US Policies on Violent Extremism (CVE) in the Era of George W.Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump

30.01.2024 | Dergah KISACIK

This study compares the USA’s Counter Violent Extremism (CVE) policies of the George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald TRUMP administrations by examining the US National Security Strategy Documents (SSDs) between 2001 and 2021. It seeks any evidence of whether meaningful changes have occurred or not. For this purpose, I initially discussed CVE policies, literature, and how terror threat assessments are made in the SSDs. After that, I tried to analyze the SSDs. The analysis of the SSDs was made with the content analysis method, which is one of the sub-branches of the qualitative research method. The study revealed that there was no interest in CVE policies in the first Bush Era because of his ‘war metaphor’, but a few began in the second Bush Era. The ‘war metaphor’ of the first and second Bush Era resulted with negative and heavy consequences. In the Obama Era, CVE policies were tried to implement but caused some Islamophobia consequences. In the Trump Era, the CVE policies underwent a major transformation; the discursive sensitivity toward Islam was totally lost, and the word of ‘terror’ dangerously started to be used with word of ‘Islam’. The study is important to show the official views and practices of the USA between 2001 and 2021.

Kısacık, D. (2024). US Policies on Violent Extremism (CVE) in the Era of George W.Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. Journal of Terrorism and Radicalization Studies, 3(1), pp.44-68, DOI: 10.61314/traddergi.1291659