How and why do people become involved in European homegrown jihadism? Why do only some of those who participate in such groups actually go on to use violence? The main objective of this PhD thesis... Show moreHow and why do people become involved in European homegrown jihadism? Why do only some of those who participate in such groups actually go on to use violence? The main objective of this PhD thesis is to address these overarching questions through an in-depth case study of an influential homegrown jihadist group; namely, the Dutch ‘Hofstadgroup’ which was active between 2002 and 2005. The group’s planned and perpetrated acts of violence, most notoriously the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in November 2004, have had an impact on Dutch society that is felt to this day. More importantly, the group is a leading example of a typology of terrorism that continues to pose a challenge to Western states’ security. An understanding of the various processes through which the Hofstadgroup’s participants became involved, and which led some to plan and perpetrate acts of terrorism, therefore remains of considerable relevance to academics, policy makers and counterterrorism practitioners today. By using police files on the Hofstadgroup and interviews with former participants, the thesis adds a large quantity of new information to a field often charged with recycling existing insights and uses that information to assess existing assumptions about the processes leading to terrorism. Show less
