In a post-9/11 environment, the Department for International Development (DFID) shifted its strategic focus towards an integrationist approach that aligned mainstream development programming with the national security agenda. A key part of those reforms was integrating counterterrorism – directly and indirectly – into DFID's portfolio. Using a feminist institutionalist approach, I examine how discourses about women, development, security, and counterterrorism are reproduced through a ‘development-security-counterterrorism nexus’. Within the nexus, DFID represents a key site for the production, reproduction, and evolution of gendered discursive practices1 about women. I argue that institutional evolution is possible through a process of discursive evolution where certain discourses become more or less engrained or ‘sedimented’2 depending on the presence of alternative ideas and knowledges. The central research question asks how did gender-sensitive development work evolve after 9/11 and what factors influenced and shaped this evolution? The main findings were that as counterterrorism aims, objectives, and methods became more emphasised in UK development programming, a sense of institutional incoherence and poor strategic direction adversely affected how gender-sensitive programming was designed and implemented. Furthermore, I conclude that gendered development policy was largely based on assumptions rather than evidence, which negatively impacted how programmes were implemented.

The “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria” (ISIS) is the main source of instability, not only in Iraq and Syria, but also throughout the Middle East. The instability poses a danger for the other parts of the world because of the influx of foreign fighters to the region. Extremists have taken advantage of the continuing conflicts in Iraq and Syria, with Syria in particular serving as a magnet for thousands of foreign fighters from more than 90 countries. While most of these ISIS combatants are men, many women have left their countries behind to join the “caliphate” and support its cause. Social media have played a key role in luring women to join ISIS. This study therefore analyzed the ISIS organization’s social media propaganda and grass-roots recruitment activities aimed at women in Turkey. The results of the analysis provide important information about the strategies that ISIS uses to spread its ideology.

This article offers an introduction for constructing family self-help groups or parent associations in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE) and deradicalization. These support group interventions are an essential addition to recently developed family counseling CVE programs, which have been created in multiple countries since 2012. Based on interviews with parents of deceased foreign terrorist fighters, this article was able to identify the most pressing practical needs of parents and to suggest specific measures to address these. The most important needs voiced by parents are: loneliness, trauma, understanding, acquiring a death certificate, access to personal files, problems with child care (criminalization), and fear of the media. Support groups can be designed to address these issues with a specific CVE focus.