Pushes and pulls of radicalisation into violent Islamist extremism and prevention measures targeting these: Comparing men and women

Abstract: Recent years’ terrorist attacks in Europe and the flow of foreign fighters joining the terrorist organisation Daesh, has made the understanding of radicalisation evermore crucial. This thesis investigates if push and pull factors leading into violent Islamic extremism differentiate between men and women. Furthermore, it assesses how preventive measures from The United Kingdom, Sweden and Denmark targets push and pull factors and if these are sensitive to sex. To fulfil this objective an exploratory thematic analysis was used to synthesise secondary qualitative research surrounding push and pull factors. The push and pull factor analysis revealed three trends: there were limited variation in the overall categories describing the push and pull factors present for men and women; what caused push and pull factors to manifest differed according to sex; and, there were differences in how much men and women were affected by these factors. The assessment of prevention measures showed that none of the measures explicitly mentioned push and pull factors, yet they all had the potential of targeting these. Sex was included in some aspects of the measures, but was not a consideration in relation to the targeting of push and pull factors. The thesis ends with a discussion of what implications the found results have for practice and offers suggestions to how prevention measures can be improved.