Olivier Roy, a prominent French intellectual and critic of counter-radicalization theory and programs as they stand today, argues that “radicalization seems more linked to individual trajectories” than collective religious behavior. Roy recommends that CVE strategy focus more on individual subjects and the societal conditions that give rise to radicalization, rather than on religious doctrine or religious groups at large. Societal symptoms include systemic poverty, declining education, disaffection, and hostility toward Muslims in the form of structural and private Islamophobia that isolates Muslim Americans and feeds into the propaganda of terror networks like ISIS.

XREF: Connects to debates about whether ideology or socio-economic grievance drives terrorism — parallels with research on lone-wolf attackers and models of grievance radicalization.

Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Unde…, loc. 383