Affective discipline – resilience in radicalisation prevention

ABSTRACT

This article engages with the restoration of broken resilience in Dutch secondary radicalisation prevention programmes. It demonstrates the simultaneity of disciplinary techniques and affective governance in case management captured through the concept of “affective discipline”. Affective discipline consists of four elements: 1) Surveillance and affective engagement, 2) a pre-conceived ideal, i.e. a norm of what it means to be resilient, 3) measures benefitting compliance and punishing non-compliance, and 4) affective discipline also disciplines the affective relations of those in the programme, as the aim is to restore a sense of belonging and a sense of cultural identity. The article positions resilience as affective discipline within a broader turn of affective governmentality, focusing on the disciplinary aspects of the governance of and through affect.

KEYWORDS:

• Resilience
• affect
• radicalisation
• prevention
• Netherlands

Introduction

Almost everyone has a certain resilience to the extremist discourse and to groups regarded as extreme. The problem is that this natural resilience can be broken. […] Recruiters therefore try to break through that resilience by exploiting uncertainties, sensitivities and frustrations. (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2011, 70)

Resilience can be broken, marking the beginning of a radicalisation process, states the Dutch Counter-Terrorism Strategy of 2011. Both this strategy and the follow-up strategy of 2016 are focused on radicalisation prevention, implementing individual case management for subjects whose resilience is broken and must be restored. Individual case management refers to programmes designed to lead supposedly radicalising individuals back “on the right path” (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2016, 3). These interventions can take place in the pre-crime space, meaning that no punishable offence has yet occurred (Aked, Younis, and Heath-Kelly 2021; Heath-Kelly 2024; CAGE 2018). The interventions target individuals who are “worrying” because of vulnerabilities expressed as “uncertainties, sensitivities and frustrations” (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2011, 70). Therefore, the assessments and case management are based on affects (cf. also Brown and Nubla Mohamed 2022; Pettinger 2020a). This article outlines how case management restores resilience as a corrective intervention through affective discipline.

The problem with this is not simply that the process of radicalisation must be curbed; the issue is that subjects are inherently resilient to radicalisation and if this resilience is broken it must be restored. Rather than a governance at a distance, stressing individual responsibilization to enhance the resilience of subjects (Altermark and Nilsson 2018; Howell 2015; Joseph 2018), non-resilient subjects warrant close state control and disciplinary governance in order to restore their ability to be autonomous and responsible in the first place. Therefore, I argue that in the case of secondary radicalisation prevention in the Netherlands, the governance of resilience works through disciplinary power.

Discipline has evolved beyond mere strict regulations, physical training, and drilling of bodies; instead, contemporary disciplinary power focuses on correcting undesired affects of individuals at risk of deviating from the norm. In the last decade, scholarship started to consider the productive role of affects in governmentality. In their theoretical framework of affective governmentality, Penz and Sauer (2020) illustrate that affects function as technologies for shaping conduct. In a similar vein, Fortier (2010) introduced the concept of affective citizenship to emphasise the productive function of emotions in the way governments and politicians shape the notion of good citizenship, portraying it as loyalty and attachment to the nation. This arises from concerns about the potential self-segregation and radicalisation of marginalised groups if they are not effectively integrated into the local community (Fortier 2010, 19–20). However, such affective practices are usually attributed to pastoral power (Penz and Sauer 2020, 48). In examining the phenomenon of resilience amidst secondary radicalisation in the Netherlands, a fusion of affect and discipline emerges as a means to normate potentially radicalising individuals. I will illustrate the process by which case management utilises affective interactions with such individuals to reintegrate them into the fold of “good citizenship”, effectively fostering resilient subjects. However, given that case management focuses on individuals viewed as harbouring risks, I will contend that it primarily operates through disciplinary techniques.

I developed the concept of affective discipline as a result of my field research of resilience in Dutch secondary prevention programmes between 2019–2021. During this field research, I observed a significant emphasis on affectiveness in the implementation of resilience in the 13 interviews I conducted with practitioners and policy makers. This affectiveness was expressed as worry for potentially radicalising subjects and empathy with them (cf. also Brown and Nubla Mohamed 2022; Pettinger 2020a). Simultaneously, these practitioners described resilience in affective terms to me as regaining a sense of belonging to the Dutch society and regaining a sense of Dutch identity. I captured the affectiveness of the interviewees and the particularities of resilience in the concept of affective disciplines which conceptually contains the following elements: 1) Surveillance and affective engagement, 2) a pre-conceived ideal, i.e. what it means to be resilient, 3) measures benefitting compliance and punishing non-compliance 4) affective discipline also disciplines the affective relations of those in the programme, as the aim is to restore a sense of belonging and a coherent identity.

Within Dutch policies, radicalisation is viewed, among other factors, as departure from Dutch cultural norms and societal values, often resulting in a sense of detachment from the broader community (Ministry of the Interior and Kingodm Relations 2007, 2), whereas resilience is depicted as the antidote to this detachment, facilitating the reconnection with society and a restoration of a normalised existence. Achieving this governance necessitates a welcoming approach from case management, alongside a policy directive aimed at effectively reintegrating resilient subjects into society. De Koning (2020, 135) astutely observes that the Dutch strategy for preventing radicalisation “carries with it a prospect of redemption and change within the racialized framework set by the state” for those under intervention. Should they align with the programme objectives and experience a restoration of resilience, they are considered redeemed. This simultaneity of disciplinary techniques and affective governance, aimed at restoring broken resilience, remains largely unexplored.

In the following, I position this article within the wider resilience literature, with a focus on radicalisation prevention. I then delve into the method, providing context for my empirical data and offering a comprehensive account of the case study. Finally, I demonstrate the conceptual usefulness of affective discipline in accordance with my empirical material.

Psychological resilience in radicalization prevention

I need to clarify that I refer to psychological resilience when talking about resilience in relation to radicalisation prevention. Resilience in Counter-Terrorism policies more generally often refers to an ecological definition of resilience which pertains to critical infrastructure, cyber security, disaster management as either a bounce-back ability, or it might refer to the resilience of a population in the face of an attack (Chandler and Reid 2016; Joseph 2018). Howell (2015, 19) noted that psychological resilience receives significantly less scrutiny in security governance, despite its normating function. In radicalisation prevention, the psyches of individuals and communities are targeted as boosting a psychological immunisation against radicalisation to “refrain from extreme ideas” (Jore 2020, 348–49; Altermark and Nilsson 2018). In this context, resilience has been discussed as a strengthening of the emotional self-regulation capacities of youth (Altermark and Nilsson 2018; Aly, Taylor, and Karnovsky 2014; Hardy 2015; Stephens and Sieckelinck 2020). In this regard, resilience received criticism for being a neoliberal governance as it responsibilizes youth to enhance their emotional self-care (Ecclestone 2017; Park, Crath, and Jeffery 2020). Particularly Altermark and Nilsson stressed that resilience works as a citizenship education to craft neoliberal active citizens through resilience, as a psychological bulwark against radicalisation (Altermark and Nilsson 2018). Equally, in Younis’ (2021, 5) fitting assessment that Counter-Terrorism is psychologised through prevention, he stresses that the UK government imagines “psychological resilience” as a “deterrence to ideological viruses”. But all of these accounts consider resilience as a booster before radicalisation occurs. Only Hardy realises that resilience also allows governments to “frame others” as “deficient or lacking” and turns them into a target for “psychological interventions” (Hardy 2015, 83). In contrast to the aforementioned accounts, I work with a programme which addresses those framed as being deficient regarding resilience, and who become the target of intervention programmes to restore resilience. This matters, because the framing as psychologically deficient leads to a more disciplinary intervention, as these subjects are assessed to constitute a threat to themselves and to society (Howell 2011). Secondary prevention engages precisely with individuals already assessed to be simultaneously at-risk and risky (Heath-Kelly 2013) and hence not resilient. Therefore, they already constitute a security risk and special individualised prevention programmes were set-up for them (Pettinger 2020a; Heath-Kelly and Shanaáh 2022; van de; Weert and Eijkman 2020; Rizq 2019). When it comes to analysing resilience in the context of secondary prevention, there is a research gap.

Regarding the intervention programmes for radicalisation prevention, literature points to a contradictory treatment of individuals who are subjected to these programmes, as these programmes include elements of care and concern, but also of control and penalty. Heath-Kelly and Shanaah (2022, 2–3) demonstrated the long history of pre-crime interventions and called them a “hybrid penalty”, because it is a penalising measure which includes welfare-support packages treating “socio-economic and psychological needs” in order to enable an “anticipatory rehabilitation”. Equally, regarding the Channel programme in the UK, Pettinger (2020a, 118) showed that it is normalising and works through “support for” but also “protection against” the supposed radicalisation. Similarly, Brown and Nubla Mohamed (2022) showed that European returnees from Iraq and Syria are treated with logics of both care and control. Ragazzi and de Jongh (2019, 161–62) stress, when individuals enter these programmes in the Netherlands, street level bureaucrats are caught up between worry for their community members and surveillance of them. I capture this apparently contradictory logic with the concept of “affective discipline” to stress that affective practices such as worry and support and controlling measures such as protection from and surveillance of both form part of a disciplinary normation through affect. The affectiveness engages with the concern and care public officials feel towards potentially radicalising individuals, both their fear and their worry, while discipline engages with the normation and the control elements.

Affective discipline is inspired by literature on affective governmentality, which demonstrates a broader development towards affect in governance (Penz and Sauer 2020). This development is characterised by increased emotional labour, such as friendliness and sensitivity to appear as caring, expected from public officials towards clients (Penz and Sauer 2020, 125). Equally, the literature on affective citizenship, also inspired by governmentality, demonstrates a turn towards an affective governance by instilling a feeling of belonging to a community in citizenship making (Fortier 2010; Wilde and Willem Duyvendak 2016). In a similar vein, Ecclestone (2017, 49) demonstrates through therapeutic governance that complex governance problems, particularly relating to mental health, are targeted by “government-sponsored psycho-emotional intervention” to teach “emotional regulation” and “resilience”. I locate affective discipline within this broader turn, since the governance of non-resilient subjects is administered through emotional labour, such as worry, and this worry is supposed to affectively engage subjects to support them in a self-transformation to restore their feeling of belonging to Dutch society. I call it disciplinary because it is normating and includes elements of punishment in case of non-compliance.

Material and method

Field research and analysis

The Netherlands were next to the UK on the forefront of implementing radicalisation prevention policies as early as 2004. It was actually the Dutch intelligence service which first coined the concept of radicalisation as a gradual transformation process of individuals turning into terrorists (Fadil and de Koning 2019). Therefore, the Netherlands already introduced secondary prevention programmes in particular cities in the 2000s and started to implement these programmes nationwide in the early 2010s. Kundnani and Hayes (2018, 6) even go as far as calling the CVE (Countering Violent Extremism) approach developed in Amsterdam the “heart of contemporary CVE policies” as it was the first one to implement a pre-emptive strategy, proposing to identify supposedly radicalising individuals for an intervention before they committed a crime. Notably, the Dutch strategy prioritised resilience as an aim of these interventions to “increase the ‘resilience’ to radical ideas of the individual and focus on bringing him or her back to society” (Mellis quoted after Kundnani and Hayes 2018, 6). Despite being a forerunner and model of resilience in CVE policies and secondary prevention, the Netherlands received significantly less scrutiny in academic debates than the UK (Dresser 2019; Martin 2018; Pettinger 2020b; Younis 2021).

To explore resilience concerning radicalisation prevention in the Netherlands, I conducted a triangulated study. This involved analysing Dutch prevention policies¹ alongside interviewing 13 practitioners and policy makers. Focusing on how resilience manifested in practice, I concentrated on case management sites. An initial policy analysis revealed the centrality of resilience in all case management approaches, allowing me to select from various sites across the Netherlands. Despite each municipality having its own case management site, radicalisation cases are scarce, leading most municipalities to refer cases to regionally organised Security- and Care Houses. Thus, I also approached these houses, along with larger municipalities.

Formally, the Dutch Counter-Terrorism policy states, that the responsibility for radicalisation cases lies with the municipality and the mayor responsible for deciding if a person is subjected to a radicalisation prevention programme and when to release the person from the programme. In practice, I encountered three different formats of how these multi-agency settings can be organised: case management format 1) the municipality refers cases to the Security and Care Houses. These are regionally organised permanent multi-agency institutions (currently, there are 31 within the country and they list “Radicalization into violent extremism” as one of their main areas of expertise, see Zorg- En Veiligheidshuizen, n.d.); case management format 2) the municipality treats cases within the municipal administration, organising a multi-agency panel if needed; and case management format 3) there is a nation-wide advisory centre which works only with people who voluntarily engage in the programme. I interviewed different professions from all three formats: format 1) four interviews (26, 27, 29, 38; in one interview there were two persons); format 2) four interviews (2, 23, 24, 30); and format 3) one interview (32). Three of these formats were quite familiar with radicalisation cases, whereas for two formats radicalisation cases were less frequent. The most important difference I noted between the formats was if case management is administered voluntarily or involuntarily. Otherwise, the assessments criteria and measures were similar. What stood out most was the affective language interviewees used when talking about detecting and assessing individual radicalisation cases, when talking about resilience and when talking about which measures were taken in this case management approach. For the empirical part, I mostly relied on these interviews, as these interviewees are actively involved in case management.

Additionally, I was participating in the Dutch police Countering Extremism, Terrorism and Radicalisation training course, which teaches Dutch police officers signals of radicalisation, its documentation, and assessment basics (February 12–13 2020). Moreover, I drew on information form interviews with three security professionals related to counter-terrorism (whose opinions expressed in the interviews are their own and do not reflect the institution they work for) involved in case management which is why I also listed them above (Interviews 23, 25, 27), one interview with a national state organisation responsible for the coordination of the case approach (Interview 40), one interview with national policy makers in relation to primary prevention (Interview 33), and two with the national organisation responsible for carrying out radicalisation prevention trainings (Interviews 28, 31). This enhanced my understanding of the organisation of secondary prevention in the Netherlands.

Initially, I attempted to sample 11 more case management sites through personalised interview requests. However, these requests were unanswered or declined. Insight from one site revealed that case management sites were challenged by a too high volume of research requests (pers. comm., Gemeente Rotterdam, February 2, 2020). As noted by Stump and Dixit (2013) and Pettinger (2020b), accessing professionals in secondary radicalisation prevention is notoriously difficult, as it is both academically scrutinised as well as securitised. It is a securitised practice because case management sites must protect their clients, but they also want to protect themselves from attacks or from receiving a bad reputation and losing the trust of their clients or their funding. Negotiating access to these sites was a lengthy and arduous process.

I utilised semi-structured questionnaires for interviews, preceded by an Informed Consent Form ensuring confidentiality. Data from both policies and interviews underwent coding following Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2014), with a focus on theoretical coding aligned with the extended case methodology (Lai and Roccu 2019). This approach allows for flexible theory building and reconstruction informed by empirical encounters (ibid. 72). Drawing on governmentality as theoretical approach, I examined resilience within Dutch policy as a norm contrasting with radicalisation as abnormal. Affect was not part of the initial research design, but interviews highlighted case managers’ affective engagement with clients, revealing a link between affect and resilience. This led to an interest with affective governmentality and the subsequent development of affective discipline as a theory reconstruction, capturing both disciplinary and care practices emerging in the data.

Interviewees demonstrated affective engagement with individuals in case management, exemplified by their efforts to ensure the safety of children returning form warzones and their attentiveness to the emotional and physical needs of cases to tailor appropriate care interventions. This emotional involvement was particularly prevalent in discussions about resilience, emphasising the importance of restoring a sense of belonging. Notably, interviewees showed no fear or resentment towards clients, opting instead for understanding and care. Equally, case management sites tend to use welfare measures, rather than punitive measures, as they consider positive incentives more helpful (Eijkman and Roodnat 2017). Due to confidentially agreements, specifics of cases cannot be disclosed; however, interviewees’ expressions of concern and empathy reveal their affective engagement.

The Netherlands as case study

In Europe there are different organisational forms of secondary prevention. During the past 10 years a multi-agency setting of dealing with individuals who are supposedly radicalising has prevailed (Hardyns et al. 2021). Such multi-agency settings are for example organised through institutional set-ups such as local multi-agency panels in Norway, Sweden and Denmark which discuss a case and agree jointly on appropriate measures (Haugstvedt and Erik Tuastad 2021; Sestoft, Hansen, and Christensen 2017; Sivenbring and Andersson Malmros 2021). Recently Heath-Kelly (2024) pointed to the emergence of counter-terrorism programmes in Britain and Norway in which intelligence and security agencies administer welfare. Heath-Kelly (2024, 2) differentiates between the two settings as in the first one, the programme is usually maintained by local authorities, they are based on consent of individual, and they delimit the role of intelligence services. In contrast, in the second setting, intelligence services either run or are involved in case management and they do not necessarily require the consent of the individuals (ibid.). The Netherlands is a mixture of both, as the multi-agency setting is maintained by local authorities, but depending on the case, intelligence and security agencies are involved on their own volition; they can object to interventions if it would interfere with an ongoing security operation and interventions can take place without consent (Interview 27, 38, 40). As Heath-Kelly (2024, 3) aptly points out: “This is ‘care’, in its most coercive and disciplinary form, manifested at the behest of the state’s elite repressive agencies”. Before elaborating how I analyse these interventions as affective discipline, capturing the simultaneous use of care, coercion, and discipline, I will start by giving some background on the Dutch case.

Heath-Kelly and Shanaáh (2022) highlight how secondary radicalisation prevention programmes mirror juvenile crime prevention programmes. The Netherlands serves as a notable example, illustrating the convergence between radicalisation and crime prevention programmes (Gruber 2023). Crime prevention in the Netherlands revolves around behavioural interventions tailored to individual “risk profiles” at an early stage. Potential cases for these programmes include individuals involved in judicial cases, such as those who have committed crimes or are on probation, as well as non-judicial cases, encompassing “at-risk adolescents and problematic youth groups” or “adults with multiple complex problems” (Peeters 2013, 207; A.; de Koning 2017). Even without a criminal record, risk adolescents may be included in case consultations at specialised institutions like Security and Care Houses, where multidisciplinary teams (e.g. youth and social work, police, municipal health service, psychiatric services, addiction clinic, housing corporation etc.) devise intervention strategies tailored to each case’s needs. Subsequently, one of these professionals takes a personal approach and finds out if the individual accepts a care intervention voluntarily, or if a more repressive approach is warranted. These interventions often target risk behaviours pre-emptively to prevent future delinquency, a practice uncommon as interventions typically rely on consent. Similar approaches and intervention strategies have been adapted for radicalisation prevention.

However, significant distinctions exist between crime and radicalisation prevention. These disparities encompass the most repressive aspects of radicalisation prevention, as well as the unique role of resilience as an affective reattachment to society. I will delineate these differences in the following section and further elaborate on the insights gleaned from the interviews.

Regarding the more repressive elements of radicalisation prevention, I will highlight the inclusion of intelligence services and the long duration of the intervention. First, intelligence service can be part of the multi-agency panels discussing the case which is definitely not the case in crime prevention (Eijkman and Roodnat 2017; Interview 38). Second, these panels deal with very minor cases of potential radicalisation (e.g. school kids yelling an Islamist phrase), to actual potential security risks and probation cases (Interview 40). Therefore, these panels have a wide range of social measures but also of disruptive and repressive measures at their disposal (Eijkman and Roodnat 2017; National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2014). Third, radicalisation cases are discussed and monitored for a longer period of time because it is very difficult to decide if someone is no longer posing a risk to society (Interview 27, 29). Nonetheless, case management mostly works through care and welfare measures to reinstate individuals into society.

When considering resilience as an affective reattachment to society, the initial Action Plan against radicalisation and polarisation stresses its relevance as fostering a “bonding” to society (Ministry of the Interior and Kingodm Relations 2007, 18). Particularly influential for Dutch policy understanding of radicalisation and resilience was Colin Mellis’s model underscoring the vulnerability of youth to radicalisation, emphasising their ongoing process of identity formation. As one interviewee remarked:

Actually it is an old model. And she made this drawing in order to show, the policy makers are like, “ok, we have this problem, this issue, but it is not only a security issue, but also a social issue,” because there are these internal questions that individuals have. (Interview 31)

Mellis’s model suggests that radicalisation can be nurtured resulting from feelings of frustration, discrimination, humiliation, exclusion and deprivation through which a cognitive opening is created disturbing one’s resilience (Mellis 2008). This aligns with the Dutch Counter-Terrorism strategy, which portrays radicalisation as an ideological appeal to young individuals grappling with identity questions: ideology offered by AQ-inspired movements “[…] intends to appeal to these young people as they search for answers relating to their identity […]”(National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2011, 69; cf. also; Gruber 2023). In accordance, interviewees frequently discussed identity issues in the context of radicalisation and emphasised the importance of re-establishing a sense of belonging to restore resilience. This notion of resilience as the restoration of affective bonds underscores the Netherland’s significance as a case study in resilience research.

Findings

Conceptual notes on affective discipline

I argue that radicalisation prevention is a governance of abnormality in a Foucauldian sense (see also Aggarwal 2013; Elshimi 2015; Rizq 2019). I take this further by arguing that resilience became the norm to which those radicals shall be restored through interventions. Drawing on Foucault, I see resilience as a process of disciplinary normation, meaning that abnormal individuals must be corrected in order to conform to a pre-determined social norm.

The norm refers to the psychological conception of resilience which was adapted for radicalisation prevention. Psychological resilience research engages with the question of which protective factors and coping strategies support the bounce-back ability of human psyches as a response to adversity (Masten 2014). Such protective factors are for example a sense of a coherent identity, self-consciousness, supportive relationships and developing a sense of community (Fooken 2016). Positivist strands of psychology perceive resilience as a “natural or normal psychological essence or attribute found inside individuals” through which the resilient self is a “[…] relatively stable and evolving self who develops a chronologically appropriate and coherent biography” (Aranda et al. 2012, 551). These characteristics were transferred to the field of radicalisation prevention, and adapted to the specific risk factors associated with radicalisation (Krols et al. 2013; Stephens and Sieckelinck 2020). Increasing self-esteem and empathy, particularly in young Muslims who are supposed to struggle with identity issues, became the focus of studies and trainings (Altermark and Nilsson 2018; Feddes, Mann, and Doosje 2015). The emphasis on developing a coherent identity and being embedded in supportive relationships as well as communities is quite fitting in the Dutch context where radicalisation is associated with identity formation and an averting of Dutch society.

The problem with the psy-sciences and psychological norms is that they reflect the societies they are embedded in (Howell 2011; Talcott 2014). Psychological resilience thus became closely associated with national and cultural trajectories of what it means to be normal (for a similar analysis about the UK see Martin 2019) and a prescriptive norm which needs to be restored. Schwarz (2018, 8) aptly pointed out that “[M]ental health and concepts such as resilience are not ontological facts but contain the moral codes of a current society”. I address this throughout the next chapter by discussing references to Dutch values and discrimination but also when interviewees critically interrogated discrimination.

Through interviews with Dutch case management sites, I argue that resilience is restored through affective discipline. Foucault (1975, 2003a, 2003b) analysed the disciplinary technologies of surveillance, normalising judgement and examination and demonstrated that disciplinary techniques are supposed to correct abnormality and to make subjects docile and useful again. I show how the same techniques are used in case management, in addition to an added affective notion, but with the same goal of making subjects docile and useful again. Case management creates functional spaces through which individuals are supervised and incentivised to improve, not through punishment alone, but through welfare measures and affective reintegration to their families and through reattaching them to society. Nonetheless, they are under surveillance, and they are examined and compared to the norm.

Before moving to the process of normation, it is crucial to briefly outline my understanding of affect throughout this article and particularly the empirical section. This definition hinges on two key points: firstly, I do not strictly differentiate between affect and emotion, aligning with a strand of biopolitical thought (Clément 2021; Massumi 2021). Secondly, while this distinction is not rigidly upheld, I use the term affect due to its association with transmissiveness and relationality, as articulated by Ahmed (2014, 208) who defines affects as involving “processes of affecting and being affected”. While in strict biopolitical thought, affect and emotion are separated, with affect referring to pre-conscious and asocial physical experiences, and emotions to socially coded definitions of individualised psychic experiences, the strand of research I align with challenges this strict division. This perspective argues that there are no asocial experiences and rejects the notion of a clear separation between emotion and affect, recognising both as physical and psychic experiences (Penz and Sauer 2020). My aim is to illustrate how resilience serves as a psychological normation process aimed at governing the emotions of individuals deemed to be radicalising, who are affectively guided by case managers to restore their affective connection to Dutch society. Thus, I draw upon the notion of affect to underscore its transmissiveness and relationality, acknowledging affects as social, physical, and psychic experiences.

In the following I demonstrate affective discipline through four conceptual characteristics: 1) Surveillance and affective engagement, 2) a pre-conceived ideal, hence a norm, of what it means to be resilient, 3) measures benefitting compliance and punishing non-compliance, 4) affective discipline also disciplines the affective relations of those in the programme, as the aim is to restore a sense of belonging and a sense of cultural identity.

Surveillance & affective engagement

One of my interview questions was “How do individuals become subjects for case management”. Most interviewees told me, there are trainings for different professionals in order to spot signals of radicalisation. If a professional spots such a signal, they can flag the individual for case management: “every specific professional organisation, like the police, like the child protection board, like youth care can bring up a case” (Interview 29). Three of the case management sites I interviewed said most of their cases were flagged by the police (Interview 27, 29, 30, 38).

To illustrate one of the training sessions focused on identifying radicalisation, I highlight one session of the police training I attended (CETR Training participation). The session is indicative of disciplinary procedures of surveillance and examination, but they are also indicative of affectiveness, because they emphasise the crucial role of understanding affective dynamics, as these signals correspond with societal alienation (cf. Elzinga et al. 2010). For instance, the training employs a cinematic depiction of a young immigrant man’s radicalisation journey, highlighting the cognitive and behavioural indicators that demand attention. Furthermore, it emphasises the importance of involving various professions in the prevention effort. These signals include detecting signs of unstable personalities and identity crisis, such as name changes, changing one’s clothing style, and social isolation resulting from peer discrimination, signalling a sense of exclusion from Dutch society. Remarkably, the training is designed not only to recognise the process of radicalisation but also to foster empathy towards those undergoing it. The objective is not punitive; instead, it aims to prevent further escalation by sharing this information with municipal case management teams (Interview 23, 24). Thus, while these trainings involve surveillance of everyday behaviour and appearance, the primary goal is proactive intervention and care, aligning with the broader objective of radicalisation prevention.

When entered into case management, individuals become subjects of care. Case management has a distinctive role to play, namely, to reinstate these potentially harmful individuals into society. This reinstatement is facilitated through hierarchical observation, as different professionals assess the case and its needs (Hardyns et al. 2021). But there is an element of affectiveness in the process, regarding how they are assessed, which interventions are at their disposal, and with regards to the goal of the intervention, namely, to reattach alienating individuals affectively to society. To exemplify, the professionals take the personal situation of the individual into consideration, and try not to cause harm if an individual is in a difficult situation:

so, as case worker at, as of coming to, reintegrating into society, you know, he might be much more aware, having much more individual contact moments with the individual […], so this person might have a lot of information that both police and municipality do not have, for example. So they can intervene, when the police for example says like ok, I just have a question, I am going to ring the doorbell and I am just ask questions and then somebody else might say, well hold on, this might not be the most appropriate moment because he is just been, you know, this and that, his sister died or whatever. (Interview 38; emphasis added by the author)

The professionals in this case approach actively try to take care of the subject and consider their feelings in order to determine the appropriate moment for interventions. Clearly, this serves the purpose of not alienating individuals further, and is a do no harm approach regarding the goal of reintegration. Nonetheless, it shows an element of affectiveness as the professionals care for the feelings of the subject.

This element of affectiveness was also expressed when interviewees addressed radicalising individuals as “worrying” which means that they were considered both as worrisome individuals, but also that they caused concern for their family, public officials and lastly for case management itself. To exemplify this issue, I would like to highlight three quotes from three different case management sites:

It is about understanding all these disciplines […] work in that chain, and that you all have responsibility for that one person that we are worrying about. (Interview 30, emphasis added by the author)

[…] And usually it is people from local governments that contact us, because there are certain issues regarding one of the civilians in their municipality, and they contact us with worries of this individual or the family of the individual […]. (Interview 32, emphasis added by the author)

[…] you have many, many people within your area you are worrying who are, who we are worried about, who need help […]. (Interview 28, emphasis added by the author)

The reason for the intake of a particular individual is characterised as “worry” and therefore demonstrates an element of affectiveness as the interviewees express an element of care for these “worrisome/worrying” individuals. The interviewees also express care and responsibility indicating a relationality and that these individuals matter to them, for their own sake as well as for security reasons. But this care also triggers protective responses as the “worrisome/worrying” individual is subjected to an intervention. Brown and Nubla Mohamed (2022, 18) called this a simultaneous logic of “care and control” as subjects are simultaneously cared for but also taken care of. Therefore, this affectiveness also triggers protective responses, which I see in line with Foucault’s theorisation of discipline. The subsequent procedure on how individuals are assessed to become part of the case approach is disciplinary because the “worrisome/worrying” subject is assessed and ranked in a relationship to a preconceived norm of how a Dutch citizen is supposed to behave. If this norm is not met, an intervention must take place, because the subject might be dangerous. The intervention aims at a positive transformation to reinstate a corrected subject to society (Foucault 2003a, 50). While the justification for the intervention is affective, the procedures like examination, judgement and corrective interventions are classic disciplinary elements.

Psychological resilience as disciplinary norm

Psychological resilience in radicalisation prevention is a disciplinary norm because it allows for a normalising judgement. Individuals are measured against an ideal and are classified as more or less dangerous. But this normalising judgement is accompanied by affect because what is classified and ranked is the affective relationship of the subject towards their family and society in order to determine their level of alienation and the severity of their identity struggle. Again, there is this interdependence of classic disciplinary elements of normalising judgement as well as affectiveness.

The Dutch Counter-Terrorism strategy equates becoming radicalised with “broken” resilience (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2011, 70). This indicates that every individual has an inherent resilience to radicalisation, understanding resilience as the norm to which these individuals can be restored. Hence, resilience is taken as an ontological fact and as a normal psychological characteristic of individuals (Aranda et al. 2012, 551; Schwarz 2018, 8). The psychological conceptualisation of resilience renders subjects whose resilience was broken into potential sources of dangers as they are seen as “invariably dependent, unpredictable, and unable to act in their own interest” (Frost and Hoggett 2008, 439). These subjects are deemed to be unable to exert normal self-regulation capacities, and they become a source of danger to themselves and to society. Since abnormality is dangerous, resilience not only generates objectives for security governance, it enables disciplinary interventions based on therapeutic forms of governance (Howell 2011). Therefore, subjects are deemed unable to self-regulate, which is the usual critique towards shaping neoliberal subjectivities whose self-regulation shall be enhanced in order for them to cope and adapt to the requirements of uncertainty (Chandler and Reid 2016; Joseph 2018). In this case, the capacity of self-regulation is not a given, but it must be restored, enabling individualised programmes of care and coercion.

Similar to the Counter-terrorism strategy, interviewees also referred to resilience as a pre-conceived standard and characterised resilience through affective states, like their relationships with their social environment. Particularly striking was the description of resilience as “a sense of belonging”. To exemplify, I include two quotes from two different interviews:

that is individual resilience, young people who are at risk at radicalization, or already in the latter of radicalization […] So if we look at it from an individual […] case so that is the core, and then we look at the people who surround this person, so that is of course the family, so the immediate family, like the brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, and the next layer is the social environment, like people at their school, their friends groups etc, next level is the formal institutions, their teachers, their case workers or whatever professionals they encounter, and the last layer is the society. Basically, we try to focus on every layer of this pyramid, if you slice it through. […]

Resilience is an amazing term in English, […] resilience is talking more about your own strengths, right, so what do I need, which component or characteristics, […] which skills do I need to be, like a productive citizen in this society, for a lack of a better word, because I know this sounds horrible. So that is positive resilience, which is basically increasing your skills and […] skills are so important to feel also, you know, you are strong about your own identity and to feel like you belong here, and you have a sense of belonging, and I think that is really important. […]

(Interview 26, emphasis added by the author)

“Resilience is also how do you, how is your bond with your family, do they give you some platform to talk about questions in life, especially when you are young, and questioning yourself everything about life and being here and […] when you have two nationalities, when you don’t know to which country you belong, or to which belief you belong or the family, but also the via municipalities, the mosques maybe they are visiting, how can we, do we see any problems in that structure, via all the interventions that we have […]. (Interview 29, emphasis added by the author)

Affect is an important element in these quotes because resilience is geared towards re-establishing affect and affective relationships, concerning the feeling of belonging. Affect is important in several ways, concerning first the identification of the risk of radicalisation as a loss of social relationships. Second, affect is expressed as relational element because the way practitioners talk about their clients conveys an understanding for the difficulties these individuals face. Third, this relationality is supposed to transmit a welcoming feeling to the subject in question, to restore a sense of belonging. The goal is not to enhance resilience, but to restore resilience in the form of regaining emotional and psychological stability. Resilience in both quotes is an expression of being securely attached to social structures supporting the search for identity and being able to meet the emotional need for belonging. To reach this goal, the engagement with subjects must be relational and transmit a welcoming attitude from those responsible for the intervention:

one essential point in dealing with radicalization and preventing radicalization is to have this open attitude towards the people you give guidance to. To give them the confidence that they are allowed to be here, that they are a part of our larger society, that they have a place there. (Interview 32)

In this context, the governance of resilience can be positioned in a broader discussion of affective citizenship, as interviewees underscore its association with emotions and assert that it can be restored through shaping and disciplining conduct. The proximity to affective citizenship agendas is particularly clear through the emphasis on creating “productive citizens”. Of course, prior literature on resilience has focused on fostering a neoliberal subjectivity, subtly implied here by the term “productive” (Joseph 2018). However, the argument of this paper is not that a completely different resilient subject is shaped, but rather that subjects who do not comply with the norm are corrected. Hence, I emphasise a more disciplinary governance. I establish an alignment with an affective citizenship agenda because there is a focus on “governing through affect” to restore affective attachments to society with the goal of reinstating a productive citizen. Governing through affect is thereby not only used in relation to radicalisation prevention, but also in other Dutch policy spheres to manage diversity and multiculturalism. De Wilde and Duyvendak (2016, 975) highlight this emphasis in Dutch communal politics aptly in the following way: “where feeling the appropriate emotions – not least the feeling of belonging – becomes a condition at the very heart of Dutch citizenship”.

A further alignment with affective citizenship is a subtle focus on the governance of multiculturalism and diversity to assimilate immigrants. In the Netherlands, radicalisation prevention is intertwined with assimilatory politics referring particularly to the Muslim population (Koning 2020), which offers participation opportunities in exchange for the acceptance of liberal values: “[…] citizens accept the fact that the Netherlands is an open, pluralist society in which various forms of religion and lifestyles coexist” (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2011, 72). As the very first policy addressing the problem of radicalisation called “Resilience and Integration Policy” outlined, resilience to radicalisation must be fostered (Ministry for Immigration and Integration 2005). Accordingly, the corrective agenda in affective discipline also implies a racialised component of resilience in this context. The problems mentioned during the interviews were confused identities (see interview quotes above) inter alia because of dual nationality. In turn the aims are subtly expressed as assimilatory, expressed in the first quote as “we live in Holland”:

we see multiple problems, and we work on that, to make sure that they have, that they can be living their lives as normal as possible between the, the way we live in Holland. (Interview 29)

Referring to racialisation in Dutch counter-radicalisation policies, de Koning (2020, 134–35) remarks that radicalisation related policies are concerned with the well-being of the individual who is assessed as a potential danger, and is quite powerful because it is not working solely through repression, but through incentives: “[t]he counter-radicalization approach carries with it a prospect of redemption and change within the racialized framework set by the state”. This is precisely the point: indeed, this approach gives subjects the opportunity to redeem and become a member of society again through self-transformation, through restoring their resilience. But this self-transformation must meet the prescriptive and racialised standard of corresponding to a Dutch ideal of citizenship. While resilience in this context is portrayed as a normal psychological characteristic of non-radicalising subjects, is actually imbued with moral ideas (Schwarz 2018).

Another interviewee hints at discrimination by stressing that resilience programmes are not equally administered to right-wing and jihadist groups, but are only used for Jihadism:

So, on paper I think that, I am not sure if my colleagues would agree, but on paper I think that the resilience programs should be equally adaptable, applicable to right-wing as to jihadism, but the way that the groups are selected usually means that they are not. In my view anyway. (Interview 38)

Resilience in case management is a psychological norm, as it is used to designate the normal and healthy mental state of a non-radicalising subject. It establishes a system of normal/abnormal and serves as a reason and a goal for the intervention, to restore emotional and psychological stability. Psychological norms are thereby imbued with moral codes of society, in this case there is a neoliberal element but also a racialised one. But there is also subtle critique towards the discriminatory practice of only targeting Islamist extremism through resilience programmes. Affect is an important part of the restoration of resilience, as it is a transmissive and relational process, and part of identifying a lack of belonging as well as restoring this feeling.

Benefits for compliance and punishment for incompliance

Having established how individuals become subjects for interventions and the goal of the intervention, I would like to discuss two distinct but simultaneously used processes of intervention. The first is welfare and punishment, and the second will be elaborated in the next section called “disciplining affect”.

Secondary prevention programmes consist of customised measures to address the particular situation and the grievances of the individual in question. These measures are usually a combination of welfare state engagement, therapeutic engagement, and sanctions for uncompliant behaviour. The following two quotes express the goals and concrete measures of such programmes from two different case management sites and the third one with regards to the goals of the national policy:

We have several programs trying to prevent radicalization and those are programs that are basically trying to build resilience, trying to elevate people from their situation, where they, you know, more likely to feel […] dispatched from society. […] those are programs aimed at certain groups in society who might be more vulnerable for certain ideas due to the lack of commitment, due to a lack of prospects, due to a lack of feeling of being part of society. So, prevention […] means that we try to balance out disadvantages some people have in order to try to keep them away of a […] certain way of thinking. (Interview 38, emphasis added by the author)

So standard goals that we use, for example we see that this person does not have any job, or needs help in daily activities […] we work on getting him an apartment, or a house for the family […]. (Interview 29)

We have this personal or individual approach in the Netherlands […] We don’t believe that prevention is only punishing, well, we actually think that punishing might get some negative effects regarding prevention, that is the reason why we try to make these, these centralized responsibility work for every aspect, for education, for health and for security. […] But we are well known for providing housing, and providing new options regarding education, and providing mediation between individuals and their families and their friends, providing them with new hobbies, make them actually, we can’t tell we are deradicalizing them, but we can definitely say that there is some disengagement when you focus not solely on security but also on other aspects of someone’s life. (Interview 40)

Affective discipline captures that interventions consist of welfare interventions deploying public assistance. Such public assistance can consist of finding housing and employment, or finishing one’s education, but also help with receiving state benefits (Eijkman and Roodnat 2017). Heath-Kelly and Shanaáh (2022) call such interventions “anticipatory rehabilitation” as they take place before a crime happened, and because they employ classical models of welfare-based support packages. But the aforementioned authors forget that such measures also aim at instilling a feeling of care in the receiving subject. The measures are supposed to confer a feeling of recognition and importance, incentivising subjects to feel and behave differently. This is the affective element of these interventions. This is expressed in the first quote in which the interviewee states that the connection to society is related to prospects and disadvantages, illustrating that there is a sensitivity towards discrimination. This sensitivity also expresses the affective dimension of the interviewee who demonstrates a level of empathy towards those subjected to the programme, rather than for example portraying them solely as a threat or as mentally unstable.

But these interventions also come with a disciplinary component since non-compliance can lead to punishment. While practitioners stress that welfare measures are more successful (Eijkman and Roodnat 2017), Dutch policy nonetheless provides for punitive measures (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2014). Punishment can consist of area bans, taking away their passport, having to report their presence to the police in regular intervals, or not being allowed to be in touch with certain persons (National Coordinator for Counterterrorism 2014). Individuals registered to the case approach are informed through a letter which is served by the police, to let the individuals know they are under observation (Interviews 27, 29, 30). All these coercive and punitive measures are equally part of discipline. Particularly the last point about observation is a classic disciplinary element, as it confers the feeling of being constantly under surveillance (Foucault 1975).

This is why I focus on discipline, as these interventions in the form of case management contain benefits for compliance and punishment for non-compliance. Disciplinary power aims at shaping docile subjects. Martin (2019) for example portrays resilience as a form of pastoral power in how it shapes British identity in the Channel programme. But Dutch case management is not simply an expression of pastoral care (Dresser 2021; Martin 2019) but a disciplinary governance. I would like to draw attention to a distinction Oksala (2013, 328) establishes between discipline and pastoral power by stating pastoral care’s “essential mechanisms are the continuous care and compulsory extraction of knowledge rather than violent coercion and the delimitation of rights”. While case management clearly aims at extracting intimate knowledge to correct individuals, it also coerces and delimits rights in the case of non-compliance.

Additionally, individuals can become part of the case approach on an involuntary basis, and while being under surveillance of security services because they are classified as “high-risk” (Eijkman and Roodnat 2017). When I asked interviewees if the case approach is voluntary or involuntary, I received the following answers, which indicate that the approach is involuntary unless the subject in question goes to court:

Municipalities have these period, this 28 days as a period of time to inform the individual they are taking as a case. So, you can always, the individual can always object, and ask for the reasons why he has being taken as a case and if the municipality is not able to provide a comprehensive argument, they can always charge them. […] a policy officer at the municipality is, I think, obliged to tell them, that they can start by hiring a lawyer and start a process to charge the municipality. (Interview 40)

They can go to a judge, or, if they don’t want to be, they must act for themselves, like write a letter to the mayor: “I don’t want that.” Then the mayor should say: “Ok we told you, but we think it is necessary, so if you don’t want it, you can go to court.” I think that is the way, but not only a letter, I don’t want that, that is not the way to do it. It is more a “we tell you that it is being done”, but it is not so easy for you to say, “oh I don’t want that”. (Interview 27)

Therefore, case management is arguably involuntary. I recognise that individuals can object to being in the case approach by appealing against it at court. Thus, the treatment is formally voluntary, as an appeal is possible, but the threshold is quite high. While the treatment and the in-take of subjects to the case approach is affective, the involuntary feature is a further characteristic of this being a disciplinary practice.

While there is an appeal to comply with liberal values from the subjects in question, this intersection of repression accompanied by the involvement of intelligence agencies and welfare is a questionable practice for a liberal state as it blurs sectoral boundaries, sending a hypocritical message (cf. Heath-Kelly 2024).

Disciplining affect

Having established that one way of disciplining subjects affectively is to incentivise compliance and punish non-compliance, I would like to discuss techniques of the self in this section. I call this technique of the self “disciplining affect” as it aims to restore resilience through a therapeutic engagement, reconciling one’s broken or challenging relationship to oneself and to society. Two quotes from two different case management sites give insight to this technique. Notably, the second quote emphasises the distinction between voluntary and involuntary interventions because therapeutic engagement relies upon willingness to engage with the counsellor:

[…] most priority [is] basically on young people because we believe […] that in the process of radicalization it’s, like, especially taking place in the process when young people are searching for their identity, so we focus primarily on this identity process and trying to first let them talk about it, raising some awareness about what is identity, what has identity to do with yourself, how do you relate yourself to somebody else, who can I talk to in this process, what is happening to me […] why do I feel strongly about some societal topics or themes and how can I get this energy or passion I feel about it, how can I use it in a positive way?”.

(Interview 26)

In short, we chose to only counsel if it is voluntary because then those people have their own intention too, then they have the incentive to move away from an extremist environment. To be able to talk with people about this incredibly personal subjects like worldview, beliefs, having a place in society etc., in a non-judgmental way, needs a certain openness, trust, and allowance. […] I think it has to do with a feeling of being accepted, especially when people that are in a process of radicalization. […] you can give them a feeling of trust and a feeling they can express a multitude of views and behaviors, like they have a right to express themselves. […] You want to offer the person who is sitting opposite you a safe space to just talk about their views and so you can work on that. […] I think like letting this individual know that there is room to open up and to talk about their behavior, and their attitude, you can better enter into a conversation with them about their process. You show them you’ll work on his/her issues, so they will be more likely to take the counselling serious and work harder/have more incentive to better their lives. (Interview 32, emphasis added by the author)

Similar to therapeutic engagement, voluntary case management is based on the idea of giving them a dedicated space for expressing their feelings. The feelings that are at the centre are those that lead the individuals to feel disassociated from society. By offering a safe space, trust is created, allowing the subject to express their views and feelings of alienation, in order for these views and feelings to be ordered with the expert in different frames of interpretation. Again, there is an element of empathy shown by the counsellor towards the subject, indicating that affectiveness is a relational and transmittable quality. Hence, case management takes place in a therapeutic space because it is dedicated to the transformation of the self (Foucault 1988, 19). Safe space is a pre-requisite, because the self-examination takes confessionary traits (Brown and Nubla Mohamed 2022; Elshimi 2015). By allowing the expression of this disaffection in a form of a therapeutic safe space, these affects can be tamed and resilience as stability through affective bonding to society and a self-transformation is restored.

Rather than governing through affect alone to create belonging, resilience in this context is established through disciplining affect generating a feeling of belonging through the recognition of the subjects feeling of doubts and emotional struggles with their community. Rizq (2019) for example critiques the therapeutic engagement in the Channel programme, because it is no longer an open-ended process or self-discovery, but rather leads to a surveillance of thoughts in a therapeutic setting. Similarly, this engagement is not open-ended, but rather has the pre-determined goal of normating subjects to become resilient to extremism, as expressed in the following quote from the same interviewee:

We made a method based on self-sufficiency. […] We counsel and offer guidance on these different personal aspects to make our clients more resilient because if those aspects of one’s life are more stable and healthy, then someone is more resilient. (Interview 32)

Therefore, even in a voluntary setting, resilience is a disciplinary normation. In this case, this normation is based on resilience as “self-sufficiency”. “Self-sufficiency” is a psychological empowerment strategy developed in the context of reintegrating a former offender back into the workforce and is a neoliberal strategy to shape productive subjects (cf. Hong et al., 2014). This is in line with the popular critique that resilience is a neoliberal strategy to enhance responsibiliation (Altermark and Nilsson 2018; Howell 2015; Joseph 2018; Park, Crath, and Jeffery 2020). However, since subjects in secondary prevention are not resilient, their resilience is not enhanced, rather it is restored through a corrective intervention.

In contrast to a voluntary setting, one interviewee elaborated that gaining trust and having such therapeutic relationships in an involuntary setting is quite difficult. Therefore, they sometimes use welfare provisions to establish trust and a relationship with the person (Interview 29). In a further case of involuntary treatment, one interviewee explained that the approach they used was based on the aforementioned youth crime prevention practices and did not engage with ideology at all and therefore, did not feature a therapeutic setting (Interview 38).

Resulting from its involuntary character, affective discipline has limited access to the inner space of the subject, not always achieving the goal of disciplining affect. Therefore, affective discipline is more in line with affective governmentality, normating subjects through affective engagement, and it is not necessarily a therapeutic governance as, in an involuntary setting, subjects are difficult to engage in therapeutic practices.

Conclusion

In previous literature, resilience was mostly discussed as a means of enhancement, aimed at elevating the average within a population (Howell 2015; Joseph 2018). Within the realm of psychology and therapeutic governance, this involves enhancing emotional self-regulation and stability (Altermark and Nilsson 2018; Ecclestone 2017). However, this particular case shed light on the restoration of “broken” resilience, echoing Hardy’s (2015) assertion that a lack of resilience leads to individuals becoming targets for state interventions. Here, the focus was on restoring psychological resilience thereby preventing further radicalisation and facilitating the restoration of a norm.

Notably, restoring the norm is closely aligned with correcting one’s identity formation affectively and being reintegrated into Dutch society by accepting the values of Dutch culture. Similar to the aforementioned literature, resilience is aligned with neoliberal citizenship expressed as “productive citizen” or “self-sufficient”, basically meaning that care dependent individuals become independent from state provisions again. Therefore, resilience was mainly associated with finishing one’s education or having a job and having a stable living situation, in order to not be dependent on welfare. Notably, though resilience was also associated with being securely attached to one’s family or being included in communal activities because this indicated a reinstatement to Dutch society and a reversal of the societal alienation. Equally important, but more difficult to achieve, is the aspect of self-transformation in the restoration of resilience. A sense of belonging is restored through a therapeutic governance engaging and correcting the feelings of the subject. All these elements are supposed to express a feeling of belonging to society and are thus evaluated as an indication that radicalisation no longer persists, and that resilience is restored.

Affect became a central element in contemporary governance practices, witnessed by affective governmentality and affective citizenship, working through and on affect. Fitting into this broader development is the mixture of disciplinary techniques and affective governance in radicalisation prevention. Disciplinary measures are carried out affectively, to exhibit a welcoming attitude aligned with the goal of reinstating subjects to society. This reinstatement involves an affective bonding with one’s social environment and society. At the same time, these measures exhibit classic disciplinary elements of surveillance, hierarchical judgement, examination, and correction, featuring care incentives for compliance and punishment for non-compliance. Recently, Heath-Kelly (2024) illustrated the dangers of obscuring repressive practices through care by the cooptation of welfare from intelligence and security agencies. “Who would disagree with care?” is one of the interview’s quotes she introduces (Heath-Kelly 2024, 10). This article addresses this dilemma precisely: the blending of affective care with traditional disciplinary measures, creating a challenge in questioning empathy and understanding, all while observing heightened surveillance and involuntary interventions. Hence, I have termed this practice “affective discipline”.

Interviews

Interview 1, NL, 18 March 2019

Interview 23, NL, 6 February 2020

Interview 25, NL, 26 February 2020

Interview 26, NL, 30 March 2020, phone

Interview 27, NL, 9 April 2020, online

Interview 28, NL, 21 April 2020, online

Interview 29, NL, 24 April 2020, online (2 persons)

Interview 30, NL, 29 May 2020, phone

Interview 31, NL, 24 June 2020, online

Interview 32, NL, 17 July 2020, online

Interview 33, NL, 22 July 2020, online

Interview 38, NL, 25 November 2020, online

Interview 40, NL, 22 January 2021, online

Police Counter Extremism and Terrorism Training (CETR) participation, NL, 12–13/02/2020

Pers. comm., Gemeente Rotterdam, 2 February 2020

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Amna Kaleem, Malte Riemann, Caitlin Ryan, Xavier Guillaume, the Sociology of Africa Colloquium Bayreuth and the EWIS Workshop participants of ‘Prevention between Social and Security Politics’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Barbara Gruber

Barbara Gruber obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Groningen, Netherlands (Department for International Relations & Security Studies) in 2023. Since January 2023 she is a post-doctoral researcher at the Research Cluster “Cluster Counter-Terrorism, CVE & Intelligence” at the University for Continuing Education Krems.

Notes

1. I used the following policies: the Action Plan Polarization and Radicalization 2007–2011, the Counter-Terrorism Strategies of 2011, and its successor of 2015, and finally the Action Plan Integral Approach against Jihadism of 2015. The most recent national Counter-Terrorism Strategy of 2022 is beyond the scope of this article, because it was issued after my field research period and therefore does not correspond to the timeframe of the interviews.