Violent extremism: The journey in and the pathway out

Violent extremism: The journey in and the pathway out Understanding and addressing violent extremism goes beyond just ideology. Morten Bøås of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs suggests that looking at the underlying reasons and addressing its root cause might be crucial to finding solutions. Defining violent extremism is like grabbing slippery soap. Most of us have ideas about what violent extremism is, what type of acts of violence qualify, and what kinds of ideologies and belief systems that we would say promote it. The challenge, however, is that the definition of violent extremism is almost exclusively subjective. What one person deems as violent extremism may be perfectly justifiable for another.