Counter-radicalisation is resource-hungry; policy development and implementation, interventions through the criminal justice system, and bespoke one-to-one engagements outside of it are all costly. In contrast, counter narrative campaigns ostensibly offer a simpler proposition. By engaging with various audiences, campaigners from both the state and civil society can seek to reduce the number of people turning to extremism, question their commitment where they do engage, and ultimately hasten their exit. Despite this allure, the reality of counter narrative campaigns is a conceptually confusing landscape, sometimes based on sketchy theoretical understandings and limited evidence on outcomes.
This chapter provides an overview of counter narratives. It begins by setting out some of the alternative conceptualisations, such as counter and alternative messaging. Building on this, it then identifies some of the theoretical underpinnings of different approaches and explores some of the tools that campaigners use in different settings. It then goes on to look in more depth at how counter narrative campaigning has been evaluated previously, and emergent normative questions around the practice.