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Factors underlying violent extremism and radicalisation that lead to terrorism and ways to effectively address this threat in Central Asia and beyond were the focus of an international roundtable discussion organized by the OSCE Programme Office in Astana in co-operation with the Centre for Military Strategic Research under the Ministry of Defence in Astana yesterday, ...

By Scott Craig and Emma Llansó The UK government has published a new counter-extremism strategy outlining the steps it intends to take to counter extremist ideologies in British society. In an expansion of earlier efforts designed to prevent people being “drawn into terrorism,” the government now intends to actively challenge non-violent extremism both online and ...

by Haroro Ingram Countering Islamic State “strategic communications” is one of the most pressing national security concerns facing Western governments. Developing more nuanced understanding of the organization’s communications strategy will be crucial to devising effective counter-narrative strategies. Yet popular commentary tends to explain the appeal of Islamic State messaging by pointing to its graphic violence, use ...

Welcome to Vol. 3, Iss. 1 of the VOX-Pol Newsletter. VOX-Pol is now at the beginning of its third year, and we are looking forward to an exciting year ahead, full of events and publications. If you have colleagues or friends who may be interested in the content of this newsletter or any events and ...

by Wasim Ahmed In one of my previous blog posts I outlined a number of software applications that could be used to capture and analyse data from Twitter. In this blog post I outline some of the methodological, ethical, privacy, and copyright issues associated with using Twitter as a data source. Twitter can be used as a ...

by David Mair On Thursday 21st January 2015, al-Shabaab attacked the Lido Beach area of Mogadishu in the heart of Somalia.  The area is regarded as Somalia’s premier tourism destination; where Somalis can relax on white sands and enjoy the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.  Despite being on the Foreign Office no-go list, Lido ...

by Joel Wing In the west, the Islamic State (IS) is usually described as a new type of insurgent group that is exploiting technological advances to spread its message to create a new global brand of jihad that has attracted followers from around the world. Haroro Ingram, a Research Fellow at the Coral Bell School ...

VOX-Pol’s 2015 – 2016 Research Fellow is Dr. Matti Pohjonen. Matti joined VOX-Pol partner the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH) at the University of Hamburg at the start of November 2015. Matti’s research focuses on different kinds of conflict mediation mechanisms through which social media communities across the world have tried to counter ...

by Andi Rahman Alamsyah People were commenting on social media within moments of the terrorist bombings and shooting on 14 January in Jakarta by attackers linked to Islamic State (IS). Two popular hashtags emerged on Twitter and Facebook: #PrayForJakarta and #KamiTidakTakut, which translates as “We are not afraid”. The Pray-for-something hashtag is a common phrase on ...

by Esther Kersley Last week the new UN privacy chief said UK surveillance was “worse than [George Orwell’s novel] 1984”. In the two years since the Snowden leaks revealed the existence of bulk internet and phone surveillance by US intelligence services and their partners, including the UK, the British government continues to engage in the ...