Crafting the "Well-Rounded Citizen": Empowerment and the Government of Counterradicalization

In recent years, counterradicalization work has come to focus on empowering vulnerable communities and individuals through programs implemented by local governments and welfare services. This article examines this new regime of counterradicalization, focusing on how such programs seek to immunize people allegedly susceptible to radicalization by making them "active citizens." In contrast to the stated ambitions of these programs and much scholarly work on prevention, we do not see counterradicalization by citizenship empowerment as a way of giving back power to the communities where terrorism emerges. Rather, these programs are set up to manage the self-image and behaviors of individuals perceived as "risky," which means that they operate by shaping subjects. Undertaking an in-depth analysis of two programs of prevention through empowerment, we outline the rationalities underpinning this new way of countering radicalization, showing how they make use of "citizenship" as a political technology.