Samenvatting

In this article we deal with the role of government in encouraging the decline of radical movements. We use the survey of factors promoting decline reported by Demant et al. (2008a). This overview will be further developed regarding the factor ‘official policy strategies’ on the basis of certain concepts taken from discourse analysis, adapted to counterterrorism and deradicalization strategies by De Graaf in 2009. The question posed is: ‘Which “narrative” can the government tell to encourage the decline of radical groups?’ We will therefore not address the different practical measures in this field, but focus instead on the perception of these official measures by the radicals. We will illustrate this process by means of a case-study: the deradicalization of South Moluccan youths in the 1970s. We will furthermore draw some lines to deradicalization of Jihadist radicals after 2001, also in the Netherlands.