Violent Islamist extremism in global context: Statement to the United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs

Abstract

The metaphor of a staircase to terrorism provides the political, economic, cultural and socio‐psychological framework for understanding the development and adoption of a fanatical Islamist ideology that is one of the factors associated with radicalization and terrorism. The staircase metaphor points to the necessity of both short‐term and long‐term anti‐terrorism strategies, aimed respectively at people on the higher and lower floors. The most important long‐term challenge is to resolve the New Global American Dilemma, bringing US foreign policy practices more in line with expressed ideals. A second challenge is to implement omniculturalism to more effectively integrate Muslims in the European Union, where the threat of home‐grown terrorism is more serious than in the United States

Keywords:

• staircase metaphor
• terrorism
• home‐grown terrorism
• omniculturalism
• American dilemma