The eminent Lowy Institute recently published an opinion piece written by Social Sciences and Security Studies PhD candidate Anne-Marie Balbi in The Interpreter.<\/p>\n
The Interpreter is an online blog run by The Lowy Institute and provides in-depth daily commentary and analysis on international events.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wrote my piece for them based on my PhD research and current events,\u201d says Balbi. \u201cIt\u2019s like a dream come true for anyone doing International Relations to publish with Lowy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balbi studied Political Science at Stockholm University before moving to Australia where she completed her Master of International Relations at Curtin.<\/p>\n
In her opinion piece, Balbi suggests that new methods, called \u201ccounter-narratives\u201d or soft strategies, are needed to not only counter violent extremism, but to target and prevent terrorism at its root.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to normative barriers, in the context of terrorism and crime prevention, most people refrain from carrying out most types of criminal acts and acts of violence not out of fear of punishment, but simply because it is wrong,\u201d Balbi says.<\/p>\n
She suggests individuals, working within larger institutions, are integral to the process of employing soft strategies in an effort to reinstate these normative barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn this sense, parents, schools and positive role models are important actors when it comes to building normative barriers to crime, but similarly legislators, the criminal justice system, the media, religious authorities and others play central roles in defining what is right and wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balbi notes how, in this age of instant access to and circulation of prolific information (and disinformation), there has been a break down of normative barriers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one good example of where the need for reinstating normative barriers has become obvious is the way people behave on social forums such as Facebook and Twitter. So far we\u2019ve basically relied upon people simply behaving when writing comments, however with the growing occurrence of hate speech, governments have seen the need for normative barriers to be established by legislation. There is a clear connection between hate speech normalising violent actions, eroding the normative barriers that have prevented violent actions in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Balbi\u2019s PhD will explore soft counter-terrorism strategies, looking at how people engage with terrorist attack sites, and how the responses to these sites can create counter-narratives to terrorism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think that we necessarily have to be politically correct all the time, but I think that we definitely need to respect and listen to other opinions before making our case. As Aristotle himself once said: \u2018The mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought without necessarily accepting it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PhD candidate adds to Australia\u2019s leading think tank with opinion piece in The Interpreter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4182,"featured_media":5623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"_oasis_is_in_workflow":0,"_oasis_original":0,"_oasis_task_priority":"","_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","wds_primary_category":4,"wds_primary_research-areas":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"research-areas":[],"class_list":["post-5622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"acf":{"post_options":{"":null,"additional_content":{"title":"This publication first appeared in The Interpreter, Lowy Institute of International Policy on 17 March 2016.","content":"
In light of recent terror attacks in Israel it is hard not to reflect upon the narrative that must be influencing them. The Israel-Palestinian conflict is understandably part of that discourse, but so is the role of ISIS propaganda. The widespread narrative that the group promotes is undoubtedly fuelling existing conflicts and polarisation in the region. This poses the question of how to deal with that narrative.<\/p>\n
Counter-narratives \u2014 a notion currently often spoken about but with few providing actual substance \u2014 have become a vital part of the response that is now referred to as Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). These soft counter-terrorism approaches using counter-narratives, or counter-messaging, are being rolled out around the world. They have been adopted in a bid to curb the use of violent extremism, not least in the context of the ISIS propaganda that is centred around three key narratives of persecution, utopianism and brutality.<\/p>\n
A recent UK report, tasked with investigating the effectiveness of counter-narratives, challenged their usefulness. This, however, should not discourage CVE approaches from future efforts, particularly since the whole concept of CVE is still in its early stages. It is important though to view counter-narratives as part of a larger project of reinstating and reiterating norms. Normative barriers, identified by counter-terrorism experts as the key factor that stops people harming others, or carrying out other acts of violence, even though they may hold grievances, have obviously eroded. This becomes evident in the recent highlighting of the role of social institutions such as schools and families in CVE.<\/p>\n
However these institutions in and of themselves can only be expected to achieve so much. In liberal democracies they must be complemented by politicians who engage in reasoned discourse. A world where so many subscribe to the ideas of ISIS (which is committed to purifying the world by killing vast numbers of people) and Donald Trump (who encourages a scapegoating of particular ethnic and religious groups), begs the question: where did it all go wrong? Have Western liberal democracies failed to demonstrate they are the best political system available?<\/p>\n
The success of a \u2018self-made-billionaire\u2019 such as Trump (who has built on inherited wealth) shows the role of the narrative should not be underestimated. In a world currently characterised by international unease and economic dislocation it becomes easy to play on people\u2019s fears and discontent while undermining those social institutions that have been upholding the norms.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s not forget that Trump\u2019s success has been enabled by the polarisation that has increasingly characterised American politics in recent decades, and has been encouraged by Republican campaign strategists in particular. As a Swedish editor was recently quoted as saying, \u2018even if Donald Trump is defeated in the election, his success should propel a self-critical discussion about the healthiness of our democracies.\u2019 The first half of the 20th century is a reminder of the self-destructive tendencies that liberal democracies are capable of.In a recent visit to Australia, the British actor and comedian John Cleese, when asked about the US election, gave an answer in keeping with the politically incorrect style so celebrated by Trump. Cleese said: \u2018Democracy basically depends on having a reasonably well-informed, reasonably intelligent electorate \u2014 and we don\u2019t have one \u2014 so what next?\u2019<\/p>\n
It appears clear that, at a time when people are bombarded by ideas, information and disinformation \u2014thanks to the information technologies and communication networks of a globalised world \u2014 those who yell loudest (not necessarily with substantial content) are the winners. The fact that politics and terrorism is becoming even more complex means liberal democracies can no longer just go about business as usual. After all, as Foucault \u2014 the father of discourse himself \u2014 stated, \u2018discourse is not simply that which translates struggles or systems of domination, but is the thing for which and by which there is struggle, discourse is the power which is to be seized\u2019.<\/p>\n","image":false},"related_courses":[{"title":"Master of International Relations","qualification":"Master of International Relations","link":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/study\/offering\/course-pg-master-of-international-relations--mc-intrel\/","description":"","faculty":"Humanities"}],"credits":{"author":{"title":"Zoe Taylor","url":"#","target":""},"photographer":"","media":false},"display_author":true,"banner":{"image":false}},"post_components":false},"featured_image":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/AMB-BIO-pic.png","author_meta":{"first_name":"Zoe","last_name":"Taylor","display_name":"Zoe Taylor"},"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-06 09:09:31","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5622"},{"taxonomy":"research-areas","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-areas?post=5622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}