"The globalisation of Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) policies is the most significant development in counterterrorism policy in the last decade" (Kundnani & Hayes, 2018). Unthinkable 20 years ago, there is now a broad consensus among European governments on the necessity of developing P/CVE responses to ever-increasing phenomena of polarisation, violence and terrorist activity. At both European and national levels, authorities are increasingly engaging community-based organisations and social service providers in their programmes. Collaborative ("multi-stakeholder") approaches that team-up actors from civil society organizations and government programs are seen as the most effective on the field, especially when the appropriate front-line practitioners are engaged: educators, youth and social workers, penal services, community centres, etc.
This article builds on existing literature from Critical Terrorism Studies and EU Studies, as well as novel qualitative data, to understand the transnational governance of counterterrorism in Europe. It argues that the EU is engaging in de-facto indirect governance of a certain area of counterterrorism, namely P/CVE, in the national sphere, via privileged access to the main implementers of P/CVE locally, civil society first-line practitioners. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates how indirect governance is primarily achieved through funding opportunities, knowledge production and practitioner socialization through an EU agency, the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), which trains and networks national practitioners in the appropriate knowledge and approaches to P/CVE, as well as producing its own research. This paper proposes that setting up practitioner knowledge creation/dissemination networks has allowed the EU to gain access to the field. The paper uses orchestration theory as a theoretical framework to analyse instances of indirect EU governance of P/CVE. Insights are drawn from qualitative interview fieldwork among EU policy actors and practitioners, as well as an ethnographic stay within the European Commission.
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