Up until 2016, research on violent extremism in the Western Balkans was not thoroughly grounded in evidence-based research. It especially lacked rigor and comprehensive analyses of case studies for the entire region. This essentially gave birth to British Council’s Extremism Research Forum (ERF)1, which aimed at identifying and addressing research gaps on violent extremism for the entire region. In early 2017, through its ERF project, the British Council published its first literature review2on the topic of violent extremism in the Western Balkans.

The aim of the Literature Review (I)was to take stock of research findings on violent extremism that were published up until late 2016 / early 2017. The ERF Literature Review (I)noted that “first-hand research from the Western Balkans [was]scarce, especially within the radicalized communities “.

It was also noted that knowledge about the topic of violent extremism until then was mostly based on non-empirical policy papers, opinion pieces, news articles, and some critical analyses. Thus, primary research was needed to build an evidence base as a first step to inform policy makers and other stakeholders on the drivers of violent extremism, in order to develop appropriate CVE policies. Several aspects stand out from Literature Review (I)that are worth noting. First, until the end of 2016, research has been predominantly focused on very few case studies, notably on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, and to some extent Albania. As such, there was a significant gap in having a region-wide knowledge on violent extremism, and by implication, the possible transcendency of violent extremism across traditional lines of state borders. This brought with it another problem; as regional actors were attempting to boost cooperation to prevent and fight violent extremism, a regional comparative knowledge base was lacking among various stakeholders. Common (effective) solutions were impossible to build without this knowledge base.