Central Asia Support for Stable Societies (CASSS) Research Findings: Identifying and Addressing Risk Factors for Violent Extremism

Implemented in 2019, this design employed qualitative and quantitative field research in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan as well as online research on the presence of extremist groups on Central Asian social media. The research determined that mobilization to violent extremism is the result of the interaction of three overlapping processes: the development of individual vulnerabilities, the process of selection, and exposure to social settings supportive of extremism. The first process, the emergence of individual vulnerability to violent extremism, is determined by six risk factors identified by CASSS research: age, ethnicity, perceived injustice, experience of a personal or family crisis, lack of strong family and social support networks, and lack of religious freedom. CASSS research showed that individuals exhibiting these factors are more susceptible to adopting extremist beliefs or engaging in extremist actions. Vulnerability alone does not lead to mobilization to VE; individual paths to mobilization occur through exposure to social settings which provide moral and intellectual support for violent extremist ideas and actions. These social settings exist in both real-world and online environments, and the two are increasingly entwined and mutually reinforcing. Absent exposure to these specific social settings, vulnerable people do not radicalize or mobilize to violent extremism. Not all individuals are equally likely to be exposed to social settings supportive of extremism. The third process, selection, is the social process through which individuals with varying degrees of vulnerability are exposed to real-world and online social settings supportive of extremism. CASSS research showed that three factors increase an individual's risk of selection for exposure to social settings supportive of extremism: migration, social and family networks, and interests and preferences. Overall extremism risk results from the interaction between vulnerability, selection, and exposure. Individual pathways through these processes are diverse and highly individual, defying easy categorization. In spite of this, there are a cluster of processes – erosion of family and social support, personal and family crises, conflicts in communities and families over religion, migration – that shape individual life trajectories in ways that increase risk and move individuals towards radicalization and mobilization. Understanding how these risks and processes emerge, interact, and impact individuals and communities is essential for designing risk reduction and prevention programming. CASSS implemented a mixed methods research design to identify and test risk factors for violent extremism in Central Asia. The research design was informed by a thorough review of previous research on causal factors for violent extremism in Central Asia. During background research, CASSS developed a detailed geographic database of foreign terrorist fighter mobilizations between 2010 and 2018. With this data, CASSS identified hotspot communities, those communities that witnessed disproportionately high rates of mobilization to violent extremism for their populations. Following this, CASSS conducted a qualitative research component, the Individual Risk and Resilience Study (IRRS). The IRRS was based on interviews with convicted extremists in Kyrgyz prisons and a demographically and geographically matched control group drawn from hotspot communities in the Kyrgyz Republic. The quantitative research component, the Community Risk and Resilience Capacity Study (CRRCS), was conducted in hotspot communities that witnessed high rates of mobilization to violent extremism between 2010-2018 and a comparison group of matched communities that had not witnessed high rates of mobilization over the same time period in the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. Concurrently, CASSS conducted three cycles of digital research and monitoring to define the extent of the extremism ecosystem online in Central Asia. CASSS developed a detailed geographic database of foreign terrorist fighter (FTF) departures and arrests for extremism and terrorism in Central Asia between 2010 and 2018. Using this database, CASSS identified hotspot communities in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan that witnessed disproportionately high rates of mobilization to violent extremism. In Tajikistan, the country for which CASSS has the most detailed demographic data for FTF departures, these hotspot cities and districts account for 92% of FTF departures while accounting for 27% of Tajikistan's entire population. In the other CASSS countries, CASSS estimates that hotspot communities account for 80% to 90% of FTF departures from each country during this period. Vulnerability to violent extremism is defined as the level of individual susceptibility to adopting extremist beliefs or engaging in extremist actions. CASSS research identified six specific risk factors that raise individual susceptibility to violent extremism. Personal or family crisis is one of these risk factors, which CASSS research confirmed increases vulnerability to extremism. Experience of a personal or family crisis can lead to a rapid increase in interest in religion, beginning a process that eventually leads to radicalization and mobilization. This personal crisis is often accompanied by a related crisis with the family when an individual's new beliefs and attitudes cause tension and conflicts within their families. Family crises can be either the cause or the result of processes leading