Translating Ideas into Actions: Analyzing Local Strategic Work to Counter Violent Extremism

Abstract

Despite the growing importance of local action to counter violent extremism (CVE), empirical research on the local organization and management of CVE is scarce, especially regarding public administrators' strategic work to translate policies and recommendations into frontline practice. Based mainly on ethnographic data and departing from new institutional theory, the paper refines our understanding of the symbolic, material, and relational work used to translate a diverse flow of ideas into concrete action in diverse institutional settings. Due to the institutional complexity, the cultural skill of the local CVE coordinator is identified as pivotal to successfully legitimizing and implementing CVE efforts.

Translating to Maintain Existing Practices: Micro-tactics in the implementation of a new management concept

“…Focusing on the responses, translation studies have begun further exploring the micro-tactics that translating actors develop. Actors translate global field-level ideas at multiple levels of society through active contextualization and entrepreneurship work (Andersson Malmros, 2021; Gond & Boxenbaum, 2013; Ritvala & Granqvist, 2009), as well as through various linking activities to pave the way for adherence in local organizations (Heinze et al, 2016; Outila et al, 2021). The translators themselves also affect the translation responses because of their considerable vigilance and commitment, in addition to their reflections and emotions connected to expressions of institutionalized beliefs (Cassell & Lee, 2017; Lawrence, 2017; Thøgersen, 2022).…”