Understanding extremism in Scotland: research findings - summary

Reviewing existing evidence

Two evidence reviews were carried out. The first explored:

How extremism is defined in existing literature, in order to inform whether and how the Scottish Government may wish to approach defining the term in future.

What existing research can tell us about the prevalence and nature of extremism in Scotland.

This review showed that:

There is no clear consensus on how to define extremism, and there are challenges associated with this.

There is a lack of evidence on the prevalence and nature of extremism in Scotland. However, there is a limited body of research which suggests that both the level of threat and the types of extremism that are more and less common could be different in Scotland to elsewhere in the UK.

The second review explored:

How extremism is defined by governments in other countries, and the terminology used in these countries to describe particular typesof extremism.

This review showed that:

Many countries focus on violent extremism rather than non-violent extremism, and Australia, Canada and New Zealand have recently adopted an approach where broad categories of types of extremism are the focus, rather than specific ideologies.

The reviews recommended that further primary research be carried out in order to improve our understanding of extremism in Scotland.

On the basis of these evidence reviews, the Scottish Government commissioned and conducted new research to explore understandings, perceptions and experiences of extremism in Scotland, and views about the effectiveness of Prevent. The research looked at this from three different perspectives: that of the public; that of public sector practitioners working to deliver Prevent in Scotland; and that of stakeholders with an interest in Prevent or extremism in Scotland.