The 9/11 attacks and the onset of the US-led War on Terror had a massive impact on the study of political violence. The securitization of Islamist militancy led to the rise of an industry involving government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, think tanks, and academic institutions, as funds became available to researchers willing to engage with the topic. Despite this surge in scholarly interest and resources, or perhaps because of it, the study of militant Islamism has developed in a highly fragmented and noncumulative manner. While there is now a wealth of studies on different cases and contexts, many questions remain unanswered about how, when, and why Islamist militancy gains traction in some communities, but not others.

Resisting Radicalization: Exploring the Nonoccurrence of Violent Extremism (2025) is a welcome contribution in this regard. It rightfully notes that much past research “…has obstructed our awareness of the fact that most people are not radicalized, even in areas that provide fertile ground for radical ideas” (p. 15). It challenges conceptions of Islamist militancy being a universal feature of Muslim-majority societies by asking why some communities are more resilient against violent extremism compared to others. To this end, the book presents a wide range of original empirical studies based on cases that include the Balkans, the Middle East, and North Africa. It does not aim to find a universal explanation for violent extremism but instead highlights various cases in which state policies and local community-level factors preempted or fueled violent extremism.

The study of militant Islamism is fraught with conceptual disagreements, and the authors rely on “violent extremism,” defined as “violence with a political or religious agenda” (p. 3), to describe the subject of the book. The extreme breadth of the definition makes the concept almost indistinguishable from “conflict.” Violent extremism is at one point equated with terrorism, the latter being described as involving “nonstate armed groups that either employ asymmetrical tactics of warfare, including attacks on civilian targets and populations, or inspire others not necessarily parts of the group to conduct such attacks” (p. 17). Later, “violent extremism” also covers state security forces and self-defense groups (p. 48). Meanwhile, the empirical chapters cover different forms of conflict, such as intercommunal violence, terrorism, civil war, and state repression, all of which have fundamentally different causes. The reliance on violent extremism as a catch-all term, therefore, makes it challenging to draw inferences about the broader implications of each case.

The book’s strength lies in its highly insightful empirical chapters. Recurring factors associated with the eruption of violence include state weakness, unsettled questions of national identity, the lack of credible social contracts, material conditions such as poverty, the ability of transnational networks to gain a local foothold, as well as the often-misguided international responses by Western states. The editors highlight how militant Islamist groups often exploit preexisting societal fault lines. In such contexts, militancy can become an outlet for structurally disadvantaged sections of the population to seek revolutionary change. Jihadism has, for example, found inroads in contexts where tribes are polarized along generational and clan lines, providing a vessel for disenfranchised social groups, especially youths, to advance socially.

The cases in Resisting Radicalization also hold important lessons for how militant movements can be countered. The ideological heterogeneity of Islamist movements is often overlooked, especially in Western policy circles. Views of fitna, the division of the community of believers, and takfir, or excommunication, are not singular. Such ideological variance helps explain why the Islamic Salvation Front but not the Armed Islamic Group was willing to negotiate a truce with the government in 1997 during the Algerian civil war, and why the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood did not revolt after 2013. In some cases, such as Kosovo and Tunisia, this division is reflected in the co-option of moderates, whereas more extreme elements travel abroad as foreign fighters. Morocco and Jordan are highlighted as having been relatively successful in countering extremism by exploiting such divisions. Both states employ a two-pronged strategy that combines repression with the co-option of moderate Islamists by institutionalizing forums for dialogue and grievance expression while simultaneously promoting traditional understandings of Islam.

Conversely, government efforts to capitalize on fears of extremism to garner domestic and international support have at times backfired severely. In Mali, security forces’ focus on Tuareg irredentism led to the neglect of jihadists who were eventually able to position themselves as protectors against Tuareg militias. Similarly, in Iraq, the heavy-handed policies of the government alienated Sunni tribes who had previously been involved in counterinsurgency efforts, paving the way for a resurgent al-Qaeda.

Societal resilience is, however, not just a product of state policy. Community and religious leaders can serve as important barriers against radicalization, frequently making them targets for assassination. Traditional imams and community leaders have played a central role in building societal resilience in the Balkans, including Albania and Kosovo, as well as in Iraqi Kurdistan. Meanwhile, in Deir ez-Zor, the Syrian uprising led to the shattering of traditional tribal authority, creating a new power structure defined by wealth, causing intertribal tensions that allowed ISIS to make inroads.

Resisting Radicalization is an important contribution to the effort of correcting the tendency of some of the literature that emerged in the post-9/11 era to hold an overly deterministic view of the spread of militant Islamism. It is a valuable resource for students, scholars, and policy figures seeking a broad overview of this phenomenon. Most importantly, the book demonstrates that it is not a universal phenomenon but rather strongly shaped by local factors.