Introduction: The entangled web of social exclusion and radicalisation

In a world marked by shifting paradigms and emergent challenges, The Routledge Handbook on Social Exclusion and Radicalisation explores the intricate relationship between social exclusion and radicalisation on a global scale. Critically challenging prevailing tendencies to consider radicalisation from single-level or individualistic perspectives, we argue for a comprehensive approach that embeds radicalisation within the broader context of socio-political, economic, and cultural dynamics of exclusion and marginalisation. This requires examining the multidimensional dynamics of marginalisation, to account for the interlocking and mutually reinforcing interplay of identity and society, the objective and subjective realities of exclusion, and the role that power (and powerlessness) plays in exclusion. This provides a means for then theorising how social exclusion interlinks with complex, non-linear processes of radicalisation, on all levels of society. In a world beset by fractious politics, sharpening inequality, and the increasing global breakdown of the social contract, this chapter introduces some of the key ideas, evidence, and theories, from a variety of scholarly fields and lenses, that help to illuminate the entangled web of social exclusion and radicalisation.