Online Library

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Radicalization is a global event affecting different countries and present in different historical contexts. Psychiatrists can help in the analysis of radicalization in individuals who operate autonomously from more radicalized groups. These lone actors or lone wolves are more difficult to spot as there is no unique identification because they operate as self-determined women or men. A focus of the current study is on the radicalization of children and women. The use of ethnographic research also using Internet sources has provided satisfactory results in the analysis of radicalization while reducing the risk and difficulties of approaching a sample population (terrorists, lone wolves, and radical groups) that, most of the time, is remote, dangerous and concealed to public scrutiny. Emphasis is also provided to the stages of development of radicalized thought and how radicalization can be understood in terms of cognitive and social development of the lone-wolf terrorist. The authors also explore how a radicalized leader can lever on the vulnerability of some individuals to radicalize them. Besides, the authors approach radicalized thought also as a logical fallacy and as a sign of dualistic thinking. Hence, a mix of cognitive, logical, and psychiatric triggers is analyzed in their potential to radicalize.

Why do Westerners become foreign fighters in civil conflicts? We explore this question through original data collection on German foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq, and test three sets of hypotheses that revolve around socioeconomic integration, online radicalization, and social network mobilization. We conduct link analysis to map the network of German foreign fighters prior to their mobilization, and marshal evidence to assess the validity of competing explanations. We find only modest support for the integration deficit hypothesis, and meager support for the social media radicalization theory. Instead, the preponderance of evidence suggests that interpersonal ties largely drive the German foreign fighter phenomenon. Recruitment featured clustered mobilization and bloc recruitment within interconnected radical milieus, leading us to conclude that peer-to-peer networks are the most important mobilization factor for German foreign fighters.

Cyberhate: The Far Right in the Digital Age explores how right-wing extremists operate in cyberspace by examining their propaganda, funding, subcultures, movements, offline violence, and the ideologies that drive it. Scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and professions including criminal justice, psychology, cybersecurity, religion, law, education, and terrorism studies contribute to provide an extensive analysis of the far-right online political landscape. Specific topics include laws surrounding cyberhate, propaganda, bitcoin funding, online subcultures such as the manosphere, theories that explain why some take the path of violence, and specific movements including the alt-right and the terroristic Atomwaffen Division. Relying on manifestos and other correspondence posted online by recent perpetrators of mass murder, this book focuses on specific groups, individuals, and acts of violence to explain how concepts like “white genocide” and incel ideology have motivated recent deadly violence.

The rise of the Internet has dramatically increased the degree to which youth may be exposed to online hate content, and simplified the process of sharing this content with others. Viewing messages that contain hate speech or language vilifying others can increase an individual’s risk of radicalization to extremist views and the acceptance of violent ideologies. Researchers have begun to explore the risk factors for exposure to such content, with prior studies demonstrating a relationship between low self-control and online activities being important correlates. Few studies have utilized youth samples to assess these relationships, or explored the voluntary consumption and sharing of content. This study attempts to address this gap in the literature using self-report responses provided by a sample of 1,193 youths in South Australia. A series of quantitative models are estimated assessing the relationships between self-control, opportunities to view content using both on and off-line measures, and four dependent variables related to exposure to or sharing of hate content. The implications of this analysis for our understanding of the utility of criminological theory to radicalization and countering violent extremism are discussed in detail.

We analyzed posts written by Facebook profiles who advocate violent jihad without supporting any terrorist group. They share extremist content in the middle of regular posts, thanks to which they are likely to reach a large audience. We identified to what extent their ingroup-outgroup opposition is constructed in crisis, identity, and solution frames and how they use these frames in posts which sometimes breach Facebook’s community standards, but which mostly circumvent them through various strategies of doublespeak. Among them, myth, in the sense of Barthes, and eudaimonic content appeared as particularly powerful to naturalize and spread jihadi ideology on social media.