Terrorism shook Western faith that welfare state reforms eliminate civil strife

Evidence

The War on Terror is not invested in mending cracks, bringing people together, or restoring clairvoyance. Rather, it seeks to widen the cracks and deepen the crevices, to turn people against one another, to distort religious and civilizational divides and keep us all bound to war and blind to reality. … The War on Terror has put a violent new spin on the longstanding narrative that Muslims are a demographic threat wherever they live. The world, for Muslims everywhere, is spinning more and more furiously thanks to the hands of Islamophobia. — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 168 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Attempts by formal institutions to deradicalize individuals sometimes work but often fail as well. In particular, heavy-handed attempts to derail radical activities and groups by intelligence and law enforcement agencies—while understandable to protect the public in many cases—can sometimes deepen ongoing radicalization processes and push potentially salvageable cases to more-extreme behaviors and involvement. … Stigmatization of groups, whether Islamic, rural white, or otherwise, seems mostly to push individuals with risk for radicalization further down the extremist path. Punitive measures, banned speech, and indignant public discourse can backfire and increase the drive for radicalization. — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 579 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: The Other Path framed economic reform as an answer to terrorism — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1951; Western states reframed non-state political violence from legitimate insurgency into pathological terrorism; Scholars and states reduce terrorism to psychological and theological radicalization — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 30 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• The War on Terror deliberately deepens civilizational divides rather than repairing them #complicates (0.78) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 168
• Humanitarian values make liberal democracies more vulnerable to terrorism #complicates (0.76)
• Heavy-handed state intervention and stigmatization deepen rather than halt radicalization #complicates (0.74) — Ryan Andrew Brown, Todd C. Helmus, Rajeev Ramchand, Alina I. Palimaru, Sarah Weilant, Ashley L. Rhoades, and Liisa Hiatt (RAND Corporation), Violent Extremism in America, 579