Understanding extremism in Scotland: stakeholder perceptions and views

1. Introduction

This report presents findings from qualitative research conducted by Scottish Government researchers to explore stakeholder understandings of and perspectives on extremism and Prevent delivery in Scotland.

Prevent is a strand of the UK Government’s counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST (Home Office, 2018). The stakeholders who participated in this research included predominantly senior-level representatives of organisations that have direct involvement in Prevent in Scotland, or significant interest in Prevent or extremism in Scotland more generally. The research took place between April 2022 and January 2023, with fieldwork carried out between May and September 2022. This research forms part of a wider programme of work to improve understanding of extremism in Scotland.

This section provides an overview of the background to this programme of research and outlines the research aims and questions specific to the research exploring stakeholder understandings of and perspectives on extremism and Prevent in Scotland.

1.1. Background and context

Prevent policy

The purpose of Prevent is to ‘stop people becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism’ (Home Office, 2018). While counter-terrorism (and therefore Prevent) is a reserved matter and the responsibility of the UK Government, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (2015) places a duty on sectors that are devolved from Westminster to the Scottish Government (local authorities, health and social care, education, prisons, and the police) to pay ‘due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. This is known as the Prevent duty.

The Prevent duty guidance for Scotland (Home Office, 2021a) outlines how specified authorities are expected to comply with this duty. There is sector-specific guidance for further education institutions (Home Office, 2021b) and higher education institutions (Home Office, 2021c).

The Scottish Government supports the specified sectors to fulfil their obligations under the Prevent duty (Home Office, 2021a), and ensures that mechanisms are in place for safeguarding and supporting individuals who may be susceptible to being drawn into terrorism as outlined in the Prevent Multi-Agency Panel (PMAP) Duty Guidance^[1] (Home Office, 2021d).

In Scotland, the approach taken to Prevent is tailored to the Scottish context and the specific challenges faced by Scottish communities. Emphasis is placed on early intervention, safeguarding, and the prevention of people from becoming alienated or isolated, with the aim of reducing vulnerability and increasing resilience to extremist narratives.

Key definitions

Extremism

The UK Government currently adopts the following definition of extremism:

‘vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. We also include in our definition of extremism calls for the death of members of our armed forces, whether in this country or overseas’. (Home Office, 2011: 107)

This definition was introduced in the 2011 Prevent strategy (Home Office, 2011), and is a working definition rather than a legal definition. It was used in the UK Government’s Counter-Extremism Strategy (Home Office, 2015), which set out the UK Government’s approach to countering ‘both violent and non-violent’ extremism. However, counter-extremism is a devolved matter and the Counter-Extremism Strategy and the UK Government’s definition of extremism were not adopted in Scotland.

At present, therefore, the Scottish Government does not have an official definition of extremism. An evidence review carried out by the Scottish Government (2023a) explored how extremism is defined in existing literature, and highlighted the challenges associated with defining the concept. For example:

• Various factors, such as the prevailing political culture, value systems and personal characteristics and experiences, influence how the term is understood, meaning it is an inherently relative and ambiguous term (Sotlar, 2004).
• Extremism is often conceptualised as a continuum of beliefs and behaviours, which makes it difficult to capture in a definition (Wilkinson and van Rij, 2019).
• Defining extremism too broadly can risk impeding rights to free speech and protest, while defining it too narrowly can lead to potentially extremist behaviours being overlooked (Redgrave et al., 2020).

These challenges have meant that while a range of definitions of extremism have been proposed, there is a general lack of consensus on how it should be defined.

Terrorism

The Terrorism Act (2000) defines terrorism as the use or threat of any of the following actions, where the action is designed to influence the government or to intimidate the public and is used for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.

• Serious violence against a person
• Serious damage to property
• Endangering a person’s life, other than that of the person committing the action
• Creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public
• Seriously interfering with or disrupting an electronic system

In addition to the above, the use or threat of action which involves the use of firearms or explosives is considered terrorism regardless of whether the action is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation, or to intimidate the public or a section of the public.

However, as with extremism, there is no universally agreed-upon understanding of terrorism, and the term is defined differently by governments elsewhere, as well as by global institutions. Reasons presented for this lack of agreed-upon definition in the academic literature include that it is difficult to encapsulate the wide range of behaviours, actions and beliefs associated with terrorism in one definition, and that the term is subjective (Schmid, 2011).

Nevertheless, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) (2023) has stated that while no standardised definition of terrorism exists, as a minimum, it involves ‘the intimidation or coercion of populations or governments through the threat or perpetration of violence, causing death, serious injury or the taking of hostages’. Furthermore, there exists a consensus academic definition of terrorism created by scholars (Schmid, 2011), which defines terrorism as follows:

‘Terrorism refers, on the one hand, to a doctrine about the presumed effectiveness of a special form or tactic of fear-generating, coercive political violence and, on the other hand, to a conspiratorial practice of calculated, demonstrative, direct violent action without legal or moral restraints, targeting mainly civilians and non-combatants, performed for its propagandistic and psychological effects on various audiences and conflict parties.’

Hate crime

The Scottish Government tends to use Lord Bracadale’s definition of hate crime developed as part of his independent review of hate crime legislation in Scotland, which refers to hate crime as ‘the term used to describe behaviour which is both criminal and rooted in prejudice’ (Lord Bracadale, 2018). Police Scotland (2023a) define hate crime as ‘any crime which is perceived by the victim or any other person as being motivated (wholly or partly) by malice or ill will towards a social group’ with the five groups covered including disability, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation or transgender identity, which is in line with how hate crime is defined elsewhere in the UK (e.g., Crown Prosecution Service, 2023).

However, there are also conceptual debates around defining hate crime. For example, Garland (2012) discusses difficulties with deciding which identity groups are categorised as specific hate crime groups and which are not.

Stakeholders

In academic literature, stakeholders have been defined as ‘individuals, organisations or communities that have a direct interest in the process and outcomes of a project, research or policy endeavour’ (Deverka et al., 2012). As noted above, for the purposes of this research stakeholders included predominantly senior-level representatives of organisations that have direct involvement in Prevent in Scotland, or significant interest in Prevent or extremism in Scotland more generally.

These stakeholders were identified through existing Scottish Government contact lists and networks, and included, for example, the Prevent leads for the sectors with a statutory obligation to fulfil the Prevent duty (local authorities, health and social care, education, prisons, and the police), and representatives of faith and belief and third sector organisations (see section 2.2 for more detail). It did not include members of the public, or frontline public sector practitioners involved in delivering Prevent. As will be explained further below, the views of these groups have been explored in separate research projects commissioned by the Scottish Government (2023b; 2023c).

Understanding extremism in Scotland

The evidence review carried out by the Scottish Government (2023a) also identified evidence gaps relating to the real extent and nature of extremism in Scotland. In particular, the review showed that while tentative conclusions can be drawn from data relating to terrorist activity, Prevent referrals, public attitudes and hate crime, there is a lack of research evidence on the prevalence and nature of extremism in Scotland specifically. This impedes understanding of whether the current approach to Prevent in Scotland is appropriate and impactful in preventing the spread of extremist ideologies and reducing terrorism.

The Scottish Government is therefore developing a programme of research which aims to support understanding of extremism and Prevent delivery in Scotland. In the first instance, this research has sought to explore understandings, perceptions and experiences of extremism from the perspective of three key groups – the Scottish public, stakeholders and public sector practitioners^[2] – in three distinct but related projects.

The aim of this research is to develop understanding of how the Scottish public, stakeholders and public sector practitioners define and understand extremism; their views on the extent to which extremism is a problem in Scotland and the types of extremism they consider to be more and less prevalent; and how well they perceive current approaches to countering extremism in Scotland to be working.

This report focuses on the findings from the research exploring stakeholder understandings of and perspectives on extremism and Prevent in Scotland. Findings from the research with public sector practitioners and the Scottish public have been published separately (Scottish Government, 2023b; Scottish Government, 2023c).

1.2. Research aim and questions

The aim of this research was to explore stakeholder understandings of and perspectives on extremism and Prevent delivery in Scotland. To meet this aim the project considered 13 research questions across four key areas:

Understanding of extremism

1. How do stakeholders understand and define extremism?

2. How far do stakeholders’ understandings of extremism in Scotland align with definitions and categorisations adopted in other contexts?

3. How do stakeholders perceive extremism to manifest as views, behaviours and actions?

4. What are stakeholders’ views on the boundaries of extremism? For example, when does a view, behaviour or action cross the threshold into extremism?

Views on extremism in Scotland

5. To what extent do stakeholders perceive extremism to be a problem in Scotland?

6. Do stakeholders feel that the threat from extremism in Scotland has increased or decreased over time?

7. Do stakeholders feel that the threat from extremism in Scotland will increase or decrease in the future?

8. What are stakeholders’ views on the types of extremism that are of most concern or growing concern currently in Scotland, and why? What are views on the key drivers of these concerns?

Views on Prevent in Scotland

9. How effective do stakeholders consider Prevent to be, and why?

10. What do stakeholders think Prevent does well, and what do they think could be improved?

11. Do stakeholders have a favourable or unfavourable view of Prevent in Scotland?

Views on the ability of sectors to identify and support individuals vulnerable to being drawn into extremism

12. How well-equipped do stakeholders feel those working in the sector they represent are to identify those vulnerable to being drawn into extremism?

13. How well-equipped do stakeholders feel those working in the sector they represent are to support those vulnerable to being drawn into extremism?

1.3. Report structure

The next section outlines the methodology used to carry out this research. This is followed by presentation of the findings, with section 3 covering stakeholder understandings of extremism, section 4 covering stakeholder views on extremism in Scotland, section 5 covering stakeholder views on Prevent in Scotland, and section 6 covering stakeholder views on the ability of sectors to identify and support those vulnerable to being drawn into extremism. The report concludes with a summary of the key findings and discussion of the implications of this research.