This special issue has its roots in an international multisite study that examined the complex relationship between radicalization, narratives of victimhood, and political violence.¹ A key focus of the project was to understand how all parties to the violence could and do assist in efforts at deradicalization and countering violent extremism (CVE).

Given these aims, we began with a focus on victimhood—broadly conceived—by attending to the relevance of narratives of victimhood constructed and utilized by both victims and perpetrators of terrorism; this includes individuals who could reasonably be included simultaneously in both categories. A second key dimension is a focus on the role of victims and perpetrators in their efforts to avert the perpetuation of a cycle of violence whereby historic, personal and community narratives of victimhood sustained a justification and/or motivation for participation in political violence transgenerationally. More specifically, this involves an analysis of the work of former perpetrators (or formers) and victims as they attempted to prevent and curtail political violence through their participation in deradicalization programs, counternarrative initiatives, and restorative justice and youth education schemes across Europe.

This special issue presents some of the key findings from the study. It is composed of a series of articles from researchers associated with the project that examines issues of relevance to a victim–perpetrator cycle and its relationship to radicalization more generally. These perspectives have their origins in a variety of disciplines: criminology, psychology, victimology, and the political sciences and as such reflect the disciplinary origins of the researchers and their academic homes. Each article represents the work of the scholar/s who sought to address the research questions as they interpreted them and according to their relevance for their chosen context. We hope that the insights delivered by this international and multidisciplinary effort will help to enhance our understanding of both the complexity of and interrelatedness of the parties to political violence, an issue we believe is worthy of significant and rigorous study.

Victimhood and Terrorism

Terrorism is predominantly understood by reference to the nature of the perpetrator, their ideology, their motivations, and their justifications. Driven by an inherent desire to understand why individuals are driven to such extreme and indiscriminate violence we have, perhaps inadvertently, simplified terrorism to the point at which other parties impacted by the violence have been side-lined in our research efforts. Terrorism is fundamentally a communicative act whereby the recipients of the violence, whomever they may be or whomever they may represent by virtue of their individual or social identity, serve as a conduit for the communiqué of the terrorist actors.² However, the victims of terrorism, the messengers for the violent act, are rarely the focus of our investigative efforts. Victims of terrorism are a party to terrorist violence, as are their families, their communities and, at times, their governments; and therefore understanding the experience of victimhood in this context is vital if we are to comprehend the entirety of the complexity of terrorism.

The relationship between victimhood and the emergence, maintenance and decline of terrorist campaigns is fundamentally under-researched. Problematically, when the question of victimization is examined in the terrorism literature, it features as an isolated, conceptually bereft notion often portrayed as irrelevant to the act itself and the aims of the perpetrators. A belief that the victims are merely in the wrong place at the wrong time is a naïve and unfortunate construction that fails to take account of the fact of repeat victimization, the relevance of social identities, and the political and social contexts to terrorist campaigns; this is particularly the case where terrorism occurs as part of an ongoing political conflict. There is some recognition that perceptions of victimization, linked to notions of oppression, grievance, and injustice serve as so-called root causes that act as pre-conditions for an individual's involvement in violence; however, moral objections to and methodological difficulties in achieving such correlations have often prevented these issues being sufficiently addressed.³ How these root causes are mediated by feelings of victimization (personal or vicarious) in the process of motivating mobilization and political contestation—either violent or nonviolent—is a complex subject that requires rigorous investigation.

As with all definitions in social research, victimhood is not an uncontested notion. Apart from the complexity inherent in defining and conceptualizing the phenomenon, the experience itself is not a static manifestation: the trajectory of victimhood will differ substantially between individuals and even during the different stages of a person's life.⁴ Furthermore being a victim of terrorism is both a very private traumatic event but also a very public and political experience.⁵ In the aftermath of a terrorist attack, society often equates the strength or resilience of a nation to deal with terrorism with the recovery of its victims. The weight of expectation lies heavily on the individual victims and the responsibility for allowing society to move forward often rests on those individuals who have experienced tremendous personal loss. The politicization of the victims and their experience can and has led to their voices being silenced due both to the political implications of acknowledging the lifelong impact of terrorism but also the vulnerability of society to political violence more generally.⁶

As mentioned, victimhood as an academic notion is highly contested; in addition, victimhood as a political designation is similarly disputed. Ethical and moral issues plague the political framing of victimhood. Being recognized as a victim in the case of terrorism and political violence depends not only on the identity of the perpetrator (particularly if there is state involvement in a terrorist attack) but also on one's own personal history, at times, one's family history but also the political and social context to the violent act.⁷ Much relies on, for example, if the victimizing experience occurs in the context of a divided society and/or as part of an ongoing conflict as opposed to a one-off catastrophic attack.⁸ The setting dictates the trajectory of victimhood in a number of ways: it includes or excludes an individual and their family from some aspects of victim support, it prevents or promotes the perpetuation of narratives of violence and it can sustain violence through the development of a victim–perpetrator cycle, whereby individual involvement in violence is encouraged by their families' or their own experience of victimization. The context that surrounds such experience is fundamental to understanding how individuals react to victimization—whether it be to engage with victim support activities, involve themselves in political activism or peace movements, contribute to counterradicalization efforts or choose to participate in the violence that they perceive as having led to their victimization in the first place.

Responses to Violent Victimization: From the Victim–Perpetrator Cycle to Altruism Born of Suffering

As explained above, victimization as a result of political violence is in the first instance an extreme personal traumatic experience and, as with all traumatizing experiences, it can result in a range of consequences for the individual and their family. However, given the inherently political and public nature of terrorist victimization, often there are a range of reactions to the violence that are witnessed among the survivors and the victims families. These include the complete rejection of political activism, disengagement from meaningful social interaction, intense political lobbying, the formation of support groups, advocacy work and media interaction.⁹ However, different, sometimes polar, responses to victimization can be experienced by the very same individual across his or her lifespan.¹⁰

In this special issue we are particularly interested in the responses emerging from victimization that are distinctly social and political: either aggressive (participation in retaliatory violent action) or restorative (contribution to initiatives aiming at preventing violence). The former can be encompassed by the central concept of “victim–perpetrator complex,” the later by the idea of “altruism born of suffering.” Importantly, these are not mutually exclusive categories and do not represent the entirety of possibilities chosen by the individuals in question, but are relevant given the focus of this particular research. The victim–perpetrator complex, in the most literal sense, refers to a relationship between individuals who have been personally victimized and then choose to engage in violence leading to the victimization of others. Alternatively it can be used to refer to the likelihood of a victim and a perpetrator being one in the same individual. Finally it also encompasses the interactive element of any engagement between the victim and the perpetrator of political violence both prior to and after the violence experienced.

This notion itself is not new, and in fact, it has a significant history in criminological and victimological literature. We find in the former the established concept of the “penal couple”—the notion that an offender and a victim are the two constituent parts of a criminal act—and the understanding that, even if it is commonly assumed that victims and offenders are distinct categories, there is significant overlap in these populations.¹¹ It is well known that offending and victimization are partly affected by common factors (educational and parental background, for instance) and there are important sociodemographic similarities between victims and offenders (gender, age, residence, etc.).¹² In fact, criminological research has shown that “offenders are more likely than non‐offenders to be victims, and victims are more likely than non‐victims to be offenders.”¹³ There have been a range of theories used to explain this link such as routine activity/lifestyles theories (victims and offenders share the same space and routines)¹⁴ or low self-control explanations (offenders' acts are not governed by social and group restraints as they put themselves in situations where they are both likely to commit a crime as well as becoming a victim).¹⁵ However, conceptualization of this relationship in the case of terrorism and political violence is effectively absent.

Studies from victimology have challenged simplistic interpretations of victims and perpetrators, problematizing the commonly held conceptions of the innocent victim and the culpable perpetrator.¹⁶ Victimization as a precursor to further violence is well understood in this research. The subculture-of-violence explanation outlines how retaliation for past victimization often supports the choice to engage in further violence¹⁷; the sense of entitlement sustained by personal direct, indirect, or vicarious victimization serving to provide a justification for one's own violent acts.¹⁸ Indeed it has been recently posited that the most common reason for the perpetration of violence lies in a moral justification of aggression.¹⁹ This links with the criminological concept of crime as self-help or “taking the law into one's hand”: “the [victimized individual's] expression of a grievance by unilateral aggression such as personal violence or property destruction.”²⁰ Retaliation is intended as a punishment or an expression of disapproval, for compensation or restitution; it can be meted in the heat of the moment or methodically long after the quarrel, as an immediate response to an assault or following a long series of minor transgressions. Yet again, retaliation may not always be directed at the original perpetrator; it can be random instead, targeting any arbitrary or symbolic victim and/or done in anger in response to a perceived slight.²¹ These practices can be reinforced by group norms and social identity dynamics²² and can conceivable act to sustain violence for many months or years, or in the case of a conflict situation, across the generations.

So far, in addressing these issues, the focus has been predominantly on the perpetrators and victims of “non-political” crime; for example, physical and sexual assault, hate and non-hate crime, gang violence and among those who report their decision or desire to seek retribution toward their aggressor. In the comparatively few studies that have considered this question in situations of protracted armed conflict, often it is found that reality clashes with the black and white identities of innocent victim and culpable perpetrator as individuals can be both victimized and be responsible for victimizing others over a period of time.²³ A victim–perpetrator identity can inherently co-exist within certain categories (i.e., child soldiers and female members of armed groups). It can mutate by the person being first a victim of violence and then joining a violent organization leading to the individual suffering unlawful force, ill treatment, or torture as a result of belonging to an armed group.²⁴ This process has attracted attention from transitional justice scholars given that such “complex victims” can represent a thorny issue for transitional societies dealing with victims reparations, peace processes, and reconciliation.²⁵

Nonetheless, due in large part to the moral outrage that accompanies acts of terrorism and its construction as an existential threat to identity, security, and way of life, the possibility that victims of and perpetrators of terrorism might be one and the same person has generally been avoided in terrorism studies literature. In effect, it appears common, as is reflected in Joyce and Lynch's article in this issue, that the act of participating in terrorism prohibits any claims to victimhood that an individual may have made in the past. This of course highlights the subjectivity surrounding the notion of victimhood, an issue that is commonplace in much of the criminological and victimological literature more generally. In addition, in the case of terrorism and political violence an added concern relates to the danger that recognising perpetrators as victims can serve to legitimize the violence carried out against others in the past, depriving them of their agency and absolving them of their responsibility in perpetuating the suffering.²⁶ Moreover, as evidenced in the Argomaniz article in this issue, narratives that justify past violence can be used to ferment what ultimately becomes the intergenerational transmission of violence.

However, it is clearly not the case that the experience of victimization is a precursor to violence for all victims, and social researchers have substantiated this finding across many contexts.²⁷ In fact, research supports the proposition that the experience of victimization encourages individuals and groups to seek an end to violence through various means. In a review of the existing criminological literature, Ousey et al. found evidence that the experience of victimization can act to increase the incidence of offending in some instances but also that the likelihood of offending can be reduced by one's own previous victimization.²⁸ This is illustrated in research that addresses the notion of a “victimization–termination” link where an instance of traumatic victimization can act as a branching point, motivating individuals to reconsider first and renounce later their involvement in crime and violent activities: “victimisations sometimes mark turning points toward the end of criminal careers.”²⁹

Similarly relevant for this special issue, is the fact that violent victimization can lead to altruism and nonviolence, a phenomenon referred to as “altruism born of suffering” in which highly negative events can, in fact, enhance motivations to engage in pro-social behavior— including actions aimed at outgroup members.³⁰ Individuals who have suffered difficult experiences (such as forms of collective violence) may become inspired to help other disadvantaged members of society with a view to preventing further suffering. In many instances individuals who have experienced persecution, torture, and even mass genocide have subsequently devoted themselves to care for others in need.³¹ In this case the consequence of experiencing violence is enhanced empathy for other victims and potential victims and ultimately the outcome is a range of prosocial behaviors. It is the victimizing event, and the accompanying personal experiences that occur in the aftermath, that promote this cognitive opening for psychological change that acts to reinforce a preference for a pro-social response.³² Indeed, the desire to react altruistically rather than violently toward those who contributed to their victimization can, in fact, serve an important psychological function for the victims: it acts as an effective coping mechanism emerging from the process of meaning making in light of a life altering experience and can serve to enhance self-respect, promote social integration, inoculate against the risk of mental illness and act as a coherent frame through which to situate their negative experience.³³ Importantly, as Vollhardt argues, “altruism born of suffering can emerge on a continuum of increasing inclusiveness and scope—ranging from short-term activism with one's in-group to long-term prosocial behavior benefitting outgroup members.”³⁴ So, apart from the individual psychological benefits to such activity, there are long-term and societal manifestations of this form of altruism. That is to say, victims' altruism can serve to benefit not only members of one's ingroup who share a “common fate” but also act to increase solidarity between sections of society more generally.³⁵

In sum, in responding to the violence afflicted on them, past research has shown that individuals may use their own victimization to justify their own personal motivation for violent retaliation but others will be driven to behave altruistically, supporting others and working toward the prevention of future violence and more positive social change. The latter finding from victimology is especially useful in our efforts to understand victims' participation in counter- and deradicalization programs and this is elaborated on throughout this special issue particularly in Argomaniz's analysis of victims organizations' preventative initiatives in Basque Country.

Victims, Radicalization, and Political Violence

While significant efforts have been made to identify the causes³⁶ of radicalization and any pathways to violent political action that might exist,³⁷ what has received far less attention is the role of victimization as a motivator or justification for radicalized action in response to the perceived (or actual) threat from an outgroup. Such claims of victimhood are often dismissed but it is crucial that we develop a nuanced understanding of the role of victimization both as a motivator and a justification for involvement in political violence.

It is useful to approach this issue through the related notions of grievance and injustice and their relationship to victimization more generally. Individual or collective victimization—either real or imagined, conceived personally or collectively—is often closely associated with grievance and feelings of injustice or oppression that are intertwined with social discontent and ultimately political mobilization. Indeed, Borum³⁸ has concluded when looking at radicalization into violent extremism that “based on a review of the existing literature, three motivational themes—injustice, identity, and belonging—appear to be prominent and consistent.” To this triad, we argue, we need to add the notion of victimization. In recognition of these key elements, Sageman developed a trajectory that can be viewed as a four stage process:

Sageman's conclusions are pertinent for two reasons. First he reinforces the idea that moral outrage about real or perceived injustices in the world is an important motivator for identity consolidation and wider framing in radicalization. The second is the likelihood that a sense of injustice—when strong enough—can serve as a mobilizing factor for action. In other words, whatever grievance has been identified, when sufficiently persistent, can become internalized to the degree that personal action is required. This does not necessarily mean action in the form of violence, but personal action at any level. When the sense of injustice becomes strong enough to be internalized and elicit a sense of moral outrage, a person develops a sense of victimhood; whether vicarious or (in)direct. This is important in that it identifies the relationship between notions of injustice and victimization and positions injustice not merely as an abstract idea but a key issue that impacts directly on an individual's moral judgement, social identity, and ultimately one's willingness to act.

Much like a sense of victimization, Schmid⁴⁰ posits that grievances can be adopted vicariously and serve to act as a mobilizing device by allowing individuals and groups to adopt a cause somewhat removed from their lived experience, albeit relevant due to a shared history and social identity. Many examples of vicarious grievances exist from the experiences of the Irish Diaspora in the United States in response to the Troubles in Northern Ireland⁴¹ to the Al Qaeda narratives regarding Western intervention in Muslim lands and the importance of the notion of the Ummah in encouraging action based on a shared religious and social identity.⁴² What matters here is that an individual does not need to be personally victimized if s/he becomes convinced that the community s/he identifies with or feels s/he belongs to is impacted. It is, so to speak, the other side of the feelings of altruism we referred to in the previous section since the person identifies with the fate of the (real or constructed) community and commits the atrocities on its behalf. In fact, ironically, participating in political violence on behalf of an identity group is often constructed as altruistic by those who do the violence. This issue and the emotional impact of feelings of grievance and victimization is explored in Weeks's article, which illustrates how in the U.K. deradicalization program the goal is not necessarily to change the beliefs of the participants (“a pre-radical state of mind”) but to ensure that grievances are channeled in a constructive, nonviolent manner.

In addition to the issues of vicarious grievance and victimization as motivating factors, an important and related aspect that needs to be mentioned here is that of oppression. Although routinely mentioned in social movement theory,⁴³ oppression is often missing from the radicalization discourse. The importance of including oppression in any discussion on radicalization is that, as radicalization occurs and if mobilization follows, there is often a reaction by government to suppress dissent.⁴⁴ When government uses state power to suppress dissent there is commonly a sense of oppression by those engaged in contentious political protest.⁴⁵ Such a reaction forms the fundamental elements of Crelinsten's⁴⁶ concept of how opposing dyads can become locked in an escalating cycle of action/reaction. Thus, the cycle that starts with radicalization leading to mobilization resulting in suppression and in this cycle victimization becomes referential.

Thus critically important in understanding the notions of radicalism, radicalization, and violent extremism is the interactivity of victimhood, injustice, mobilization, grievances, and oppression.⁴⁷ Framed within or against a divisive narrative linked to group identities, values, and culture it creates the manichean view that the world truly is divided into two camps: us and them, good and bad, tawhid (oneness of God) and shirk (polytheism), and so on. Here ideology (be it nationalism, Islamic extremism, or a right-wing dogma) can lead to the perception that violence is a necessity and can also serve as a justification for the act itself. The personal experiences or interpretations of grievance, victimization, and so on and the opportunity to frame this within a coherent narrative creates an oppositional stance against an identifiable enemy. Therefore it must be recognized that narratives are a crucial element in this process.

In the case of both terrorism and other political violence narratives of victimization are known to legitimize violence against other individuals and/or groups.⁴⁸ Narratives are powerful because they link instances of personal grievances and frustration (young Muslims' feelings of discrimination within European societies) with vicarious victimization (conflict and foreign invasions in the Muslim world) and with collective responses and prescriptions for action (jihadism against European societies and governments). Thus, if grievances do need “a trigger event or ‘cognitive opening’ linking grievances to an enemy who is held responsible for them”⁴⁹ then narratives play an essential part in the process.

Through narratives of violence against one's group, cycles of violence are generated. Narratives alluding to a community's victimization in the past can serve to promote conflict in the present time due to the feelings of anger and humiliation that they provoke⁵⁰ but especially if these narratives become instrumentalized by political leaders.⁵¹ This is characteristic of intractable conflicts where a legacy of victimization and transmission of intergenerational narratives constructed around it can result in an “ethos of conflict.”⁵² Such ethos, collective memories, and collective emotional orientation interact in the configuration of a particular worldview that provides meaning to social life under conditions of long-term protracted conflict. Undoubtedly the interaction between narratives and victimization, political violence and counterradicalization is complex and constitutes a key theme in this special issue as reflected in the article by Pemberton and Aarten.

In sum, as we know, there are many and diverse pathways to terrorism; however, the path is not fixed; ideology and personal grievances may be significant in many cases, as may social networks, intergroup dynamics, status-seeking, or even feelings of thrill and excitement. There are a wide range of push and pull factors that combine, leading to routes into violence.⁵³ Yet in order to have a fuller understanding of the process, we need to realize that there is often a link between victimizing experiences and radicalization: perceived, vicarious, historic, direct, and indirect.

The Role of Victims and Former Perpetrators in Deradicalization

The notion of a victim–perpetrator cycle can also serve as a useful mechanism to examine questions of desistance, disengagement, and deradicalization. When rooted in the individual, social, and political realities of the context to the offending, prevention and desistance can become distinct possibilities.⁵⁴ If we consider the role of direct victims and their families in these processes, their contribution lies in rehabilitative attempts to achieve desistance from offending through creating understanding of the consequences of the violence for those impacted. As Aarten, Mulder, and Pemberton describe in this special issue, this connects to research that consistently demonstrates the importance of lack of empathy as contributing factor in crime.⁵⁵ The understanding that victim awareness, empathy, and contact have a role in desistance from offending is well embedded in rehabilitation programs in many countries⁵⁶ although little is known about how this might look in the case of terrorism and political violence.

Within restorative justice programs⁵⁷ much of the added benefit for offenders is sought by encouraging understanding of the damage caused to the victim.⁵⁸ The ultimate avenue for victim awareness is conceptualized in this context as victim-contact. An increasing body of research addresses victim awareness, victim empathy, and victim contact in desistance from crime.⁵⁹ Based on the limited and mostly anecdotal experience of victim–offender encounters in cases of terrorism and political violence, it appears likely that participating terrorist offenders share similar experiences to nonterrorists but also that contact occurs only after desistance has taken place.⁶⁰ It begs the question whether rehabilitation programs for terrorists should include similar victim awareness and empathy components to their nonterrorist counterparts. Here, the political nature of the act in question makes the implementation of policy more complex: restorative justice in the aftermath of terrorism is a tricky process, precisely because of the vicarious, political dimension of terrorism⁶¹; in addition to issues surrounding amnesties, peace processes and the existence of narratives that support and sustain the justification for the original violence.

As a result any discussion on victims and radicalization cannot be complete without reference to the role of narratives. Governments and international bodies such as the European Commission believe that victims have an important role to play in counternarrative efforts designed to prevent violent extremism. Victims testimonies are seen to act as moral counternarratives because they expose the pain and suffering that emerges from the use of violence for a political cause; they can also serve as alternative narratives given that they promote through their stories tolerance, nonviolence, the sanctity of human life, and other fundamental values.⁶² Because of their own life experience, victims possess the credibility and trust-worthiness that is necessary in the messenger. Beyond the symbolic and moral value of their moral message, it is thought that the emotional appeal that victims' testimonies carry (a crucial element in the success of any narrative, as elaborated in Aarten, Mulder, and Pemberton's piece) can serve to establish a connection with a wide audience.

However, the presence of competitive victimhood can be an important, perhaps inherent, obstacle to the success of victims' involvement.⁶³ It is frequently observed in situations of violent conflict (such as ethnic and civil wars or terrorism in divided societies) whereby members of an ingroup emphasize the pain suffered by their community while understating or ignoring the outgroup's trauma.⁶⁴ A lack of empathy for the suffering experienced by opponents suggests an additional hurdle to increasing empathy in extremists and radicals, as we will see in the articles in this issue focusing on Northern Ireland and Basque Country.

Another unexplored subject is the involvement of former combatants in peace work and deradicalization efforts. One way in which formers can affect the process is through defector narratives, an issue that has featured in the discussion around returnees from Syria in recent times.⁶⁵ Disillusioned former members of ISIS have for instance spoken about why they have turned against the group and their stories have highlighted the contradictions between the expectations of foreign fighters and the realities on the ground.⁶⁶ Former militants' testimonies may help to deglamourize the carefully managed image of the group, exposing the reality behind militants' propaganda. In addition, formers-as-victims are credible messengers through their lived experience, this time because of their role as insiders. They may also have particular traction with a difficult to access audience—potential or active militants. However, the role of former combatants as deterrents or advocates for desistance is a controversial one. When addressing jihadist radicalization for instance, this is challenged by the “conveyor-belt” perspective: even if former perpetrators argue that the use of violence is wrong, merely by still advocating for a radical ideology they can still set others into the path of violence.⁶⁷

As described in the article by Joyce and Lynch in this issue, many Republican and Loyalist ex-prisoners work now in their communities promoting peace in Northern Ireland. They participate in restorative justice initiatives and cooperate with community policing upon their release. Yet their transition from paramilitaries into peacemakers has not been widely accepted in Northern Ireland and, at the very least, is viewed with scepticism. Formers' peace work in their communities raises concerns that their new role allows them to act as gatekeepers, which reinforces their influence but may diminish other community leaders' and political representatives' input.⁶⁸ The participation of former perpetrators in violence prevention or even restorative justice schemes can also be problematic for victims and their families,⁶⁹ due in part to the potential of formers to control the historic narrative surrounding their role in and motivations for participation in violence.⁷⁰ These are only some of the challenges that the involvement of former perpetrators in counterradicalization programs entails.

When attempting to apply a victim/perpetrator perspective in deradicalization efforts, there are other issues that also must be attended to. It is important for instance to disentangle deradicalization from disengagement or desistance.⁷¹ In the case of terrorism and political violence there are often expectations that change is synonymous with the degree to which the terrorist actor shows signs of being reborn anew, disparaging his former self and his former actions, and expressing contrition, remorse, and guilt. While this can indeed be a sign of the desired change in the erstwhile perpetrator,⁷² it is not the only, and probably not the most likely, course that will lead the former perpetrator to desist from violence in the future.

Maruna's work⁷³ shows that many offenders who desist from the perpetration of violence instead view themselves as more – rather than less – moral: overcoming the conditions that led them to violence in the first place is felt to be evidence of this fact, a point that will be later examined in this special issue in the cases of deradicalization programs in Europe and ex-prisoner initiatives in Northern Ireland. Instead of disparaging their former selves, they maintain a strong sense of continuity with their past selves, attributing their actions to causes outside of their control. As applied to the terrorist population this implies that they can maintain that their ideology, religious attitude, and/or political position is still accurate, but find other more effective (i.e., nonviolent) ways of attempting to achieve these goals.⁷⁴

The point here is that in counterterrorism and counterradicalization policy different issues have become conflated. For instance, where the attempt to validate the victims' perspective on the events is fused with counterradicalization initiatives, remorse, guilt, and shame are shoehorned as prerequisites for deradicalization. In many situations, however, the effectiveness of this approach is questionable; humiliating the violent actor may serve a cathartic purpose for the victim but is not necessarily conducive to encouraging engagement in deradicalization or desistance initiatives. Whether the perpetrators acknowledge their wrongdoing is often unrelated to their allegiance to peaceful solutions. It might well be that an emphasis on the victim's experience and the perpetrators wrongdoing will hamstring these attempts, an issue that is addressed in Aarten, Mulder, and Pemberton's piece. Decoupling the process from this moral limitation may open up the opportunity to consider its use at a later stage; however, the message that is most likely to foster successful deradicalization/desistance initiatives may well be at odds with the one necessary to acknowledge the voice of the victims.

In sum, our examination of the extant body of knowledge has uncovered a series of important themes that relate to the concept of the victim–perpetrator complex and its importance for the study of terrorism and political violence. This is a notion that we believe can serve to illuminate essential dimensions of the processes and practices of political violence, including its impact on individuals and groups, how such impact is interpreted by victims, and their varied personal and social responses to these traumatic experiences. It is also central to perpetrators' victimhood claims and how these claims facilitate participation in terrorism. It draws attention to the centrality of the public narratives of victimhood for the intergenerational transmission of violence and an “ethos of conflict” that is integral to intractable conflicts. It highlights the importance of the role that both victims and perpetrators can play for the prevention of violence and radicalization. And finally, it brings to light the complex interaction between (claims of) grievance, group oppression, and individual and vicarious victimhood in political violence.

Outline of the Special Issue

All aforementioned issues have been addressed by the contributors to the special issue. The members of the research team behind this special issue have carried out fieldwork using ethnographic data collection methods in four sites across Europe. Methods included semi-structured and unstructured interviews, focus groups, and participant observation. Each site was chosen as it represented not only a specific historical incidence of political violence, but also because they represented ideologically diverse campaigns. The research locations were Northern Ireland (NI), England (London/Birmingham), Northern Europe (Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark), and Spain (Basque Country).

As a product of this multisite project this special issue has been divided into five contributions linked to the individual contributions of the project partners. This introduction seeks to situate the research in its broader context as well as outline some of the key academic arguments that underpin the study. The first article is the work of both Carmel Joyce and Orla Lynch and was based on research conducted in Northern Ireland. This section focuses on the relevance and construction of victimhood as a social identity. It also examines how victimhood is used as a resource to justify involvement in political violence as well as a tool in seeking to prevent the proliferation of further violence. One of the aims of the article is to problematize the simplistic understanding of “victim” and “perpetrator” categories in the Northern Irish context by offering an analysis more attuned to the complexities of the violence and its aftermath. As evidence of this complexity, the analysis shows how former perpetrators working on peace initiatives use the notion of victimization to facilitate their transition into a new role—as a mechanism to justify their initial involvement but also as a motivator for their violence prevention efforts (peace work as a way to preempt others from going through similar experiences). In this study both notions of victims–perpetrator and altruism born of suffering come closely together.

The second piece presents research conducted in England by Doug Weeks. It examines the application in practice of deradicalization schemes organized by the U.K. government that involve the participation of mentors. The findings are based on field work with both individuals convicted of terrorist offenses as well as those working with the offenders in a counterterrorism/deradicalization setting. In a thoroughly researched article, Weeks looks at the mentors and their background, the constraints under which they work, their relationship with the participants and how the latter view the program itself. He offers here a critical analysis of the schemes illuminating the pitfalls, strengths and weaknesses, and the challenges that exist in ensuring successful reintegration of the participants in these programs.

The next two pieces are closely connected and focus more explicitly in the role of narrative in elucidating both victimhood and participation in terrorism, including the potential process of deradicalization or desistance from political violence. The first is a theoretical examination of the use of narrative as a paradigm for studying victimization and radicalization. Pemberton and Aarten unpack the connection between these terms by examining how the stories that radicals construct about their own lives can play a role in their pathway to radicalization. Drawing from established academic research from humanities and the social sciences on the subject, the authors examine in depth the key themes of identity, emotions, and culture and how they interact in personal and collective narratives of victimization.

The value of this narrative approach to the study of the problem becomes clear in the next article where Aarten, Mulder, and Pemberton have gathered the views of a large network of practitioners working on desistance and deradicalization schemes in a number of European countries. The empirical investigation considers the role of victimological processes in deradicalization and shows how meaning making in reaction to personal or collective victimization are regular features of radical behavior. However, victimization is not a sufficient cause in itself; one factor among many others that affect the pathways to radicalization.

The final contribution is by Javier Argomaniz, who examines the international violence prevention efforts carried out by Spanish victims groups. He analyzes their involvement in the formulation of counternarratives and alternative narratives. An important finding emerging from this analysis is that the international work carried out by these groups can be partially explained by their interest in confronting the efforts of political movements linked to Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) whereby they seek to export internationally a vision of the conflict that exempts ETA from responsibility and justifies its violent campaign. The article demonstrates how this international activism is closely connected with domestic efforts at violence prevention, bringing back into perspective the importance of altruistic responses to victimization.

The special issue concludes with a commentary by Max Taylor where he reflects on the connections between the special issue and broader debates in the field of terrorism studies. Taylor's piece is a call for multidisciplinarity in the study of terrorist victimization and a discussion on the potential role that civil society organizations can play in fostering research in this area but also a reminder of the importance of “a complex area, where legitimacy, victimization, and aggression combine.”

In summary, this special issue contributes to the field by examining how victimhood is mobilized as a motivator for political violence and the significance of communal identity and narratives in the process. It has also indicated that victims can play an important role in the prevention of terrorism and political violence: victims can offer a legitimate and sobering voice, particularly for youth at risk as well as the general public. By appealing to the emotional instincts of their target audiences, they can become an essential tool to challenge extremist propaganda that promotes violence especially in the preradicalization space. In the postradical space, we would expect a resistance to victims narratives. Instead, work must be initially on the individual level and here the challenge is to disentangle emotional investment from rigid identity positions and public narratives of oppression and injustice. In this sphere, evidence shows that the impact is greater when formers and victims tell their stories together. It must be said, however, that the support of family and community networks is still vital in the process. Importantly, success should be judged not necessarily on the former radical asking victims for forgiveness but in the person reengaging with the community.

Based on these insights, we believe this special issue can serve to set out an agenda for this research area moving forward. Given that the role of victims and perpetrators in countering violent extremism violence has only recently started to attract attention in the field of terrorism studies, there is no lack of important questions that deserve further examination. These include, for instance, the mechanisms that facilitate or impede the intergenerational transmission of narratives of violence, the way the choice of medium affects the resonance of victims' voices in an audience, the impact that the joint participation of victims and perpetrators deradicalization programs has in recidivism rates or the relationship between victim activism and counternarrative work. We hope, in sum, that this collection of articles can serve to inspire a more systematic examination of the connection between (in the words of Max Taylor) the “hinterland of victimization” and the vexed question of radicalization.