Does "Terrorism" make sense?

A case study

Resumo

This paper approaches political (de)radicalization from the conflict transformation lenses (Lederach, 2015) to analyze the data collected in a case study, which was conducted in Lebanon in 2017 and 2018. This study includes seven semi-structured in-depth interviews with seven ex-combatants and one set of focus group interviews with twenty ex-combatants. The analysis of the generated data aims to understand the radicalization and de-radicalization processes and to identify the driving factors of twenty-three ex-combatants. Besides the important role of various common driving factors that scholars, in general, reached a consensus about, the conflict transformation perspectives on (de)-radicalization uncovers two new mechanisms. The first one is the “I did not know – I did not trust” and the second one is “Normality of Violence”. These two mechanisms were fundamental driving factors in the (de)radicalization processes of the participants in this case study. Likewise, the results of this case study supported the opinion suggesting a minimal role of ideology in (de)radicalization processes and political violence.