Drivers to Violent Extremism in South Eastern Europe – the North Macedonian Context

The Balkans are usually unjustly overlooked when discussing terrorism and violent extremism in the world today. Although not a region where many terrorist incidents occur, the Balkans are the main ‘suppliers’ of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTF-s) who fight in the Middle East. International statistics rank Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Albania as the biggest sources of FTF-s as per capita of state population. North Macedonia is a part of this reality. This article aims to analyse the drivers to violent extremism in this region. It will try to establish that weak state institutions as well as failure to deal with hate crimes, marginalization and discrimination contribute decisively in the rates of FTF-s coming from this region. It will correlate with the poverty, lack of perspective for the youth, and poor educational systems as a separate category of drivers, as well as try to explain the importance of the conflict history as a very important driver to violent extremism. Most of the Balkan countries updated their legislation criminalizing any kind of involvement with foreign armies; however, not all of them have developed comprehensive and transparent strategies for implementation of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) and Preventing Violent Extremism (PVE) policies. The article will provide recommendations for developing such strategies