July 2005 (London, 2006): Paragraph 22; BBC, ‘Extracts from MI5 chief’s speech’, November 10, 2006.
36 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

‘terrorist threats have increased massively over the past few years’.7 A number of attacks have
been foiled, including a 2000 plot on Strasbourg’s Christmas market, a 2001 attack on American
interests in Paris, a 2001/02 plot against the Eiffel Tower and other landmarks, a 2005 plan to
bomb Paris’ metro, and a 2006 attack on Paris’ airport.8 In 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy
revealed plans for a quadrupling of the Groupe d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale
(GIGN), France’s counterterrorism and hostage rescue unit, in order to contend with expected
levels of violence.9 In Denmark, three terrorist attacks were foiled between 2005 and 2007,
each involving Danish citizens and long-term residents.10 In the Netherlands, the 2004
murder of Theo van Gogh, a controversial artist, by a young Muslim radical, Mohammed
Bouyeri, prompted the arrest of the Hofstad Group, an organization determined to carry out
acts of violence in the country. Some experts posit that another 20 groups are active in the
country.11 In Spain, the March 2004 Madrid bombings, which killed and injured over 2000,
and a foiled train attack one month later were carried out by Spanish citizens. Roughly
one-third of the 21 individuals convicted of participating in the attack were Spaniards.12
In October 2004, Spanish authorities dismantled another cell, the self-styled ‘Martyrs of
Morocco’, which had planned to bomb Spain’s national criminal court, the Audiencia Nacional.13
In Germany, three individuals – two German converts and one Turkish resident – were arrested in
2007 while transporting 1500 lbs of hydrogen peroxide – the compound detonated in the London
bombings.14 They were planning to attack an American military base, a nightclub, and an airport.
In Italy, police disrupted a plot to bomb Milan’s subway system in 2004 and arrested a number
of individuals, including a religious leader, in 2007 for ‘recruiting and training’ Italians for
terrorism.15 In Belgium, a group (the ‘Asparagus 18’) with connections to the 2003 Casablanca
bombings (which included a suicide attack on Belgium’s Consulate in Morocco) was rounded
up in 2004. Terrorists plotting to free al Qaeda operative Nizar Trabelsi, imprisoned in
Belgium, were arrested in 2007, and another six Belgians were charged with membership in a
terrorist group in 2008.16 And in Switzerland, security officials arrested several radical Islamists
planning to launch grenades against commercial aircraft at Geneva’s international airport.17
Outside Europe, homegrown jihadism has figured prominently in Australia, Canada, and the
United States. Seventeen people were arrested in Melbourne and Sydney in 2005 in a raid that

7 Peter Allen, ‘French SAS to triple in Size’, Telegraph, 25 June 2007.

8 Thachuk et al., Homegrown Terrorism, 15–17; Jeremy Shapiro and Bénédicte Suzan, ‘The French Experience of
Counter-terrorism’, Survival 45, no. 1 (2003): 67–98.
9 Allen, ‘French SAS’.
10 Nicholas Kulish, ‘New Terrorism Case Confirms that Denmark is a Target’, International Herald Tribune, Septem-
ber 16, 2007; BBC News, ‘Four Face Terror Trial in Denmark’, August 24, 2006.
11 Philippe Naughton, ‘Van Gogh Killer Jailed for Life’, Times, July 25, 2005; Jocelyne Cesari, ‘Muslims in Europe
and the Risk of Radicalism’, in Jihadi Terrorism and the Radicalisation Challenge in Europe, ed. Rik Coolsaet
(Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008), 101; Berto Jongman, ‘Terrorism and Diasporas in the Netherlands’, in The Radicali-
zation of Diasporas and Terrorism, ed. Bruce Hoffman et al. (Washington, DC: RAND 2007), 14.
12 BBC News, ‘Madrid “Ringmaster” Dies in Blast’, April 2, 2004; Paul Hamilos and Mark Tran, ‘21 Guilty, Seven
Cleared over Madrid Train Bombings’, Guardian, October 31, 2007; William Rose, Rysia Murphy, and Max
Abrahms, ‘Correspondence: Does Terrorism Ever Work? The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings’, International Security
32, no. 1 (2007): 185– 92.
13 Lorenzo Vidino, ‘Islamic Extremism in Europe’ (testimony, US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, April 27,
2007).
14 Mark Landler, ‘German Police Arrest 3 in Terrorist Plot’, New York Times, September 6, 2007; Victor Mauer, ‘Poli-
tics and the Threat of Transnational Terrorism in Germany’, in Europe and Transnational Terrorism: Assessing
Threats and Countermeasures, ed. Franz Eder and Martin Senn (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos, 2008), 75–105.
15 Kathryn Haahr, ‘Italy’s Underground Islamist Network’, Terrorism Monitor 5, no. 16 (2007), http://www.
jamestown.org/single/?no_cache¼1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D/4378.
16 Raf Casert, ‘Six Alleged Islamic Extremists Charged in Belgium’, Associated Press, December 12, 2008; Alain
Grignard, ‘The Islamist Network in Belgium: Between Nationalism and Globalisation’, in Jihadi Terrorism and the
Radicalisation Challenge in Europe, ed. Rik Coolsaet (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008), 85–96. Elaine Sciolino and
Hélène Fouquet, ‘Belgium Is Trying to Unravel the Threads of a Terror Web’, New York Times, October 10, 2005.
17 Craig Whitlock, ‘In Neutral Switzerland, A Rising Radicalism’, Washington Post, July 20, 2006.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 37

netted large quantities of chemicals, production manuals, and target information. A number of
the suspects, six of whom were eventually jailed in 2009, were second-generation Australians
of Lebanese decent and none had any known links with al Qaeda or Jemaah Islamiyah, the ter-
rorist group responsible for the 2002 and 2005 Bali Bombings which killed over 220 people,
including 92 Australians.18 In Canada, Mohammad Momin Khawaja was the first Canadian
imprisoned under the country’s Anti-Terrorism Act for facilitating terrorism in Britain. The
Khadr family, despite the controversy over their son Omar, has long been accused of supporting
Osama bin Laden.19 And of the 18 Canadians apprehended on terrorism charges in and around
Toronto in 2006, one was found guilty in 2008, another entered a guilty plea in 2009, and nine
other trials are ongoing.20 ‘What we’re onto scares us’, explains Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) Assistant Commissioner Mike McDonell, adding that security officials were actively
investigating seven other suspected terrorist plots in Canada.21
And in the United States, teenager Charles Bishop flew a small plane into a Tampa-area sky-
scraper in 2002. While media characterized the event as ‘a suicide’, a note written by Bishop and
retrieved in the wreckage praised 9/11. ‘God blesses [Osama bin Laden] and the others who
helped make September 11th happen.’ Bishop signed the statement with: ‘I had no other help,
although I am acting on their behalf.’22 Other Americans, like John Walker Lindh, Christopher
Paul, Hiram Torres, James Ujaama, Adam Gadahn, and Jose Padilla, all Muslim converts, par-
ticipated in jihadism in East Asia, while another 20 Americans have recently joined al-Shaabab
in Somalia.23 American jihadists have also targeted the United States. In Buffalo, New York, six
American-born citizens of Yemeni origin – members of the so-called ‘Lackawanna Six’ – were
arrested in 2002. In California, four men preparing to attack El Al airline ticket counters at Los
Angeles International Airport, a number of synagogues, and military facilities, were arrested in
2005. Three of the four men were American-born Muslim converts.24 Other American citizens
were arrested in 2006 for planning to attack Chicago’s Sears Tower, in 2007 for a planned attack
on US military base Fort Dix in New Jersey, and in 2009 for positioning what the perpetrators
believed were car bombs outside two New York City synagogues.
This is the phenomenon of homegrown jihadi terrorism. In all of these cases, citizens,
nationals, and residents of the countries specifically targeted were involved in preparing and car-
rying out the attacks. In all but a few cases, neither al Qaeda nor any other transnational terrorist
group had a significant role in organizing or facilitating these plots.

Three precursors of homegrown radicalization

Individuals who contemplate killing their fellow citizens in campaigns of terrorism do so in great
measure because their beliefs dictate that murder is feasible and just. Political violence is rarely
constructed in a vacuum. ‘Individuals are ideologically driven’, notes Rohan Gunaratna, ‘not

18 Raymond Bonner, ‘Australia Arrests 16 in Terror Sweep’, International Herald Tribune, November 9, 2005; Associ-
ated Press, ‘Australian Terrorist Leader Sentenced to 12 Years’, February 2, 2009.
19 Stewart Bell, Cold Terror: How Canada Nurtures and Exports Terrorism around the World (Toronto: Wiley, 2004),
ch. 6.
20 Alex Wilner, ‘Beyond Belief: Canadians Who Target Other Canadians’, Globe and Mail, November 5, 2008.
21 Quoted in Ian Macleod, ‘CSIS Focuses on Homegrown Terrorism Threat’, Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 2008. See also
Ian Macleod, ‘RCMP has 843 Active National Security Investigations’, Ottawa Citizen, May 7, 2008; Stewart Bell,
‘Jihadists Born Here Pose New Threat’, National Post, November 19, 2005; and Colin Freeze, ‘Terror “Wannabes”
Canada’s Biggest Threat’, Globe and Mail, May 8, 2008.
22 Dana Canedy, ‘Teenage Who Crashed Plane Praised Terrorists’, New York Times, February 7, 2002.
23 Lorenzo Vidino, ‘Homegrown Jihadist Terrorism in the United States: A New and Occasional Phenomenon’,
Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 32 (2009): 5 –6; Recruiting Americans for Jihad, Directed/Produced by
Matthew Orr, New York Times Video, July 2009.
24 Jeremiah Marquez, ‘Third Man Pleads Guilty in Homegrown Terror Case in Southern Cal’, Associated Press,
December 17, 2007.
38 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

operationally driven.’25 Lidewijde Ongering, Dutch Deputy National Coordinator for Counter-
terrorism, adds that ‘people who set out to kill other people for political or religious reasons first
go through a process of radicalization’.26 Radicalization is a personal process in which individ-
uals adopt extreme political, social, and/or religious ideals and aspirations, and where the attain-
ment of particular goals justifies the use of indiscriminate violence. It is both a mental and
emotional process that prepares and motivates an individual to pursue violent behaviour.
According to Brian Michael Jenkins, radicalization is the internalization of a ‘set of beliefs, a
militant mindset that embraces violent jihad as the paramount test of one’s conviction’.27 Under-
standing what drives violent radicalization is perhaps the most challenging aspect of confronting
homegrown terrorism. Few generalizable rules seem to apply. As the Canadian Security Intelli-
gence Service (CSIS) revealed in a 2005 report, ‘there does not appear to be a single process that
leads to extremism: the transformation is highly individual’.28 European experts agree. ‘The
paths and motivations . . . to Islamic political radicalism’, writes Akil Awan, ‘are many and
varied, with no simple cause and effect calculus.’29 Jonathan Githens-Mazer adds that ‘the
story behind how and why each individual may come to be a radical violent Islamist is as
unique as a fingerprint’.30 Nonetheless, there is a burgeoning literature on the precursors of
radicalization that identifies and explores the socio-political and environmental factors that
may lead to violent behaviour. Of the many factors identified as potential precursors of
Western radicalization, three stand out: socio-political alienation, deepening religious identity,
and anger over a state’s foreign policy.

Socio-political alienation
The most commonly cited precursor of radicalization and homegrown terrorism is the lack of
socio-political integration particular Western Muslim communities have with their broader
society, and, relatedly, their experiences of discrimination, victimization, and xenophobia.31
The assumption is that individuals and groups who fail to properly associate with their host
or native country – the ‘unassimilated’ – eventually seek other like-minded individuals to
associate with. In so doing they construct a narrow social network that is distinct from the
broader societal one and establish identities that reflect the ‘clique’ rather than the nation.32
As David Wright-Neville and Debra Smith suggest, ‘alienation is replaced by identification
with the group, powerlessness is replaced by potency derived from being involved in group

25 Rohan Gunaratna, ‘Al Qa’ida and Diasporas’, in The Radicalization of Diasporas and Terrorism, ed. Bruce
Hoffman et al. (Washington, DC: RAND 2007), 39.
26 Lidewijde Ongering, ‘Home-Grown Terrorism and Radicalization in the Netherlands: Experiences, Explanations,
and Approaches’ (testimony, US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, June 27,
2007).
27 Brian Michael Jenkins, ‘Building an Army of Believers: Jihadist Radicalization and Recruitment’ (testimony, US
House of Representatives, April 5, 2007).
28 Quoted in Bell, ‘Jihadists Born Here Pose New Threat’.
29 Akil Awan, ‘Antecedents of Islamic Political Radicalism among Muslim Communities in Europe’, PS: Political
Science and Politics 41, no. 1 (2008): 16.
30 Jonathan Githens-Mazer, ‘Variations on a Theme: Radical Violent Islamism and European North African Radica-
lization’, PS: Political Science and Politics 41, no. 1 (2008): 22.
31 Sam Mullins, ‘Home-grown Terrorism: Issues and Implications’, Perspectives on Terrorism 1, no. 3 (2007): 1– 3;
Precht, Home Grown Terrorism, 43– 5; Jocelyne Cesari, ‘Terrorism and Diasporas in the United States’, in The
Radicalization of Diasporas and Terrorism, ed. Bruce Hoffman et al. (Washington, DC: RAND 2007): 33; Tarik
Fraihi, ‘(De-)Escalating Radicalisation: The Debate within Muslim and Immigrant Communities’, in Jihadi Terror-
ism and the Radicalisation Challenge in Europe, ed. Rik Coolsaet (Hampshire: Ashgate, 2008); Agata Nalborcyzk,
‘The Perception Among Muslim Minorities of Host European Counties: Influence of Legal Status and Citizenship’,
Global Change, Peace and Security 20, no. 1 (2008): 60.
32 Social networking and bonding in terrorist formation is discussed by Marc Sageman in Understanding Terror Net-
works (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 137–73.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 39

operations, while humiliation is mitigated by participation in actions’.33 While the decoupling of

national identity does not clarify why or how individuals radicalize in the first place, it does help
explain how alienated individuals might eventually rationalize attacking fellow citizens. A
report by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) suggests that the
process of societal rejection – dubbed ‘extreme isolationism’ – threatens Europe’s democratic
political order because it ‘gradually harm[s] social cohesion and solidarity’ while undermining
fundamental human rights.34 As a result, some radicalized individuals distance themselves
politically, socially, and ideologically from the broader community, eventually rejecting the
national identity shared by other citizens, along with the collective’s underlying political
ideology, historical narrative, and related value-systems. Anti-democratic action and violence
is a potential outcome.
The polarization of society into different religious and cultural groups weakens the bonds of
state identity, civil association, and nationalism. Over time, the broader community in which the
radicalizing individual lives is characterized as an enemy. ‘The reality in Western Europe’, suggests
Jack Granatstein, ‘is that the second and third generation of Muslim citizens are more fiercely
Islamist than their parents . . . their sense of themselves as Dutch or British or French . . . is
much less strong than their identity as Muslims.’35 At issue is the state’s failure to integrate
particular individuals in society and to properly teach, diffuse, and ingrain the lessons of
democracy, peaceful dispute resolution, social inclusion, and the rule of law. What results are
individuals who spurn acceptance of their nation’s identity and fail to appreciate the state’s
social and political norms, both of which ease the use of violence if and when it is contemplated.
Consider these candid statements provided by ‘Ousman’, an imprisoned French Islamist:
I understood that I was different, that I was not French, that I would never become French and that I
had no business trying to become French either. I took it well. I was proud of my new Muslim iden-
tity. That was my reconquest of myself, my burst of lucidity, my awakening . . . no more desire to
become part of this France that did not want me.36

Since the Madrid and London bombings, Western governments have tailored their response to
specifically address the sort of socio-political alienation ‘Ousman’ and his cohorts express. In the
Netherlands the focus is on preventing radicalization by promoting and strengthening socio-
political integration. If an individual feels Dutch, the rationale goes, they will not easily
accept attacking other Dutch. To that end, explains Berto Jongman of the Dutch Ministry of
Defence, the development of ‘new methods of communication between Muslims and non-
Muslims’ were developed with the intent of (re)integrating at-risk communities.37 Approaches
have included obligatory integration courses, language examinations that are to be administered
prior to immigration, the taking of national oaths, the required viewing of cultural films relating
Western values, offering ‘homework support cafés’ for disenfranchised youths, and augmenting
government recruitment campaigns in minority communities.38 If homegrown terrorism is the
product of segregation, resentment, and public malaise, then investing in reintegration programs
should help stifle its development.

33 David Wright-Neville and Debra Smith, ‘Political Rage: Terrorism and the Politics of Emotion’, Global Change,
Peace, and Security 21, no. 1 (2009): 95.
34 General Intelligence and Security Services (Ministry of Interior), Government of the Netherlands, The Radical
Dawa in Transition: The Rise of Islamic Neoradicalism in the Netherlands (The Hague: Government of the
Netherlands, 2007), 9–12.
35 Jack Granatstein, Whose War Is It? How Canada Can Survive in the Post-9/11 World, (Toronto: HarperCollins,
2007), 179.
36 Quoted in John Rosenthal, ‘The French Path to Jihad’, Policy Review 139 (2006): 1.
37 Jongman, ‘Terrorism and Diasporas’, 14.
38 Ministry of Refugees, Immigration, and Integration Affairs, Government of Denmark, A Common and Safe Future
(2008), 9– 10; Stewart Bell, ‘Make Immigrants Take Oath of Loyalty’, National Post, March 1, 2006.
40 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

At issue, however, is the fact that homegrown terrorists, for the most part, have been well-
integrated citizens of the countries they target. As decidedly anti-Canadian the Toronto suspects
may have been for targeting other Canadians with terrorism, they nonetheless retained a certain
and identifiable ‘Canadianness’. Like the London transit bombers who dined on fish and chips
and enjoyed watching the Champions League on the ‘telly’, those rounded up in Ontario looked
and behaved much like other young Torontonians. As Robert Mueller, former director of the
FBI, has suggested, what differentiates these terrorists from transnational ones is that they are
essentially ‘members of the community’.39 Most, if not all, homegrown militants were at one
time Western in both appearance and behaviour. Awan adds that the most ‘striking aspects’
of Western militant Islamism is ‘the degree to which its proponents are . . . ensconced within
the majority culture prior to radicalization’.40 This suggests that individuals might in fact
retain more than one identity – a majority cultural identity that reflects the socio-political main-
stream of the national community, and a minority cultural identity that reflects traditional
concepts inherent to religious practice and belief. At particular times, one or another of these
identities plays a more central role in determining an individual’s association with others and
in shaping their behaviour.
The unresolved mystery, though, is how and why does identity change in the first place.
What are the triggers and processes that lead to the overshadowing of the majority identity by
the minority one? That the radicalization process is often exceptionally rapid compounds the
dilemma. Following the foiled 2006 liquid bomb plot, Ian Blair, London’s Police Chief,
expressed ‘shock’ at the ‘apparent speed with which young, reasonably affluent . . . well-
educated, British-born people were converted [from] ordinary lives in a matter of some
weeks’ to a position where they were willing to commit suicide attacks that would have
likely killed thousands.41 Socio-political alienation and a lack of integration may be precur-
sors to extremism but they cannot explain what tipping point catalyzes the radicalization
process. Furthermore, that a vast majority of Western Muslims who suffer from real or per-
ceived alienation do not partake in violence suggests that something else is at play.42 Consider
further that many of the radicalized Westerners who have supported terrorism are neither alie-
nated nor deprived. The 2007 Glasgow attack, for instance, was conducted by highly-educated
and successful individuals; most were practicing medical doctors and one held a doctorate in
engineering. A simple frustration – aggression hypothesis offers only a weak assessment of the
homegrown terrorism phenomenon and does little to clarify the processes that are involved in
turning once ‘normal’, ‘fun-loving’, ‘top lads’ into murderous terrorists within a matter of
months.

Religiosity and globalization

Militant jihadism, whether pursued in North America or North Africa, is intrinsically associated
with Islam. Though it is extremely doubtful that its religious tenets condone the sort of indiscri-
minate and brutal violence being committed in its name, adherents of militant jihadism nonetheless
self-identify as ‘true Muslims’ and evoke Islam to justify their actions. Just as Osama bin Laden
perceives his Holy War as one pitting a ‘vanguard’ of pious believers against non-believers in
the West (the ‘far enemy’) and apostates in the East (the ‘near enemy’), so too do the young

39 Robert Mueller, ‘Remarks to the City Club of Cleveland’ (speech, City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, OH, June 23,
2006).
40 Awan, ‘Antecedents’, 15.
41 Quoted in Michael Holden, ‘UK Airline Bomb Suspects Radicalized in Weeks’, Reuters, January 24, 2007.
42 Fathali Morghaddam, ‘The Staircase to Terrorism: A Psychological Exploration’, American Psychologist 60, no. 2
(2005): 163.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 41

radicalized Westerners who carry out attacks.43 In a 1998 interview, bin Laden put it this way:
‘Allah ordered us . . . to purify Muslim land of all nonbelievers’.44 At his trial, Bouyeri, the
Hofstad member who killed van Gogh in Amsterdam, stated similarly that ‘what moved me to
do what I did was purely my faith. I was motivated by the law that commands me to cut off
the head of anyone who insults Allah’.45 Recent studies seem to corroborate the religious
radicalization nexus. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Laura Grossman suggest that an individual’s
theological understanding was a ‘relatively strong factor’ in their radicalization, and find that
nearly half their sample explicitly claimed a ‘religious motivation’ for their violent behaviour.46
An emerging difference between bin Laden’s justification for terrorism and that offered by
Western jihadis is in the appreciation for the minutiae of religious jurisprudence. Bin Laden,
Ayman al-Zawahiri, and other leaders of transnational organizations are careful to present
solid religious interpretations that speak to existing religious doctrine and engage current
debates when justifying their violent actions.47 Bin Laden is particularly careful to couch his
calls for violence along pre-existing and well-regarded religious discourse, thereby legitimizing
his actions along religious lines while gaining the widest possible acceptance from the global
Muslim community. This is quite different from the Bouyeri model. Generally, Western radicals
are less well-versed in theology than their international counterparts and are only poorly
equipped to appreciate the intricate nuances of their religious beliefs. Many of them have
weak religious roots and lack informed and structured learning. Their education, former
RCMP officer Tom Quiggin suggests, ‘is usually nothing but cherry-picked Koranic statements
heavily laced with poisonous jihadist messages that bear little resemblance to the actual message
of Islam’.48 What results is a call to arms devoid of any substantive link to accepted religious
doctrine. Instead, theirs is violence calling upon Islam for justification but falling short of the
mark.49 Homegrown terrorists are less religious scholars than violent misfits who misappropriate
religious labels, suggesting that while religion is perhaps a necessary factor for Western jihadi
radicalization, it is not in and of itself a sufficient variable. Some other factor is required.
That factor, some researchers posit, is globalization. Olivier Roy explains that the forces of
globalization (modernization, urbanization, secularism, displacement, hi-tech communications,
and so on) create tension for young Western Muslims who find themselves caught adhering to
traditional socio-religious beliefs in a non-religious environment. One possible outcome is inse-
curity and confusion over identity. ‘As individuals feel vulnerable and experience existential
anxiety’, explains Catarina Kinnvall, ‘it is not uncommon for them to wish to reaffirm a threa-
tened self-identity.’50 Radicalization is one way disenfranchised Western Muslim youths have
gone about reasserting their religious identity within non-Muslim contexts. ‘In radical Islam’,
writes Roy, individuals find ‘a way to recast and rationalise their sense of exclusion’, replacing
missing interpersonal ties and re-establishing a sense of belonging.51 The Internet is a critical
component of that remedy, allowing individuals to create an abstract and ‘virtual community’

43 Fawaz Gerges, The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), ch. 3;
Fawaz Gerges, The Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Toronto: Harcourt, 2006), ch. 4.
44 Judith Miller, ‘Even a Jihad has its Rules’, International Herald Tribune, August 29, 1998.
45 Quoted in Philippe Naughton, ‘Van Gogh Killer Jailed for Life’, Times, July 26, 2005.
46 Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman, Homegrown Terrorists, 55– 6.
47 Gunaratna, ‘Al Qa’ida and Diasporas’, 39; Quintan Wiktorowicz and John Kaltner, ‘Killing in the Name of Islam:
Al-Qaeda’s Justification for September 11’, Middle East Policy 10, no. 2 (2003): 76–90.
48 Quoted in Stewart Bell, ‘Never Mind Foreign Terrorists, Why is Canada Growing its Own Extremists?’, National
Post, June 3, 2006.
49 General Intelligence and Security Services (Ministry of Interior), Government of the Netherlands, Violent Jihad in
the Netherlands: Current Trends in the Islamist Terrorist Threat (The Hague: Government of the Netherlands,
2006), 32–3.
50 Catarina Kinnvall, ‘Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological
Security’, Political Psychology 25, no. 5 (2004): 742.
51 Olivier Roy, Globalised Islam: The Search for a New Umma (London: Hurst, 2004), 324.
42 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

of believers that rests outside the confines of a specific city, country, or region. Instead of follow-
ing a local religious leader – as had been the norm in previous generations – today’s Muslim
youths surf the Internet and ‘choose, quote, or follow whomsoever he/she wants’.52 Further-
more, radicalization is increasingly occurring outside the mosque.53 The result is a ‘de-
territorialization’ of religious practice, belief, and identity. That the images Western jihadists
consume weave together events from a number of different regional contexts helps explain
how and why Europeans, Australians, Canadians, and Americans could find common ground
with their supposed counterparts in Pakistan, Chechnya, and Egypt despite profound differences
in their daily routines and historical experiences.
And yet, as in the case with socio-political alienation, neither religious practice nor
globalization foments Western radicalism in and of themselves. A vast majority of converts
and newly-practicing Muslims living in the West do not radicalize and instead vociferously
and unabashedly condemn violence in the name of Islam. While religious adherence and globa-
lization may help create an environment in which jihadi radicalization can more easily occur,
they do not cause radicalization. Nor, for that matter, does religious practice explain why one
individual radicalizes and another does not.

Reaction to foreign policy

A third precursor of Western jihadi radicalization is the reaction to, and eventual violent
rejection of, a host or native state’s foreign and/or defence policy. Western militant jihadists,
the argument suggests, are motivated by perceived injustices taking place against Muslims
around the globe. Bin Laden states: ‘The truth is the whole Muslim world is the victim of
international terrorism, engineered by America and the United Nations. We are a nation
whose sacred symbols have been looted and whose wealth and resources have been plundered.
It is normal for us to react against the forces that invade our land’.54 For reasons to do with
transnational religious solidarity, the alleged victimization of Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan,
the Palestinian Territories, Somalia, Chechnya and elsewhere by the US, its allies, and others
associated with the Western world (NATO, the World Bank, the UN) compels Western
Muslims to act. ‘Perceived provocation’, explains Awan, ‘serve[s] as a casus belli that sanctions
the recourse to jihadism.’55 There are at least three categories of perceived grievances: insults
against Islam (for example, the publication of The Satanic Verses (1988) and the Mohammad
Cartoons (2005), the screening of the films Submission (2004) and Fitna (2008); and bans on
Muslim dress); Western complacency in the face of Muslim suffering (in Bosnia, Kashmir,
the Palestinian Territories, Chechnya, Xinjiang, and elsewhere); and overt Western military
aggression against Muslims (the 1990 and 2003 Iraq wars, the 1993 intervention in Somalia,
the 2001 Afghan war, the Arab – Israeli conflict). The assumption is that these and other
developments humiliate and anger some Western Muslims to the point that they feel justified
to take revenge against the citizens and states that condone and participate in these perceived
injustices.
In his quantitative study of British radicalization, Brendan O’Duffy finds that ‘British foreign
policy [is] a significant source of alienation among younger British Muslims’ and that ‘attitudes

52 Olivier Roy, interview by Religioscope, November 8, 2004, http://www.religion.info/english/interviews/article_

117.shtml (accessed August 14, 2009).
53 Frank Cilluffo, Sharon Cardash, and Andrew Whitehead, ‘Radicalization: Behind Bars and Beyond Borders’, Brown
Journal of World Affairs 13, no. 2 (2007): 113–22; Tim Stevens and Peter Neumann, Countering Online Radica-
lisation: A Strategy for Action (London: The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Vio-
lence, 2009).
54 Osama bin Laden, interview by John Miller, ABC News (reprint PBS Frontline), May 28, 1998.
55 Awan, ‘Antecedents’, 16.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 43

towards British foreign policy interact with . . . domestic social, cultural, and economic sources
of discontent’.56 The point has very little to do with whether or not some form of organized per-
secution, xenophobia, or dishonour against Muslims is actually taking place or whether Western
policies concerning the Arab and Muslim world are in fact biased. What matters is that pockets
of the Western Muslim community accept that these grievances exist and think in terms of
victimhood. Radicalization is a reaction to these prejudices and violence is, on this view, a
legitimate response.
A number of studies posit that global terrorism is directly related to international conditions
and Western foreign policy. Robert Pape suggests, for instance, that suicide terrorism in particu-
lar follows a strategic logic, in which terrorists attempt to ‘inflict enough pain and threaten
enough future pain to overwhelm the target country’s interest in resisting the terrorists’
demands’.57 These demands are usually designed for democratic states and relate to their
positions concerning foreign occupation and military engagement. Though his work has been
criticized on both theoretical and methodological grounds,58 Pape’s suggestion that occupation
and foreign policy promote and instigate terrorism retains a degree of resonance when it comes
to Western radicalization. Mohammed Siddique Khan, one of the bombers involved in the 2005
London attacks, explained his rationale for killing British citizens as such:
Your democratically elected governments continuously perpetuate atrocities against my people all
over the world. And your support of them makes you directly responsible, just as I am directly
responsible for protecting and avenging my Muslim brothers and sisters. Until we feel security,
you will be our targets. And until you stop the bombing, gassing, imprisonment and torture of my
people we will not stop this fight.59

In Khan’s worldview, the UK and its citizens are guilty of participating in what he interprets as
British aggression against his community members living in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.
Once again, however, the causal pathway connecting violent radicalization with Muslim
anger over foreign policy is fuzzy. Take the 2003 Iraq war, homegrown terrorism’s most
often cited foreign policy precursor. A number of major attacks – notably, the 2001 shoe
bombing attempt and the planning behind the Madrid attacks – predate the invasion.60 Countries
that refused to participate in the conflict (Canada, Belgium) and others that went further and una-
bashedly condemned the United States (France, Germany) nonetheless suffered jihadi violence,
while a number of countries that did join the US have not (Poland, Romania, South Korea, El
Salvador, Japan). Furthermore, countries that participated in the invasion only to withdraw
(Spain, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands) nonetheless suffered attacks, even after having
retreated.
Spain’s experience following the 2004 Madrid bombings is especially enlightening. Primar-
ily meant to compel Spain to withdraw its troops from Iraq, the first attack took place on 11
March. It was timed to coincide with Spain’s national election.61 After linking the bombings

56 Brendan O’Duffy, ‘Radical Atmosphere: Explaining Jihadist Radicalization in the UK’, PS: Political Science and
Politics 41, no. 1 (2008): 37.
57 Robert Pape, ‘Suicide Terrorism and Democracy: What We’ve Learned Since 9/11’, Policy Analysis no. 582,
(2006): 4; Robert Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005).
58 Scott Atran, ‘The Moral Logic and Growth of Suicide Terrorism’, Washington Quarterly 29, no. 2 (2006): 128– 39;
Scott Atran, ‘Mishandling Suicide Terrorism’, Washington Quarterly 27, no. 3 (2004): 67–90; and Scott Ashworth
et al., ‘Design, Inference, and the Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism’, American Political Science Review 102, no.
2 (2008): 269–73.
59 Quoted in BBC News, ‘London Bomber: Text in Full’, September 1, 2005.
60 Claude Moniquet, ‘The Radicalization of Muslim Youth in Europe: The Reality and the Scale of the Threat’
(testimony, US House of Representatives, April 27, 2005). See also the two dozen pre-2003 attempted terrorist
attacks listed in Nesser, ‘Chronology’, 929–32
61 Javier Jordan and Robert Wesley, ‘The Madrid Attacks: Results of Investigations Two Years Later’,
Terrorism Monitor 4, no. 5 (2006), http://www.jamestown.org/programs/gta/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%
5D¼696&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D¼181&no_cache¼1.
44 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

to Spain’s involvement in Iraq, voters defied expectations and removed the governing People’s
Party, which had sided with the US in sending 1300 troops to the Persian Gulf, and gave Social-
ist, antiwar candidate José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero control of the government. Immediately fol-
lowing his victory, Zapatero followed through with his electoral pledge to remove Spanish
soldiers from Iraq.62 Though Zapatero’s election and Spain’s swift foreign policy reversal
were a strategic victory for al Qaeda and its supporters, Spaniards themselves could be
excused for having voted for what they expected would be an end to the violence. After all,
they had given those responsible for the Madrid bombings what they had wanted – a dramatic
shift in foreign policy and a cessation of foreign occupation. But the terrorism did not stop. On 2
April, well after Zapatero took steps to implement his government’s new Iraq policy, a second
massive train bomb was located and defused. Authorities then tracked part of the terrorist cell to
a Madrid apartment building. On 3 April, a short battle ensued in which the terrorists eventually
blew themselves up, destroying the apartment and killing one officer. In the investigation, police
uncovered another 200 detonators of the kind used on 11 March and 2 April, several kilograms of
explosives, suicide vests, and a car primed to detonate, parked on the street. That the Madrid
terrorists were preparing further attacks despite the fact that their supposed political grievances
had been addressed suggests that something else was motivating them. Strategically speaking,
there was little to gain after the initial bombings; by then, Spain had capitulated to their
demands.63
One might retort that regardless of the Iraq war, Spain and many other states targeted with
homegrown terrorism were involved in the 2001 Afghan conflict, turned a blind eye to Russia’s
brutal wars in Chechnya, supported the UN in Somalia in 1993, continued to favour Israel over
Hamas and Hezbollah, and pursued other policies that caught the ire of local jihadists. The
problem with this line of argumentation is that it does little to clarify the many anomalies
that persist. Nor does it help identify or refine the causal pathways linking foreign policy,
anger, and radicalization to violence and terrorism.64 And then, how do we explain the violence
that erupted over the Mohammad cartoons and other insults to Islam. Is this also a reaction to
state policy? Writing on suicide terrorism in particular, Scott Atran suggests that terrorists are
neither chiefly motivated by occupation nor foreign policy, but are rather ‘inspired by a
global jihadism’, with suicide serving as ‘banner actions for a thoroughly modern, global Dia-
spora inspired by religion and claiming the role of vanguard for a massive, media-driven trans-
national political awakening’.65 Martyrdom rather than policy informs the violence. Finally,
foreign policy precursors too easily (and disingenuously) simplify the history and careful
designs of militant Islamist groups. The widespread inculcation of ‘victimhood in the Islamic
world’, suggests former Prime Minister Tony Blair, has been successfully manipulated by adher-
ents of militant jihadism to the point that it stretches ‘far beyond the extremes’ of plausibility.66
While legitimate grievances afflict the Muslim world to which solutions should be sought, to
argue that all or most of the community’s problems are the result of Western actions is false.
To then suggest that the indiscriminate killing of innocent people is somehow justified, is
perverse.
These precursors to Western jihadi radicalization offer insight concerning the structural con-
ditions that help ferment homegrown terrorism. Importantly, however, none singularly explains
how Westerners come to accept and participate in jihadi violence. As is often the case with ‘root

62 Associated Press, ‘Spain’s New Leader Stays firm on Iraq Pullout’, March 18, 2004; BBC News, ‘Spain Threatens
Iraq troop pull-out’, March 15, 2004; BBC News, ‘Spain PM Orders Iraq Troops Home’, April 18, 2004.
63 Lawrence Wright, ‘The Terror Web’, New Yorker, August 2, 2004.
64 Olivier Roy, ‘Why Do They Hate Us? Not Because of Iraq’, New York Times, July 22, 2005.
65 Atran, ‘Moral Logic’, 139, 128.
66 Tony Blair, ‘The Struggle against Militant Islam’ (speech, Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Chicago, IL, April
22, 2009).
 Global Change, Peace & Security 45

cause’ investigations of political violence, none of these precursors are sufficient, or necessary,
for terrorism.67 Furthermore, while a vast number of people may share these common character-
istics, only a fraction radicalizes. Though each precursor constitutes an important piece of the
terrorism puzzle, none accurately informs us of the processes of personal transformation that
are necessarily involved. Appreciating these internal processes demands the development and
application of theories that address the characteristics of personal change inherent to radicaliza-
tion. Transformative learning theory is particularly informative to this endeavour. What follows
is an overview of the theory’s core tenets, as they have been developed in adult education and
rehabilitation and an examination of how these tenets inform the pathways of radicalization.

Transformative learning theory: concepts and applications

Theories on adult learning support the notion that individuals participate in the construction of
personal knowledge and that learning is itself an interactive process of interpretation, inte-
gration, and transformation of experiences. Transformative learning theory, developed in
great part by the work of Jack Mezirow in the 1990s, is one adult learning theory that offers
a practical framework for understanding how change occurs in individuals. Mezirow’s theory
blends aspects of constructivism and cognitivism (an approach developed in psychology that
investigates the mental functions of the human mind) to help explain how adults learn and
adapt to new environments and constraints. ‘Learning’, he explains, is the ‘process of using a
prior interpretation to construe a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experi-
ence in order to guide future action’.68 There are five main concepts associated with the
approach:
(1) Meaning Schemes – The specific beliefs, judgments, feelings, and attitudes which act as a
frame of reference in determining personal meaning and perceptions of experiences. They
are observable in behaviour and verbal interaction;
(2) Meaning Perspectives – A structure of assumptions, based on meaning schemes, that exist
within the learner and filter perceptions and shape comprehension of new experiences;
(3) Distortions – Meaning perspectives that no longer fit the individual’s current reality;
(4) Critical Reflection – The ability to critically reflect on these distortions. Reflection begins
with a disorienting dilemma triggered by crises (e.g. personal loss, conflict, illness);
(5) Process of Transformation – An evolution or personal change that can be either abrupt or
gradual.
An individual’s personal change is a product of these mental and cognitive processes of trans-
formation. Following a moment of personal crisis (the trigger), an individual tries to make sense
of the event using his or her ‘habitual ways’ of thinking (pre-existing meaning schemes). At
times, the individual will realize that habitual ways of thinking are not helpful in managing
the crisis (distortions). The individual reacts by exploring new ways of thinking (critical reflec-
tion) which involves a transformation in meaning perspectives through the attainment of new
knowledge and skills. Eventually, the individual establishes a competence and self-confidence
in his or her new role, evident in novel behaviour that is reflective of the individual’s
changed perspective. The transformative process, explains Mezirow, involves 10 phases, one
leading into the next:
(1) Experiencing a disorienting dilemma;

67 Martha Crenshaw, ‘The Causes of Terrorism’, Comparative Politics 13, no. 4 (1981): 379–99; Karin von Hippel,
‘The Roots of Terrorism: Probing the Myths’ in Superterrorism: Policy Responses, ed. Lawrence Freedman
(Oxford: Blackwell, 2002): 24–37.
68 Jack Mezirow, Transformative Dimensions of Adult Learning (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1991), 12.
46 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

(2) Self-examination (with feelings of guilt, anger, shame);

(3) Critically assessing assumptions;
(4) Recognizing that personal ‘discontent’ and transformation are shared;
(5) Exploring ‘new roles, relationships, and actions’;
(6) Establishing a course of action;
(7) Acquiring new knowledge or skills for implanting the new course;
(8) Provisionally ‘trying new roles’;
(9) Building self-confidence in new roles;
(10) Reintegrating into ‘one’s life on the basis of conditions dictated by one’s new perspec-
tive’.69

Of critical importance to the transformative learning process is taking action, which involves
an empowered sense of self, a critical understanding of how one’s social relations and culture
have shaped one’s beliefs and feelings, and the establishment of strategies for new behaviour.
In the end, an individual’s transformed meaning perspective allows them to learn to get past a
crisis, to live with new environmental constraints, and adapt to an evolving daily routine.
Mezirow’s transformative learning theory has been an important framework for research in
the context of adult learning. But, significantly, his insight has been utilized well outside the
study of education. His 10-phase process, for instance, has been applied (and greatly refined
as a result) to research on the perceptions of individuals adapting to illness and injury.70 Over
the past decade, healthcare scientists have been exploring the process of transformative learning
in patients coping with and adapting to debilitating disabilities and illnesses that require entirely
novel ways of behaving. For example, victims of spinal cord injury require major adaptation to
daily living (with a reliance on the use of a wheel chair in some cases) that accompanies a loss of
mobility. Multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, both degenerative illnesses, can result in
progressive loss of function which entails major life modification. In the context of physical
health, Paterson and colleagues find that patients with diabetes experienced a process of personal
transformation that was significant for obtaining positive outcomes in health interventions.71
Other empirical research has been conducted on adults living with kidney transplants, strokes,
traumatic brain injuries, breast cancer, Turner Syndrome, and HIV/AIDS.72
Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz and colleagues have recently identified three distinct transforma-
tive phases in rehabilitation: the trigger phase, the process of change phase, and the outcome

69 Jack Mezirow, ‘Epistemology of Transformative Learning’ (paper presented at the International Conference on
Transformative Learning, 2003); Jack Mezirow, ‘Transformation Theory of Adult Learning’, in In Defense of
the Lifeworld: Critical Perspectives on Adult Learning, ed. Michael Welton (New York: SUNY Press, 1995),
45– 52.
70 Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz, Jacques Chevrier, and Lorraine Savoie-Zajc, ‘Processus de transformation chez un
groupe de personnes cardiaques suivies en ergothérapie pour une modification de leur équilibre du fonctionnement
occupationnel’, Revue Canadienne d’Ergothérapie 68, no. 3 (2001): 171–85.
71 Barbara Paterson et al., ‘Living with Diabetes as a Transformational Experience’, Qualitative Health Research 9,
no. 6 (1999): 786– 802.
72 Jack Edward Clevinger, ‘Exploring Transformative Learning: The Identification and Description of Multiple Cases
among Kidney Transplant Recipients’ (PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1993); Dorothy Kessler et al., ‘Meaning
Perspective Transformation Following Stroke: The Process of Change’, Disability and Rehabilitation 31, no. 13
(2009): 1056–65; Laura Kroupa, ‘Forced to the Edge: How Adults Learn to Build Meaningful Lives after Traumatic
Brain Injury’ (PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 1996); Helen Hays Eckmann, ‘You Are With Someone who is a
Fighter: Constructing a Model of Transformation which Can Occur in Surviving Breast Cancer’ (PhD diss., Univer-
sity of San Diego, 2003); S.F. Kagan-Kreiger, ‘The Struggle to Understand Oneself as a Woman: Stress, Coping and
the Psychological Development of Women with Turner Syndrome’ (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 1999);
Bradley Courtenay, Sharan Merriam, and Patricia Reeves, ‘The Centrality of Meaning-making in Transformational
Learning: How HIV-positive Adults Make Sense of Their Lives’, Adult Education Quarterly 48, no. 2 (1998): 65–
84; Bradley Courtenay et al., ‘Perspective Transformation Over Time: A 2-year Follow-up Study of HIV-positive
Adults’, Adult Education Quarterly 50, no. 2 (2000): 102– 19; Lisa Baumgartner, ‘Living and Learning with HIV/
AIDS: Transformational Tales Continued’, Adult Education Quarterly 53, no. 1 (2002): 44–59.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 47

phase. In each case, the catalyst for movement from one phase to the next is an individual’s
‘readiness for change’ (Mezirow’s ‘taking action’) that allows the patient to actively engage
the transformation process.73 The trigger phase begins when patients experience illness or dis-
ability that stops them from functioning in ways they desire. For example, Ashe and colleagues
describe a patient’s recognition of the impact of her illness on her ability to continue working:
A year ago I became very tired and one day I broke down in the office. The arthritis was in a flare up
big time. I had never missed a day of work because of my arthritis. I fought it and went to work but
this time, I couldn’t fight it anymore.74
These events are disorienting dilemmas that propel patients to question how exactly they are
going to live with their new realities. Asking this question is itself a fundamental driving
force that compels an individual towards a readiness for change moment. One of the participants
involved in another study, for instance, describes his readiness for change in this way:
I’d go somewhere else in my mind, go to a happy place. If they had a problem, it would snap me back
to reality. Eventually, I began to realize that it was still my body and I had better attend to it a bit
more.75

Through realizations like these, individuals become motivated to enter the second, process
of change, phase. This stage is framed by the patient’s critical reflection on existing bio-
psycho-social and spiritual issues he or she encounters while living with a disease or disability.
Of particular interest is the deconstruction and reconstruction of meaning perspectives. As
described earlier, meaning perspectives are articulated as beliefs, values, feelings, and knowl-
edge about self, identity, and ways to manage daily activities. During the changing phase,
meaning perspectives are restructured, redefined, or constructed anew. Consider these examples:
acquiring knowledge of a given illness can empower a patient to regain self-control over his or
her new life and thereby gain renewed self-respect; an individual transforms his or her under-
standing of independence (from total autonomy in life management) to include aspects inherent
to social interdependence (allowing others to be part of the daily living modification effort);
redefining personal worth (from once-powerful employment positions and salary, for instance)
to ‘life-worth’ and ‘survivability’.
The changing process ends when individuals actively engage in a third phase which moves
them to fully accept and participate in their new lifestyle. In this outcome phase individuals gain
new perspectives on life, new feelings, and adhere to novel behavioural routines. For example, in
the cardiac rehabilitation programs described by Dubouloz and colleagues, participants devel-
oped new beliefs concerning work and health.76 Other research has identified changes in
beliefs concerning dependency and self-caring, in relation to accepting social support, house-
keeping, and personal and medical assistance from family, friends, and healthcare workers.
One participant had this to say:
So, now instead of being an independently fit person, I’m an independently disabled person [laugh],
no . . . chronically ill person who occasionally needs help you know. It’s all relative to the position
you’re in.77

73 Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz et al., ‘The Process of Transformation in Rehabilitation: What Does It Look Like?’ The
International Journal of Therapy and Rehabilitation (under review, 2009).
74 Quoted in Brenda Ashe, Maurice Taylor, and Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz, ‘The Process of Change: Listening to
Transformation in Meaning Perspectives of Adults in Arthritis Health Education Groups’, Canadian Journal of
Occupational Therapy 72, no. 4 (2005): 280– 88.
75 Quoted in Christine Carpenter, ‘The Experience of Spinal Cord Injury: The Individual’s Perspective – Implications
for Rehabilitation Practice’, Physical Therapy 74, no. 7 (1994): 619.
76 Dubouloz, et al., ‘Processus de transformation’, 175–85.
77 Quoted in Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz et al., ‘Transformation of Meaning Perspectives in Clients with Rheumatoid
Arthritis’, American Journal of Occupational Therapy 58, no. 4 (2004): 398 –407.
48 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

Research on the transformative learning process from these studies in physical rehabilitation has
helped identify which specific meaning perspective undergoes transformation. They include
self-worth, independence, altruism, and self-respect. Shifts in these perspectives facilitate life-
style changes that are reflected in novel behaviour, like new eating habits, a diminution of the
perceived threat of loss of self-worth, adaptations to daily activities, and the establishment of
new meaningful activities.
It is our working assumption that the theoretical propositions outlined in transformative
learning along with the practical and clinical findings from the sciences of rehabilitation, shed
light on the individual processes involved in radicalization and inform the literature on the pre-
cursors of terrorism. The transformation of an individual’s meaning-perspective and associated
changes in behaviour parallel certain aspects outlined in adult learning theory. What follows is
an exploration of these parallels along with a discussion regarding their importance in refining
theoretical debates concerning the precursor of homegrown terrorism.

Radicalization as transformative learning

As illustrated, transformative learning processes involve three phases: the trigger phase, the
process of changing phase (identified as the deconstruction and reconstruction of meaning per-
spectives), and the outcome phase (in which new meaning perspectives encourage and are
reflected in novel behaviour). We suggest that while the radicalization process is triggered by
strong social, political, and environmental forces, individual radicalization takes place during
the changing phase in which a combination of personal reflection, knowledge acquisition, and
identity reassessment occurs. Violent behaviour takes place in the final phase and is a reflection
of the solidification and empowerment of the individual’s new identity, values, and belief
system.
From a transformative learning perspective, the previously mentioned precursors of radica-
lization, whether socio-political alienation, religiosity, or rejection of government policy, are
better understood as factors that help shape an individual’s personal context of living. These
are the conditions that mark an individual’s immediate environment. They can be felt and inter-
preted in ways that facilitate a transformative learning process. Just as illness or injury in the
study of rehabilitation is thought to trigger a transformative learning process within patients
by changing their environmental living conditions, so too, within the context of homegrown
terrorism, might socio-political alienation, foreign policy, and other factors trigger a process
of radicalization.
Alienation can create feelings of anxiety and fear while foreign policy can produce anger and
despair. Both can lead to a process of critical reflection or ‘cognitive opening’ that involves a
personal reassessment of one’s life, future ambitions, current social position, personal relation-
ships, and so on.78 With that, a restructuring of an individual’s existing meaning perspective and
interpretation of his or her living environment follows. Again, just as a patient’s health limitation
or lack of physical function can initiate a personal process of transformative learning that
attempts to adapt to new realities, so too with radicalization might socio-political factors that
conflict with an individual’s existing interpretation of self and society instigate a process of
change. While precursors inform the radicalization process, they do so in much more subtle
ways than is usually assumed. Rather than simply compelling an individual to participate in
violence, precursors influence the individual’s context of living in ways that make him or her
susceptible to new experiences, perspectives, and beliefs.
It is within these evolving contexts of living that the reception and interpretation of critical
information by impressionable minds can instigate the process of identity deconstruction and

78 Precht, Home Grown Terrorism, 36; Wright-Neville and Smith, ‘Political Rage’, 93– 5.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 49

reconstruction inherent to radicalization. Recall from Mezirow’s 10 steps that self-examination

is associated with feelings of guilt, anger, and shame that can lead to a reassessment of existing
behavioural assumptions. With jihadi radicalization, critical information elementally rooted in
religious ideals spurs an individual to reinterpret international politics and history, reassess
the distinctions between justice, defence, and aggression, and re-evaluate their own relation
with the immediate and global community. Rather than foment violent behaviour, religious
belief and practice offers the individual new knowledge, while globalization helps disseminate
and popularize the message. Thus, while a 2007 New York Police Department report finds a link
between specific triggers (like losing a job, suffering a death in the family, going through a
divorce, experiencing racism, etc.) and increased religious participation (dubbed ‘religious
seeking’), transformative learning theory goes further to suggest that religious practice offers
the individual a novel narrative and new perspectives upon which to base his or her actions.79
New-found religiosity provides some of the knowledge that may lead to a redefinition of
meaning perspectives.
To that end, a particular message offered by a previously radicalized individual (a terrorist
leader or religious ideologue, for instance) could trigger a search for a new meaning perspective
that takes a particularly slanted position. Here, religious identity plays an important role. Extre-
mist versions of Islam promote an interpretation of global affairs that is based on an inherent and
deep-seated schism between the Islamic world and the West. Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman
find that almost 40% of American and British terrorists viewed ‘Islam and the West as existen-
tially incompatible’.80 As individuals critically examine their Western identities and begin
shaping new meaning perspectives, the Islam – West dichotomy provides a lens with which to
focus their energies. Images of conflict and war that purport to show global injustices carried
out against Muslims around the world, from Abu Ghraib prison to the shattered streets of
Grozny, can be easily accessed via the Internet and internalized as accurate information.
From the context of transformative learning theory, these images and messages strengthen
the disorienting dilemma that helps contradict previously-accepted knowledge upon which
self-identification and behaviour had been constructed. What results is a feeling of self-doubt,
confusion over identity, and intense personal debate to the point of identity deconstruction.
Instead of interpreting oneself as a ‘Western citizen’ or ‘member of society’, the newly acquired
reality forces a stronger identification with a beleaguered and victimized international minority.
At this point the majority cultural identity is overshadowed by the minority one. This is in
keeping with Mezirow’s notion of the exploration of new roles and relationships following iden-
tity re-assessment, and relates well with Roy’s work on globalized Islamic identity. Of further
interest is the fact that this (re)conceptualization process reflects a subliminal readiness for
change moment, a tipping point whereby the patient, or in this case a radicalizing individual,
comes to realize that the old reality simply no longer exists and a new one must be established.
This realization facilitates the process of identification with the newly internalized reality and
encourages a change in behaviour later on.
Radicalizing images and information can be manipulated, as is the case with jihadi propa-
ganda, in a manner that persuades a susceptible individual to recognize an international crisis
or conflict as a personal plight. Of importance is that this sort of information provides the
adhesive that is critical to strengthening and eventually cementing the individual’s new identity.
Using Mezirow’s words, this process is about an individual ‘trying new roles’, from a content
citizen to a militant jihadi. In turn, new roles lead to the reorganization of the individual’s exist-
ing value and belief systems. Instead of passivity, egalitarianism, and cooperation, values that

79 NYPD, Radicalization, 30– 31

80 Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman, Homegrown Terrorists, 45.
50 A.S. Wilner and C.-J. Dubouloz

might be associated with the role of ‘citizen’, other values linked to the role of ‘militant’, like
rebelliousness, non-compliance, and aggression, become internalized.
The strengthening of the new identity comes with socialization and in-group acceptance. In
order to establish a meaningful understanding of their new reality and identity, individuals
search their social environment, daily routines, and personal contacts for validation. As pre-
viously suggested, socio-political isolation and clique construction support the process by allow-
ing the individual to interact with others that have either gone through, or are going through, a
similar process of transformation. This is a finding that complements Sageman’s ‘social
bonding’ thesis of terrorist group formation, Max Abrahms’ ‘social solidarity’ thesis for terrorist
participation, and Wright-Neville and Smith’s notion of ‘psychological socialisation’ for
emotional attachment.81 With peer-based validation, the transformation of meaning perspective
is reinforced and the new identity, having been accepted by the individual’s immediate social
group, acquires value and strength. The individual, in his or her new role, gains self-confidence
and eventually pursues his or her life on the basis of the new perspective. From there, violent
behaviour is a product of the individual’s newly acquired value system, where revenge and
active defence in light of perceived Western aggression is not only justified but expected.

Conclusions
Applying transformative learning theory to Western jihadi radicalization and homegrown terror-
ism offers a promising interdisciplinary approach to evaluate an emerging phenomenon. While
existing studies on radicalization offer important insights on the causes of homegrown terrorism,
and on the behaviour of terrorist organizations, they fall short in not properly investigating and
identifying the internal cognitive processes inherent to identity transformation. Radicalization is
first and foremost a process of personal change in which non-violent individuals come to accept
and promote violent activity. ‘Terrorists do not fall from the sky’, posits Jenkins, ‘they emerge
from a set of strongly held beliefs. They are radicalized. Then they become terrorists.’82 This
article, in applying theories of transformation proposed and developed from a variety of
fields, helps to identify the process of jihadi emergence in Western society.
Further research is needed in three areas. First, transformative learning, when applied to the
study of adult education, health, and rehabilitation, is usually considered a positive process of
change. In health science, for instance, the process is one of individual recovery and healing
following tragic accidents and illnesses. It is primarily about human achievement in surviving
and adapting to life-changing events. On the other hand, in the context of terrorism, radicaliza-
tion leads to negative results. It is a process in which an individual comes to reject democratic
ideals, promote in-group isolation, hate their neighbours, and choose death over life. Theoreti-
cally speaking, do these differences matter? Do positive and negative transformations share a
common set of inherent principles and variables applicable to the universe of transformative
cases? How important are diverging starting points? These questions will need to be addressed,
first in theory and then in practice.
Second, future research will have to investigate the pathways inherent to incomplete trans-
formation and transformative reversals. That is, why do some individuals fail to complete the
radicalization process? What factors cause a deceleration in the momentum of radicalization?
Relatedly, why do some individuals radicalize, ideologically and politically speaking, but none-
theless reject violent behaviour? And finally, why do some radicalized individuals later recant

81 Sageman, Terror Networks, ch. 5; Max Abrahms, ‘What Terrorists Really Want: Terrorist Motives and Counterter-
rorism Strategy’, International Security 31, no. 1 (2008): 96–103; and Wright-Neville and Smith, ‘Political Rage’,
95.
82 Brian Michael Jenkins, preface to Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman, Homegrown Terrorists, 7.
 Global Change, Peace & Security 51

their positions and de-radicalize? If radicalization is a prerequisite to terrorism then building a

better appreciation for the processes related to transformation and change will be critical to dis-
suading and containing the threat of homegrown terrorism. To that end, transformative learning
theories might well reveal important insight into de-radicalization and conflict resolution.
Finally, this article is but a first step. It is principally a preliminary, theoretically-driven
investigation intent on generating new ideas. The paper provides the contours of a transformative
framework for studying radicalization and approaches the phenomenon of homegrown terrorism
from a novel position. It does so, however, on theoretical rather than analytical grounds. An
obvious suggestion for future research is to quantify and systematically analyze the theoretical
propositions derived from the transformative framework. A number of recent studies on radica-
lization suggest ways to do so.83 Quantitative and qualitative analysis of homegrown terrorists
along with the communities that support their efforts would help generate the sort of data
required to test the indicators, characteristics, and pathways of radicalization identified in this
paper while further demonstrating the utility of applying transformative approaches to the
study of homegrown terrorism.

Notes on contributors
Dr Alex S. Wilner is a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Security Studies at the ETH-Zurich (Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology) in Zurich, Switzerland. A graduate of Dalhousie University (Halifax,
Canada) and McGill University (Montreal, Canada), Alex is a recipient of Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council and Dr Ronald Baker Doctoral scholarships (Canadian Department of National Defence).
In 2008, he received a Trans-Atlantic Post-Doc Fellowship for International Relations and Security from
the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP).
His research focuses on applying deterrence theory, influence, and coercion to counterterrorism and
identifying the processes of political radicalization as they relate to homegrown terrorism.

Dr Claire-Jehanne Dubouloz is a full professor at the School of Rehabilitation Sciences, University of

Ottawa, Canada. Her first degree was obtained in Occupational Therapy in Switzerland, followed by a
BSc in Occupational Therapy and MSc in Clinical Sciences from the University of Montreal, and a PhD
in Education from l’Université du Québec in Montreal (UQAM). Her research focuses on the development
of knowledge as it relates to Transformative Learning in adulthood in rehabilitation with different popu-
lations living with chronic illnesses and incapacities. She is currently investigating its application in the
field of rehabilitation sciences.

83 Bakker, Jihadi Terrorists; Precht, Home Grown Terrorism; Kirby, ‘The London Bombers’; NYPD, Radicalization;
Leiken and Brooke, ‘Quantitative Analysis of Terrorism and Immigration’; O’Duffy, ‘Radical Atmosphere’; and
Gartenstein-Ross and Grossman, Homegrown Terrorists.