Sketch of a Social Ecology Model for Explaining Homegrown Terrorist Radicalisation

The study of homegrown jihadi terrorist radicalisation has veered from early efforts to theorise what was happening, which were often insufficiently grounded in empirical evidence, to a reticence to theorise much at all, given the perceived complexity of the phenomenon. Yet knowledge acquisition and mobilisation in this relatively new field remains acutely dependent on how we conceptualise what is happening and integrate our findings. This Research Note provides an initial argument for the merits of adopting a fairly straightforward ecological approach to organising and extending our grasp of the social and social psychological factors influencing the career of potential jihadists.