Preventing radicalisation in Belgium

During the 2000s and 2010s Belgium found itself at the centre of European concern over Islamist radicalisation for both its position as a ‘staging area’ for attacks in other European countries, along with seeing the highest number of foreign fighters per capita leave to fight in recent wars in Algeria, Iraq and Syria than any other European country. In response, Belgium introduced more expanded, connected and comprehensive measures to tackle and prevent radicalisation, which have had significant effects for the country’s welfare and crime prevention work more generally. In this chapter we outline Belgium’s approach to the prevention of radicalisation, and analyse how they have been implemented across different spheres, what understandings of ‘radicalisation’ they are based on, and their wider effects on prevention and welfare work in the country. We show how, in part a result of Belgium’s complex federal structure, a patchwork of understandings and responses of what the issue is and how to address it emerged, and this has created tensions between repressive and social domains, where different and sometimes competing forces can push and pull against one another.