Preventing Violent Extremism in Kenya through Value Complexity: Assessment of Being Kenyan Being Muslim

Strategic Security Radicalization

Our theoretic starting point is that the wider context for radicalisation and involvement in violent extremism (RIVE) is the interpenetration of cultures arising from globalization, which can increase a sense of threat to different cultural groups’ value priorities. When groups feel that their values or worldview are threatened by the presence of other cultural worldviews, this can lead to a defensive retrenchment to a value monist position that conserves cultural or religious traditions. This maintains markers of social identity with the effect of highlighting differences between social groups, in accordance with social identity theory and social identity complexity theory.