Online Library

Applying cutting-edge psychiatric theories to an analysis of online Taliban literature in four languages, Neil Krishan Aggarwal constructs a game-changing narrative of the organization’s broad appeal and worldview.
Aggarwal focuses on the Taliban’s creation of culture, evoking religion in Arabic and English writings, nationalism in Dari sources, and regionalism in Urdu texts. The group also promotes a specific form of argumentation, citing religious scriptures in Arabic works, canonical poets in Dari and Urdu writings, and scholars and journalists in English publications. We see clearly how the Taliban categorizes all Muslims as members and all non-Muslims as outsiders; how they convince Muslims of the need for violence; and how they apply the insider/outside dichotomy to foreign policy. By isolating these themes, Aggarwal helps us craft better counter-messaging strategies.

This research paper examines and assesses how members of the Somali jihadi insurgent group al-Shabaab have attempted to influence the mass media for strategic communications purposes. Using the group’s activities between the years 2005 and 2017 as a case study, this paper asserts that al-Shabaab’s attempts to influence the mass media for news coverage purposes, despite its own operational security concerns since it withdrew from Mogadishu in 2011, is forward-looking, fast-paced, aggressive, and by and large successful. But the conclusions also assert that despite the group’s focused strategic communications and its opportunistic use of Propaganda of the Deed, its successes correlate directly to the failure of the poor and generally uncoordinated communications efforts of the international coalition working to counter it. The generally poor handling of strategic communications by an expensive combination of the Somali government, the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), the United Nations (UN), and some members of the international community has allowed the strategic communications of al-Shabaab a relatively free, unchecked, and unchallenged passage. In some cases related to major attacks, al-Shabaab’s strategic communications are even viewed by members of the mass media as more authentic, realistic, timely, and truthful, than those of those of the coalition working to counter it.

VOX-Pol Blog post.

The article examines online radicalization of youth on social networks. Based on a review of the existing literature on radicalization, I first defined its understanding. Having examined the existing approaches, I joined the opinion that radicalism leads to violence only in some cases. I distinguish between “cognitive” radicalization, or the formation of extreme beliefs, and “behavioral” radicalization, which leads to extremist behavior. Thus, radicalization is the process of accepting certain ideas that can lead to possible violent actions. Online radicalization is a reality that has emerged in the last 10-15 years due to the rapid development of online social networks. I understand it as the formation of radical views, yet mainly through interaction with various types of Internet content and not direct personal communication or written study of propaganda materials. Further, also based on monitoring of relevant sources, I developed a model of risk factors that can trigger the radicalization process. Of the many possible factors, I chose, in my opinion, the most significant ones. Firstly, these are social macro-level risk factors that violate norms and homeostasis, creating internal tensions, namely: the ongoing conflict with the West and existential threats of its escalation, the prevalence of ideologies that justify violence, the formation of a new information and semantic environment of fakes and simulacra, socio-economic problems, dangers of social disintegration. Secondly, these are age-psychological risk factors for changes in the consciousness and behavior of young people in a harmful direction, namely: the search for a new belonging, provocative behavior and nonconformism. I believe that the onset of radicalization among young people is initiated by the inability of some of them to satisfactorily solve their age-related developmental tasks in the context of increasing problematization of the social environment. Finally, I presented a model of the mechanisms of online radicalization as the realization of offline potential. These are interconnected mechanisms, namely: compensation for vulnerability, consolidation of isolation through online immersion, facilitation, echo chambers, acceleration of radicalization, launching actions offline.

VOX-Pol Blog Post.

The RAN small-scale expert meeting on (young) women’s usage of social media and lessons learned for preventing violet extremism (PVE) was aimed at unpacking some of the gaps. This paper summarises the highlights of the discussion, discusses the vulnerabilities that are specific to (young) women, explains how recruiters use these vulnerabilities online and, finally, presents the recommendations that the experts stressed during the meeting.