Countering Violent Extremism Among Youth: The Turkish Case

An alternative way to reducing terrorism may be to understand why individuals, especially youth, join violent extremist groups. Such an understanding prevail the boundaries that need to be overcome in order to develop counter policies to discourage membership in such organizations. The study refers to the hierarchy of needs framework to capture why adults and youth prefer to be within extremist violent groups. In other words, the study is designed to find out what perceived needs commonly motivate individuals to join terror groups. The research uses Turkey's terrorism experience as a case study and introduces actual applied non-lethal policies to prevent youth becoming engaged in violent extremism.