Actionable Community Engagement Strategies for Government Officers: PVE in Context

Abstract

Despite being in limelight for nearly a decade, the discourse on PVE is overly vague and largely speculative. Although the non-kinetic predisposition of PVE outlines a boundary of sorts, there is confusion over the specificity of roles that need to be played out by key actors such as government officials. This article sets out to identify actionable strategies that will not only help rationalize the otherwise abstract contours of PVE but will also enable government officials to develop and carry out targeted PVE interventions in a community that is either vulnerable to or a victim of violent extremism. Even though the proposed strategies are applicable to the Pakistani context, they can adequately be modified to fit other contexts as well. The PVE strategies being proposed in this article are by no means exhaustive, since not only is there room for more potential strategies but the specificity of the context could verily necessitate an entirely new set of strategies.