A stronger bridge between security policymakers and the peacebuilding community, with coordinated and clearer lines of engagement, could better advance efforts to prevent violent extremism. A USIP expert examines the challenges facing CVE policy and practice and how peacebuilders can help to overcome them.

Summary

  • Counter violent extremism (CVE) is a growing and evolving realm of policy and practice that faces several significant challenges in implementation, stemming in part from its origins in the security and defense arena.
  • Long versed in the challenges of conflict prevention, the peacebuilding community and its related methods and practices can help develop a more expansive understanding of violent extremism and its causes and a more localized, inclusive, and sustainable approach to countering it.
  • The peacebuilding community already contributes in many ways to the prevention of extremist violence and the CVE agenda through programs designed to prevent conflict, strengthen rule of law, and promote peace, tolerance, and resilience.
  • Suggested best roles for the peacebuilding community in CVE are to support a nonsecuritized space for and build the capacity of civil society and to help reform the security bodies charged with counterterrorism and CVE.
  • CVE policy and global security efforts, in turn, may help provide the impetus and enabling conditions for effective peacebuilding. Closer collaboration between the two domains, with coordinated and clearer lines of engagement, would advance efforts to prevent extremist violence.

About the Report

This report explores the nexus of counter violent extremism (CVE) and peacebuilding and is written for counterterrorism and CVE experts and peacebuilders. Underpinning this report is the assumption that a stronger bridge between practitioners from both worlds would contribute to a broader understanding and more effective practice of countering violent extremism. The U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) supports CVE objectives by developing and implementing training and capacity building programs for civil society and police and security services in conflict and postconflict areas

About the Author

Georgia Holmer is a senior program officer in USIP’s Center for Gender and Peacebuilding, where she leads the Women Preventing Extremist Violence Project (WPEV). The author acknowledges the valuable input and review provided by David Smock, Kathleen Kuehnast, Colette Rausch, Fiona Mangan, and Fulco Van Deventer.

Related Publications

The Latest @ USIP: How Civil Society is Addressing Haiti’s Crisis

The Latest @ USIP: How Civil Society is Addressing Haiti’s Crisis

Monday, March 25, 2024

By: Dr. Marie-Marcelle Deschamps

In the past few years, life in Haiti has been dominated by gangs’ growing control over huge swathes of the capital, Port-au-Prince. For Haitian families, this crisis has meant extreme violence, pervasive unemployment, lack of education for children and reduced access to health care. 2023 Women Building Peace Award finalist Dr. Marie-Marcelle Deschamps serves as the deputy executive director, the head of the women's health program and the manager of the clinical research unit of GHESKIO Centers in Port-au-Prince. She spoke to USIP about how her work helps women and their families, and what the global community can do to help Haitian civil society address this devastating humanitarian crisis.

Type: Blog

Conflict Analysis & PreventionGender

Myanmar’s Fateful Conscription Law

Myanmar’s Fateful Conscription Law

Monday, February 26, 2024

By: Ye Myo Hein

Earlier this month, Myanmar’s ruling junta enacted a compulsory conscription law that had been dormant since 2010. General Guan Maw, a leader of the Kachin Independence Organization, greeted the junta's decision by comparing it to the 2021 military coup: "If February 1, 2021, was the beginning of the end, the law enforced on February 10, 2024, can be said to mark the end of the end.” As popular reactions to the new conscription plan roll out across the country, General Guan Maw’s pronouncement becomes increasingly prescient.

Type: Analysis

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Report of the Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

Report of the Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

Monday, February 19, 2024

By: USIP Expert Study Group on NATO and Indo-Pacific Partners

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its four partner countries in the Indo-Pacific—Australia, Japan, the Republic of Korea (ROK), and New Zealand—have entered a period of increased engagement. This engagement is taking shape in the context of the war waged by the Russian Federation (Russia) against Ukraine, NATO’s growing awareness of the security challenges posed by the People’s Republic of China (China), and important structural changes in the international system, including the return of strategic competition between the United States and China and Russia. It is occurring not only in bilateral NATO-partner relations but also between NATO and these Indo-Pacific countries as a group.

Type: Report

Conflict Analysis & PreventionCivilian-Military RelationsGlobal PolicyMediation, Negotiation & Dialogue

View All Publications