October 2020 — FHI 360 completed the Perceptions of VE Drivers: A Quantitative Analysis study in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in 2020. Researchers applied multilevel latent class models to estimate the prevalence of support for violent extremism (VE) in the Central Sahel region, to identify its determinants and to track its evolution between 2008 and 2019. This report reviews the determinants of radicalization, describes the study’s hypothesis and methodological approach, and presents the main empirical findings about the fundamental drivers of radicalization, focusing primarily on drivers of female radicalization. A key finding is that the proportion of women in the region supporting violent extremism has doubled over the last decade, underscoring the urgent need for programmatic measures.
