Swedish Municipalities and Their Strategies Against Radicalization : A case study of two municipalities in Kronobergs County and their implementation of the National Strategy Against Violent Extremism

Abstract: In 2001, George W. Bush, the former president of the United States, declared war on terrorism after the 9/11 attack at the World Trade Centre in New York. Since then, terrorism and terrorist attacks have perceived to be rather frequent and the problem of radicalization has become a new phenomenon in societies, especially the western societies. Therefore, in 2014, the Swedish government decided to create a National Strategy Against Violent Extremism (NSAVE) which was released in 2016. In this strategy, it is argued that the main responsibility of the preventative-work against radicalization is directed at the local levels in Sweden, which is the municipalities. The research on the implementation of the strategy is however limited to non-existing. Therefore, this study is conducting a review of the national strategy and two case- studies with a qualitative approach to get an understanding of how municipalities are working with prevention of radicalization and violent extremism as well as how the national strategy is implemented at the local levels. The data collection that is used is semi-structured interviews with professionals working within two municipalities in Sweden. The findings show that the two municipalities are working with prevention of radicalization but use different strategies. The result is analyzed with the theoretical approach of inclusion and exclusion. The result shows that both municipalities are using the inclusive and development approach in their strategies. The last part of the thesis argues for recommendations in future work on national, regional and local levels as well as direct recommendations towards the two municipalities.