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In recent years, radicalisation has greatly evolved. Armed conflicts from failed states have boosted radicalisation inside the EU, and the rise of foreign terrorist fighters (FTF) is only an example. Thousands of the EU citizens have joined the war theatres of Syria and Iraq. As a result, radicalized returnees with combat skills and indoctrinated against European values pose a great threat to the security of EU. Furthermore, terrorist propaganda led to uncoordinated attacks of home-grown lone actor terrorists, difficult to detect before they strike. A response strategy to the above mentioned societal trends might be dealing with their root causes. Education and good quality training remain at the central core of building a resilient society against extremist ideologies and radicalisation, as well as of having first line practitioners that hold expertise. Practitioners like intelligence officers, community police officers, prison and probation officers, law enforcement, youth and social workers, healthcare professionals and others, are valuable key actors in the prevention and combat of radicalization. Each one of them provides a part of the solution; there is no single actor that can prevent the phenomenon on its own. Therefore, it is important that they all know how to contribute. Training practitioners in the spirit of creating a multi-agency network where they can share both expertise and information is a key solution to efficiently combating radicalization. In addition to this, having a society resilient to radicalisation is part of the wider desideratum of promoting a security culture among civil society. Building a resilient society means transforming teaching institutions into "labs for democracy" and "training the teachers" because they are at the frontline when it comes to potentially identifying early signs of radicalisation, besides raising awareness through educational programs and public campaigns or round tables that address the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The majority of scientific contributions coming from interrelated disciplines such as psychology, communication sciences, and sociology argue that people generally use personal frames to interpret and give meaning to reality, in other words perceptions "have a reality of their own." Thus, the existing literature promotes the idea that there are "realities" (which means that the idea of "correctness" applied to reality is erroneous), while the objectivity and fairness are excluded as reference criteria. By translating this conclusion into the national security framework, it becomes obvious that each social actor approaches security in accordance with their own references, establishing alternative or different meanings. In this context, by assuming the subjective dimension of security and the importance of individual perceptions in the definition of security risks, any attempt to develop a national security culture must address the challenge of "reconciling" individual perceptions of security risks with the way specialised institutions with responsibilities in the field of national security understand risk. At the same time, by analysing social perceptions, the article aims at identifying potential solutions for a better social insertion of the complex doctrinal-strategic definitions of national security risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]