Initially intended to encourage market competitiveness and reduce public sector spending after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, the UK’s austerity policies failed to meaningfully safeguard the most vulnerable citizens from harm. Austerity cuts were not equally experienced across regions, with English local authorities facing more severe cuts compared to Scottish or Welsh authorities whose devolved governments had more flexibility to find alternative ways of stimulating the market. Therefore, English local authorities were more at risk to the harmful effects of austerity. Austerity cuts can be linked to exacerbated levels of deprivation, decreased quality of living, and a persevering sense of injustice about the state’s reduction of support for those most in need. This has the potential to create extensive economic, social, and health harms, with these often being felt more by citizens in declining post-industrial cities. Whilst the harms of austerity policy are typically perceived as being solely limited to worsening inequalities, in order to create meaningful counterterrorism policies attention must be given to the impact austerity could potentially have on radicalisation.
Whilst there are a multitude of different factors theorised to be influential in radicalisation processes, risk factors related to austerity exist across micro and macro levels. At a micro level deficient life skills, social exclusion, and perceptions of inequality are risk factors for radicalisation. As austerity cuts reduce the availability of government provided development programmes in already deprived areas, this could increase the vulnerability of at-risk individuals. Moreover, cuts to council-run youth centres could strip young people of the chance to be effectively safeguarded and engage in early-intervention strategies. Furthermore, austerity has widened inequalities and increased identity-based tensions, creating frustrations about being left behind by the state that can be exploited by radicalised groups. At a macro level austerity has worsened ghettoisation and poverty, and eroded community-wide safety nets through cutting government funded support. If at-risk individuals feel that extremist networks can better support them, they may be enticed to join these groups.
Despite this argument about the association between austerity and radicalisation, to create holistic counterterrorism policies it is essential to consider that not all radicalisation risk factors are related to austerity and that radicalisation pathways are unique. For example: experiences of physical abuse in childhood, family dysfunction, and exposure to fake news can be considered risk factors in radicalisation processes despite having a tenuous link to austerity, and austerity alone is not enough to radicalise an individual. Moreover, when debating the relationship between austerity and radicalisation it is essential that deprived communities are not stigmatised and that conclusive language is avoided. There is no single socio-economic group where membership alone increases the susceptibility to radicalisation. Therefore, risk factors potentially related to austerity must be considered in the context of individuals’ own exterior vulnerabilities and exposure to other risk factors.
To understand the association between austerity, deprivation, and radicalisation, the English Indices of Deprivation, HM Treasury’s County and Regional Analysis, the Public Spending Statistics Release, and Channel case totals (reflecting referrals to the UK’s early intervention programme Prevent which are then assessed to have a genuine risk of radicalisation) can be compared. When looking into English regions it can be argued that austerity has worsened deprivation which can then be associated with an increase in radicalisation. For example: the North West saw the highest average Channel case totals, routinely scored as one of the most deprived regions, and also experienced the highest percentage expenditure cuts through austerity measures. On the reverse, the South West was routinely the second-least deprived region, had minor austerity cuts compared to other English regions, and had the lowest level of Channel cases as a measure of radicalisation. This suggests that austerity cuts could contribute to radicalisation risk, potentially due to perceptions of being left behind by the state, a decrease in early-intervention opportunities, and inequality.
Despite this, it must be recognised that this pattern is not evident in every English region. For example, the South East scored as the least deprived yet had the second highest average yearly amount of Channel cases. This could be as less deprived regions have more operational capacity to make Prevent referrals and therefore measure radicalisation. However, it could also highlight the importance of recognising that no single factor is responsible for radicalisation and that radicalisation processes are individualistic.
Overall, if the argument that austerity and radicalisation are related, this has significant implications for policymakers and governments. The UK’s current security-based approach to radicalisation neglects to holistically address the impact of deprivation and austerity, whilst if the argument that these factors are related is followed this approach should be amended to consider broader structural reinvestment in left-behind communities.