By Rachel Kleinfeld

The United States feels roiled by polarization, and the philanthropic world is seized with debates about what to do. Some scholars claim that Americans are so polarized they are on the brink of civil war. Other polls suggest that voters agree on plenty of policies and that polarization is an illusion. Some philanthropists call for pluralism and civility, while others lean into activism, believing polarization is a byproduct of change toward a more just world. So, is the United States polarized or not? If it is, what is causing the polarization and what are its consequences? Should polarization be solved or tolerated? This paper is intended to answer these questions. It opens with five facts about polarization in the United States today and what those imply for possible interventions. A literature review follows, organized chronologically to explain the scholarly shift from thinking of polarization as an ideological, policy-based phenomenon to an issue of emotion, as well as the emerging understanding of polarization as both a social phenomenon and a political strategy. This paper is organized as follows. Part I: Introduction Five Facts About Polarization in the United States What This Understanding Means for Interventions Part II: The Literature on Polarization First Generation Understanding: Elite Ideological Polarization Polarization Is Policy Difference, and Congress Is the Problem How Was America Polarized? What Caused Elite Polarization? Interventions to Reduce Policy-Based Polarization Among Political Elites Second Generation Understanding: Mass Affective Polarization Polarization Is Emotional Dislike Based on Identity That Affects Regular People How Was America Polarized? What Is Causing Affective Polarization? Interventions to Reduce Affective Polarization Third Generation Understanding: Cracks in the Foundations Reducing Affective Polarization May Not Impact Violent or Antidemocratic Attitudes Antidemocratic Attitudes Political Violence Political Structures Affect Incentives to Polarize Part III: Conclusion What We (Think We) Know in 2023 Ideological Polarization Affective Polarization Washington, DC:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2023. 74p.

By The Media Accountability Project

Media depictions of gun violence deeply influence how we perceive the individuals perpetuating or victimized in incidents, whether we feel safe, and how society collectively racializes crime and violence. The language that the media uses to describe individuals involved in gun violence incidents has evolved but remains deeply and problematically tied to race and other identities, as seen by the different connotations of “domestic terrorist,” “thug,” and “individual suffering from a mental illness” used to describe gun violence-involved individuals of different ethnicities and races. The impact of these depictions on the public can be profound, as differences in portrayals of gun violence, based on the race of those involved and where incidents occur, may reinforce harmful racial stereotypes and influence public support for gun reform policies. Most research examining gun violence in the media, 1-3 however, tends to overwhelmingly focus on deadly mass shootings and school shootings—fatalities that comprise only a fraction of firearm deaths—and overshadows more common forms of violence that routinely devastates cities across the United States, especially in Black and Latino communities. To better understand the way that media representations of shootings are influenced by race and place, Community Justice partnered with researchers at Northwestern University and the Center for Neighborhood Engaged Research and Science (CORNERS) to collect large portions of the U.S. media landscape on gun violence and analyze it using advanced computational and statistical methods. The goal of the project is to determine the extent to which racial differences among the individuals and communities where gun violence occurs create real, measurable differences in the way that incidents are reported and ultimately viewed. By understanding the relationship between race and media coverage of gun violence incidents, this Media Accountability Project aims to help news outlets, journalists, educators, and community stakeholders build more just

Chicago: Media Accountability Project, Northwestern University, 2024 14p.

By Jessica White, Claudia Wallner, Galen Lamphere-Englund, Love Frankie, Rachel Kowert, Linda Schlegel, Ashton Kingdon, Alexandra Phelan, Alex Newhouse, Gonzalo Saiz and Petra Regeni

As the popularity and social significance of online gaming have surged, with more than three billion gamers encompassing a broad spectrum of the global population, the urgency to understand how gaming spaces constitute formative identity- and community-building environments is more essential than ever. While acknowledging that many gamers have positive experiences, this project aims to understand, through a gender and intersectional lens, how socialisation processes coupled with exposure to harassment, hate-based discrimination and extreme content can potentially lower resilience to radicalisation in gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces. Governments are increasingly paying attention to this issue, considering regulatory requirements and effective intervention designs. This heightened awareness necessitates a deeper analysis of the nuances and complexities of the threats and risks. Therefore, this report aims to provide much-needed analysis of these issues, guiding the reader through the key research findings of the project ‘Examining Socialization with a Nexus to Radicalization Across Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms Through a Gender Lens’, which was funded by Public Safety Canada, led by RUSI and implemented by a consortium of members of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network. Taking a cross-cultural global approach and drawing on primary survey data and data collected from and on multiple gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms, this project aims to provide accessible gender-sensitive research analysis, along with pragmatic recommendations for practitioners and policymakers engaged in these spaces. Following a conceptual framing section and a chapter outlining project scope and methodology, project analysis highlights the following four key analytical focuses: 1. An assessment of the prevalence of harmful, toxic and extremist content in gaming spaces. 2. Identification of the importance of (offline) identity and culture in the formation of gamer identity and communities. 3. Analysis of gender norms and dynamics in gaming communities and their potential exploitation for radicalisation and recruitment. 4. Exploration of where gendered socialisation processes combined with normalised exposure to extreme ideas and content can reduce resilience to radicalisation. Overall, this project adds new insights to the growing body of research on the topic of extremism and gaming through the gender and intersectional lens it applies to understanding the complex relationships between gaming, identity, community and radicalisation. Additionally, it breaks ground with the focus on cross-cultural data collection. However, it also highlights the need for further research to fully grasp how these dynamics play out across different contexts and identities, contributing to more nuanced and effective approaches to countering radicalisation in gaming spaces.

London: Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies RUSI, 2024. 81p.

By Rosie Cornish and Iain Brennan

Evidence for or against a causal effect of school exclusion on offending is inhibited by random allocation not being available on ethical grounds. To advance understanding of the connection between school exclusion and ofending—specifcally, serious violent ofending—we emulate a randomized controlled trial using a target trial framework and a linkage of national education and justice data. Across more than 20,000 matched pairs of excluded and not excluded children exclusion was associated with at least a doubling of risk for perpetrating serious violence (hazard ratio 2.05, 95% CI: 1.83, 2.29) and homicide/near-miss homicide (2.36, 95% CI: 1.04, 5.36) within 12 months of target trial entry. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and policy in education and criminal justice as well as discussing the extent to which the observed relationships can be considered causal.

The British Journal of Criminology, 2025, 20p.

By NINA-SIMONE EDWARDS

What would the future look like if the privacy invasions that Black Americans are currently subjected to were not so normalized? This Note brings an Afrofuturistic perspective to the analysis of Terry stops, putting forward an alternative legal paradigm that uplifts Black Americans, their privacy, and their experiences, rather than police practices. Part I of this Note looks to the past, drawing on Afrofuturism’s tenant of reclamation, and assesses the development of vagrancy laws. Under these laws, vague legal standards allowed law enforcement to criminalize Black people after the end of slavery, punishing those who fell outside of the “white box,” or the social norms ascribed to whiteness. This threat of state violence swallowed any meaningful expectation of privacy, carrying forward the legacy of enslavement. Part II then discusses the similarities between the violations of privacy found in vagrancy laws and violations of privacy found in the use of Terry stops today. Terry stops, and the resulting threat of constant surveillance, have changed how Black Americans navigate public space. Like the vague standards in vagrancy laws, the requirement of “reasonable suspicion” to conduct a stop is weaponized by law enforcement to punish those outside of the “white box.” Further, this Note argues that the current Constitutional threshold for assessing whether state action violates the Fourth Amendment—whether someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy—is defcient. It too is a function of the “white box,” and fails to account for the Black American experience. Moreover, use of this standard maintains the status quo and fails to guarantee actual privacy. Part III then envisions what the law could look like under Afrofuturism; a future where we actually work to address the systemic harms imposed by Terry stops.

GEO. J. L. & MOD. CRIT. RACE PERSP. [Vol. 15:157, 2023., 29p.

By Paddy Kinyera

Uganda’s emerging oil industry could paradoxically undermine its socioeconomic development. This is because of opportunities for corruption, including in project expenditure, procurement, land acquisition, and revenue collection. The government has introduced several anti-corruption measures and other initiatives are attempting to maximise the industry’s benefits while limiting its socioeconomic costs. Further collective actions across government, civil society, and the international community are needed to limit corruption’s impacts.

  Main points ▪ Corruption remains a real threat to the oil industry as it is deeply entrenched in the country’s political economy, affecting every sector. ▪ Generally, corruption has become a lucrative venture in Uganda, operated by ‘gainful concealment’. ▪ The oil industry offers rich ground for corruption, as evidenced to date by cases arising from project implementation by private firms. ▪ As part of institutional measures to guard the oil industry against corruption, the government created the Petroleum Fund within the Public Finance Management Act (2015) to prevent mismanagement of oil revenues. ▪ Existing institutions and structures are mainly constrained by bureaucracy, unresponsiveness, disjointed operations, and limits to legal mandates.   

U4 ISSUE 2024:7   

Bergen: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre , Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), 2024. 28p.

By Sara Rahman

AIM To evaluate the impact of the first phase of the Mandatory Alcohol Interlock Program (MAIP), introduced in NSW in February 2015, on repeat drink-driving, driving while disqualified, traffic infringements, and crash outcomes. METHOD We use a dataset of 98,501 observations involving offenders with a proven ‘exceed the prescribed concentration of alcohol’ (PCA) offence or a ‘refuse to provide a breath sample’ offence finalised in a NSW court between 1 June 2012 and 30 April 2018. We identify the impact of taking up an alcohol interlock on reoffending and road crashes using a regression discontinuity design. This analysis compares outcomes for first-time PCA offenders in a small bandwidth on either side of the high range blood alcohol concentration (BAC) threshold of .15. We also estimate the overall impact of the introduction of MAIP on drink driving and road crashes using a difference-in-differences approach. This compares outcomes for eligible and ineligible offenders before and after the introduction of the program. We implement a range of robustness checks and analyse outcomes for various groups of offenders, including those receiving different interlock periods, and those with different demographic characteristics and criminal histories. RESULTS MAIP reduced the likelihood of drink driving during the interlock period for first-time high range PCA offenders who start the program by 11 percentage points (p.p.; a reduction of 86%) compared to mid range offenders just below the high range PCA threshold. We also observe reductions in PCA offending within 36 months of finalisation (of 3.4 p.p.; 43%) and within 60 months of finalisation (of 6.0 p.p.; 43%) among all eligible offenders compared to offenders committing eligible offences before the program’s introduction. The program reduces traffic infringements committed after court finalisation, but these effects are concentrated among repeat low range PCA drink drivers. We do not find significant effects of the program on reducing the likelihood of involvement in an alcohol-related crash nor on crashes resulting in injuries and fatalities. The reductions in PCA offending are particularly large for offenders convicted of the most severe offences (i.e., repeat high range drink driving and repeat refuse to provide a breath sample offenders), those residing in disadvantaged areas, and to a lesser extent, those residing outside major cities. CONCLUSION Alcohol interlocks significantly reduce drink driving while interlocks are active and (to a modest extent) following their removal.

(Crime and Justice Bulletin No. 251), Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. 2022. 35p.

By Mark B. Johnson, Adam Gilberston, Scott McKnight

With the recent liberalization of cannabis control laws, increasingly larger numbers of drivers are testing positive for cannabis. Research suggests many cannabis users believe driving under the influence of the drug is relatively safe. The purpose of this multiphase project was to understand cannabis users’ thoughts, perceptions, and reasons for driving under the influence of cannabis and develop public health messages that might deter users from impaired driving in the future. The project had three main phases: message development, message ranking, and message validation. In the message development phase, the research team conducted 11 focus groups with subgroups of 88 cannabis users with a history of drugged driving. Subgroups included older adults, middle-aged adults, younger adults, medical cannabis users, recreational cannabis users, habitual users, occasional users, those in recreational-legal states, those in recreational-illegal states, and those who regularly use alcohol and cannabis together. Drawing on focus group discussions, the research team developed messages designed to persuade cannabis users not to drive under the influence. These were supplemented with messages edited from a ChatGPT query “What are some messages to convince people not to drive under the influence of cannabis?” In the message ranking phase, two samples of cannabis users were recruited to help identify message effectiveness. Using an online survey platform, the first sample of cannabis users (n=63) was asked to rank the messages within randomized blocks in terms of their perceived effectiveness. Results identified the top ranked individual messages. Next, a second sample of cannabis users (n=50) were asked to rank the most promising messages head-to-head. Once the messages were ranked, the research team selected three messages to evaluate in the message validation phase. To validate the messages, participants were presented with a hypothetical scenario where a person consumed cannabis to the point of feeling high, but suddenly realized that they needed to go somewhere and it was important to leave almost immediately. One of the risk messages was then integrated into the scenario. After reading it, participants were asked to imagine themselves in that situation and indicate how likely it would be (percent) that they would drive in that situation (as opposed to taking an Uber or following some other path). Participants also answered questions about demographics, cannabis use, and personality characteristics. Finally, the most promising message from this stage was compared with a poorer scoring message to validate the viability of the message. Analysis of the focus groups discussions identified six broad themes that may be useful in developing messages to deter cannabis-impaired driving:    • Legal and financial consequences • Safety concerns • Statistics and science • Narrative or testimonial • Personal responsibility • Separating cannabis use from driving. The analysis showed little evidence that different cohorts of users identified more strongly with specific themes or message types. In general, however, focus group discussants suggested the most effective messages would be those that (a) were positive, (b) were realistic, (c) avoided stereotypes, and (d) reflected diversity. The ranking exercise indicated that messages that highlighted personal responsibility and safety concerns performed better than messages based on legal risks and separating cannabis use from driving. The top-rated messages from the ranking study were the following: • Driving high isn't just reckless; it's selfish. Think twice before getting behind the wheel after using marijuana. • You wouldn't drink and drive, so why drive high? Don’t drive under the influence of marijuana. • Marijuana impairs your judgement, slows your reactions, and increases your risk of crashing. Don’t drive high. In the validation study, exposing participants to the top-rated “Driving high isn’t just reckless; it’s selfish…” message resulted in significantly lower willingness to drive scores (19.9%) than a poorer scoring message from the ranking study (34.2%). The relatively large effect of the “Driving high isn’t just reckless; it’s selfish…” message on willingness to drive persisted for high-risk users including habitual users, those who frequently drove under the influence, recreational users, and those who lived in recreational-legal states. While this study produced a list of messages to deter driving after cannabis use, the message that “Driving high isn’t just reckless; it’s selfish…” seemed more effective than other messages in terms of lowering participants’ willingness to drive under the influence in a hypothetical scenario. Notably, this message was developed by ChatGPT, rather than the focus group process, a finding that warrants further exploration. Participants’ ranking of messages appeared relatively consistent with findings on message effectiveness (as measured by participant reports of willingness to engage in the behavior). Strategically, to increase efficiency, future message development approaches could consider quickly constructing many messages (with less concern for quality), followed by an inexpensive ranking process to narrow down the most effective messages. However, even the best messages will only affect a portion of the people exposed to them. Multimethod, multifaceted approaches are needed to achieve sizeable population reductions in impaired driving.

Washington DC: AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety; 2025l 53p.

By Pablo Madriaza, Ghayda Hassan, Sébastien Brouillette-Alarie, Aoudou Njingouo Mounchingam, Loïc Durocher-Corfa, Eugene Borokhovski, David Pickup, Sabrina Paillé

The problem: People use social media platforms to chat, search, and share information, express their opinions, and connect with others. But these platforms also facilitate the posting of divisive, harmful, and hateful messages, targeting groups and individuals, based on their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or political views. Hate content is not only a problem on the Internet, but also on traditional media, especially in places where the Internet is not widely available or in rural areas. Despite growing awareness of the harms that exposure to hate can cause, especially to victims, there is no clear consensus in the literature on what specific impacts this exposure, as bystanders, produces on individuals, groups, and the population at large. Most of the existing research has focused on analyzing the content and the extent of the problem. More research in this area is needed to develop better intervention programs that are adapted to the current reality of hate.

Objective: The objective of this review is to synthesize the empirical evidence on how media exposure to hate affects or is associated with various outcomes for individuals and groups.

Search methods: Searches covered the period up to December 2021 to assess the impact of exposure to hate. The searches were performed using search terms across 20 databases, 51 related websites, the Google search engine, as well as other systematic reviews and related papers.

Selection criteria: This review included any correlational, experimental, and quasi-experimental study that establishes an impact relationship and/or association between exposure to hate in online and traditional media and the resulting consequences on individuals or groups.

Data collection and analysis: Fifty-five studies analyzing 101 effect sizes, classified into 43 different outcomes, were identified after the screening process. Initially, effect sizes were calculated based on the type of design and the statistics used in the studies, and then transformed into standardized mean differences. Each outcome was classified following an exhaustive review of the operational constructs present in the studies. These outcomes were grouped into five major dimensions: attitudinal changes, intergroup dynamics, interpersonal behaviors, political beliefs, and psychological effects. When two or more outcomes from the studies addressed the same construct, they were synthesized together. A separate meta-analysis was conducted for each identified outcome from different samples. Additionally, experimental and quasi-experimental studies were synthesized separately from correlational studies. Twenty-four meta-analyses were performed using a random effects model, and meta-regressions and moderator analyses were conducted to explore factors influencing effect size estimates.

Results: The 55 studies included in this systematic review were published between 1996 and 2021, with most of them published since 2015. They include 25 correlational studies, and 22 randomized and 8 non-randomized experimental studies. Most of these studies provide data extracted from individuals (e.g., self-report); however, this review includes 6 studies that are based on quantitative analysis of comments or posts, or their relationship to specific geographic areas. Correlational studies encompass sample sizes ranging from 101 to 6829 participants, while experimental and quasi-experimental studies involve participant numbers between 69 and 1112. In most cases, the exposure to hate content occurred online or within social media contexts (37 studies), while only 8 studies reported such exposure in traditional media platforms. In the remaining studies, the exposure to hate content was delivered through political propaganda, primarily associated with extreme right-wing groups. No studies were removed from the systematic review due to quality assessment. In the experimental studies, participants demonstrated high adherence to the experimental conditions and thus contributed significantly to most of the results. The correlational and quasi-experimental studies used consistent, valid, and reliable instruments to measure exposure and outcomes derived from well-defined variables. As with the experimental studies, the results from the correlation and quasi-experimental studies were complete. Meta-analyses related to four dimensions were performed: Attitudinal changes, Intergroup dynamics, Interpersonal behaviors, and Psychological effects. We were unable to conduct a meta-analysis for the "Political Beliefs" dimension due to an insufficient number of studies. In terms of attitude changes, exposure to hate leads to negative attitudes (d Ex = 0.414; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.005, 0.824; p < 0.05; n = 8 and d corr = 0.322; 95% CI = 0.14, 0.504; p < 0.01; n = 2) and negative stereotypes (d Ex = 0.28; 95% CI = -0.018, 0.586; p < 0.10; n = 9) about individuals or groups with protected characteristics, while also hindering the promotion of positive attitudes toward them (d exp = -0.227; 95% CI = -0.466, 0.011; p < 0.10; n = 3). However, it does not increase support for hate content or political violence. Concerning intergroup dynamics, exposure to hate reduces intergroup trust (d exp = -0.308; 95% CI = -0.559, -0.058; p < 0.05; n = 2), especially between targeted groups and the general population, but has no significant impact on the perception of discrimination among minorities. In the context of Interpersonal behaviors, the meta-analyses confirm a strong association between exposure to hate and victimization (d corr = 0.721; 95% CI = 0.472, 0.97; p < 0.01; n = 3) and moderate effects on online hate speech perpetration (d corr = 0.36; 95% CI = -0.028, 0.754; p < 0.10; n = 2) and offline violent behavior (d corr = 0.47; 95%CI = 0.328, 0.612; p < 0.01; n = 2). Exposure to online hate also fuels more hate in online comments (d = 0.51; 95% CI = 0.034-0.984; p < 0.05; n = 2) but does not seem to affect hate crimes directly. However, there is no evidence that exposure to hate fosters resistance behaviors among individuals who are frequently subjected to it (e.g. the intention to counter-argue factually). In terms of psychological consequences, this review demonstrates that exposure to hate content negatively affects individuals' psychological well-being. Experimental studies indicate a large and significant effect size concerning the development of depressive symptoms due to exposure (d exp = 1.105; 95% CI = 0.797, 1.423; p < 0.01; n = 2). Additionally, a small effect size is observed concerning the link between exposure and reduced life satisfaction(d corr = -0.186; 95% CI = -0.279, -0.093; p < 0.01; n = 3), as well as increased social fear regarding the likelihood of a terrorist attack (d corr = -0.206; 95% CI = 0.147, 0.264; p < 0.01 n = 5). Conversely, exposure to hate speech does not seem to generate or be linked to the development of negative emotions related to its content.

Author's conclusions: This systematic review confirms that exposure to hate in online and in traditional media has a significant negative impact on individuals and groups. It emphasizes the importance of taking these findings into account for policymaking, prevention, and intervention strategies. Hate speech spreads through biased commentary and perceptions, normalizing prejudice and causing harm. This not only leads to violence, victimization, and perpetration of hate speech but also contributes to a broader climate of hostility. Conversely, this research suggests that people exposed to this type of content do not show increased shock or revulsion toward it. This may explain why it is easily disseminated and often perceived as harmless, leading some to oppose its regulation. Focusing efforts solely on content control may then have a limited impact in driving substantial change. More research is needed to explore these variables, as well as the relationship between hate speech and political beliefs and the connection to violent extremism. Indeed, we know very little about how exposure to hate influences political and extremist views.

Campbell Syst Rev . 2025 Jan 16;21(1):e70018.

By Frøja Storm-Mathisen

This article introduces the concept ‘narrative normalization of violence’ as a theoretical framework for exploring the interplay between crime and marginality in street culture. Drawing from 4 months of ethnographic observations and 24 qualitative interviews with young men involved in a violent street culture in Oslo, Norway, the study identifies three prevalent narratives. The first, ‘Part of the game’, minimizes the danger of violence; the second, ‘It’s all about respect’, internalizes violence as part of a desired subcultural identity; and the third, ‘We come from concrete’, emphasizes the importance of belonging. In distinctive and important ways these narratives shape collective energies that influence beliefs, attitudes and aspirations, which work to narratively render the exceptional nature of violence manageable and mundane.

The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 65, Issue 1, January 2025, Pages 37–53,

 By Jonathan Moreno-Medina r Aurelie Ouss r Patrick Bayer r Bocar A. Ba 

This paper examines language patterns in US television news coverage of police killings. We first document that the media use semantic structures—such as passive voice, nominalizations, and intransitive verbs—that obscure responsibility more often in cases of police killings than in cases of civilian killings. Through an online experiment, we demonstrate the significance of these semantic differences, revealing that participants are less likely to hold police officers morally responsible and demand penalties when exposed to obfuscatory language, particularly in cases involving unarmed victims. Further analysis of news data shows greater use of obfuscatory language when the victims are unarmed or video footage is available—situations where obfuscation may have the greatest impact. Exploring the causes of this differential obfuscation, we do not find evidence that it is driven by either demand-side factors or supply-side factors associated with TV station ownership and political leaning. Instead, our results suggest that narratives crafted by police departments are a more likely driver of media obfuscation. Our study underscores the importance of semantic structures in how media shape perceptions, extending beyond considerations of coverage volume and bias.

Cambridge, MA:   NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH, 2022.   66p.

By The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

  Russia’s engagement in Africa has evolved in the aftermath of Yevgeny Prigozhin’s aborted march on Moscow in June 2023 and his death in an aeroplane crash two months later. His private military company (PMC), the Wagner Group, had built up operations in several African countries over the preceding decade by providing mercenary troops, conducting political influence campaigns and by establishing a network of companies in the extractives sector. Would these arrangements survive the death of Wagner’s influential leader? If so, what shape would they take? Moscow acted quickly after Prigozhin’s death by sending high-level officials to several countries to reassure Wagner’s former clients that support would continue uninterrupted. But it was clear that Russia also had larger plans, and was seeking to expand its presence in new arenas. A clear picture is now emerging as to how Russia’s strategy in Africa is developing. It consists of four thematic (and at times overlapping) strands, namely rebranding, maintenance, expansion and diversification. Rebranding Wagner was a priority for the Russian state, as part of its efforts to assert control over an entity that had embarked on a march against the seat of power. Various pathways were created to assimilate Wagner personnel, but the establishment of the Africa Corps, under the direct supervision of Russia’s military intelligence service (GRU), was the most pertinent to Wagner’s Africa operations. Other aspects of Wagner’s operations have also continued under new titles. For example, the African Initiative in Burkina Faso, which disseminates pro-Russian messaging in the region, is in many ways another iteration of Wagner’s media and political influence work, and includes several former Wagner or Wagner-linked staff. The Africa Corps has benefited from direct state assistance – ships delivering tonnes of material for this outfit have been recorded arriving in Libya, for example. However, it has not been an entirely painless transition. The Africa Corps has struggled to generate momentum, with recruitment targets being revised downwards and personnel transferred to Russia. This difficulty may in part explain the somewhat contradictory second theme: that of maintaining the Wagner brand. Maintenance of Wagner as an entity – at least in name – has been a key consideration in Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR), where the brand is strong due to entrenched involvement in economic activities and security services, as well as Wagner’s high public profile. This reflects Moscow’s pragmatism regarding the requirements of local contexts, plus recognition that Wagner’s original interventions were coherent with Russian state interests, and thus did not need to be radically overhauled. ‘Wagner’ Telegram channels also continue to post recruitment advertisements for personnel to work in Africa, highlighting the ongoing power of the brand. However, this continuity may also mask how much has changed behind the scenes: while Wagner ‘lives’ in the CAR and Mali, it is now much more tightly under Moscow’s control. At the same time, the policy space has not been static, and new opportunities for intervention emerged for Russia in 2023–2024. This has led to expansion into several countries in West Africa – Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger – where governments have sought to explore economic and security alternatives to their long-standing Western partners, particularly France. Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) research has also highlighted the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Senegal as potential future areas of Africa Corps intervention. In part, this more expansionist approach speaks to the step change in the visibility of Russian policy from the early Wagner days, when deniability was a key consideration. (Before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Wagner’s existence was always denied, both by Moscow and Prigozhin.) Russia has long explored state level partnerships with African countries, but now there is greater confidence in and visibility of Russian intentions on the continent, even if the partners on the ground have not changed dramatically from Prigozhin’s stewardship. As a result, what was, under Wagner, a patchwork of local engagements is being knitted together in an overt and more coherent geopolitical vision. Coming out of the shadows allows Russia to cast itself as a backer of African attempts to escape Western neo-colonialism. This is achieved in part by highlighting the West’s failed attempts to tackle Islamist extremism in Africa (and its attempts to super-impose Western values that are sometimes at odds with local culture). Only in Sudan has there been something of a recalibration from Prigozhin’s approach. Prigozhin had partnered closely with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), while the Russian government maintained ties with the government and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), driven by a long-term goal of acquiring a naval base on the Red Sea. This contradiction became sharper when war broke out between Sudan’s military and the RSF in April 2023. Sudan’s emergence as a proxy battleground in the Russia-Ukraine conflict may also have shifted Moscow’s thinking and explain the pivot away from the RSF to more closely align with the SAF, which has sought Russian materiel to fight its paramilitary enemy   

Geneva, SWIT: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime  , 2025. 50p

By Sébastien Tutenges andJonathan Ilan

For over a decade, jihadi terrorism in Europe, and the recruitment of Europeans to fight for ISIS in Syria, have increasingly involved marginalized youths from a social context of street culture, illegal drug use and crime. Existing theoretical models of the crime-terrorism nexus and radicalization arguably do not sufficiently explain the fluid and dynamic ways by which the street cultural come to be politico-religiously violent. This paper provides a novel retheorization, the street-jihadi spectrum, which is better placed to explain a wide range of behaviours, from the merely stylistic to the spectacularly violent. On the street culture end it includes subcultural play with provocative jihadi symbols and on the jihadi end the terrorism of ‘gangster-jihadists’. We emphasize that the spectrum, consisting of a multitude of confluences of street and jihadi cultures, also includes resistance to jihadism.

European Journal of Criminology 2024, Vol. 21(2) 210–230 © The Author(s) 2023

By European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, FRA

Antisemitism is still a reality for many Jewish people in the EU today. Faced with prejudice and hostility, most feel unable to live openly Jewish lives. This report presents the results of FRA’s third EU survey of Jewish people’s experiences and perceptions of antisemitism. The survey took place before the Hamas attacks in October 2023 and the war in Gaza; however, it includes evidence from a consultation with national and European Jewish umbrella organisations since. It covers 13 EU Member States that together account for around 96 % of the EU’s Jewish population.

Vienna: FRA, 2024. 109p.

By Lili Levi

On May 25, 2023, the Biden Administration released The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism—America’s first national strategy of this kind. In early November 2023, the White House announced the establishment of the first-ever U.S. National Strategy to Counter Islamophobia. These historic commitments respond to increases in identity-based bias incidents and expression against Jews and Muslims. Antisemitic incidents, which were already rising even before the pandemic, increased by almost 400% since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. The war also triggered a sharp upturn in Islamophobic incidents in the U.S., including the shooting of three college students and the murder of a child. Although there has been fresh contestation in the U.S. over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is also a particularly pressing moment for the effective implementation of the national strategies to combat antisemitism and Islamophobia here.

This Article focuses on The U.S. National Strategy to Counter Antisemitism (hereinafter National Strategy). The National Strategy laudably recognizes that rising antisemitism—linked, as it is, to white nationalism—poses risks not only to Jews, but to the nation and to democracy. The self-professed centrality of antisemitism to the broadly racist white nationalist goal of enhanced political power in the United States makes that clear. By recognizing this, the National Strategy implicitly highlights the risks posed both by those conservatives who downplay associations with antisemites and those progressives who discount antisemitism. In centering anti-antisemitism as a national goal, the National Strategy additionally makes three key contributions: (1) by focusing on antisemitism as a broad social challenge rather than principally a problem on college campuses; (2) by its recognition of the role of social media in disseminating and amplifying antisemitism; and (3) by emphasizing the need for more empirical research aimed at the idiosyncrasies and impacts of antisemitism.

To be sure, as the Article points out, some of the National Strategy’s recommendations to reverse the normalization of antisemitism—its specific proposals regarding social media, its slant on “speaking out” and public condemnation, and its reliance on voluntary corporate sanctions—could benefit from further consideration, refinement, and empirical study. Nevertheless, it would be regrettable for American democracy if some under-analyzed policy recommendations, partisan politics, or concerns about disagreements over the Middle East were to cause the White House’s important anti-antisemitism commitment for the U.S. to be discounted as mere political theater

 78 University of Miami Law Review 745 (Spring, 2024) , 96p.

By The International Crisis Group

What’s new? A violent siege of Haiti’s capital in early 2024 triggered the creation of a transitional government and the eventual arrival of a Kenyan-led mission to help counter the gang threat. But infighting has paralysed the government, empowered the gangs and made it unlikely that planned elections can come off safely. Why does it matter? Haiti urgently needs a legitimate government able to lead the campaign to curb gang violence and respond to the country’s dire humanitarian emergency. But holding polls prematurely could backfire, allowing gangs to play a deciding role in the vote and entrenching their power. What should be done? Haiti’s transitional authorities should strive to overcome internal wrangling and chart a realistic path to safe elections and constitutional reform. With future U.S. funding in doubt, the UN Security Council must find a way to support either the existing international security force or a peacekeeping mission to weaken the gangs.

Efforts by Haitian politicians and their foreign partners to quell surging gang violence have yet to bear fruit. A transitional government drawn from the country’s main political forces took office in April 2024, promising to hold the first elections in nearly a decade. Soon thereafter, the first contingent of Kenyan police disembarked, part of an international security mission tasked with loosening the gangs’ stranglehold on the capital Port-au-Prince and its vicinity. But the hopes invested by Haitians in the transitional government and the foreign mission remain unfulfilled. Partisan infighting and corruption allegations have prolonged political dysfunction. Violence rages, with gangs perpetrating some of the worst massacres ever as the understaffed, underfunded foreign mission struggles to rein them in. With safe elections looking improbable in the near term, transitional authorities should get past their internal disputes to plot a realistic course to polls and constitutional reform. The UN Security Council, for its part, must decide how best to respond to Haiti’s request for support in fighting the gangs. February 2024 saw a grim milestone in the gangs’ growth but also the beginning of what seemed to be a concerted effort to stabilise Haiti. Instead of fighting one another, gangs banded together to mount a multi-pronged assault. Besieging Port-auPrince, they cemented control of more than 80 per cent of the city, emptied jails, ransacked police stations and forced the airport to close. With Prime Minister Ariel Henry stranded in Kenya, where he had been negotiating deployment of the security support mission, the time was ripe for a bold response. Caribbean countries, the U.S. and other foreign states gathered Haiti’s leading political forces for a summit in Jamaica on 11 March, prodding them to form a transitional government to take Henry’s place. The idea was that with a new cross-party government promising a route to fresh elections, the country’s leaders could arrest plummeting public trust in the state and the collapse of its institutions. In tandem, the foreign mission would arrive to join local police in beating back the gangs. Marrying the goals of rebuilding legitimate government and restoring security, the plan was geared around leadership by a new Transitional Presidential Council, alongside a prime minister whom it would appoint. This arrangement, however, proved to be a seed of fresh strife. Council members clashed repeatedly with the first prime minister, Garry Conille, a long-time UN official. Conille’s dismissal in November and replacement by businessman Alix Didier Fils-Aimé ended the impasse, while also sending a clear message that the council would run the show. But the wrangling did not stop. Council members are also at loggerheads with the political groups they are supposed to represent, known as the “sectors”, which see the councillors’ growing independence as a threat to their interests. Some parties are so affronted by their supposed loss of power that they have demanded a radical overhaul of government. Lastly, corruption charges against three councillors, who have refused to resign or cooperate with the authorities, have corroded the government’s public standing. To make matters worse, plans to push through constitutional reform, to be voted on at referendum in the first half of 2025, as well as hold elections before year’s end, have made scant progress. Members of provisional electoral bodies were appointed only in December, and Haiti lacks an up-to-date voter register. Moreover, polls held in current conditions would be unsafe for candidates and voters alike. Despite isolated achievements by police and the foreign mission in their campaign against the gangs, these groups control much of the capital and essential roads to the rest of the country, while fighting is expanding into other regions. In the past five months, gangs have carried out at least four massacres – carnage that has claimed around 400 lives. Staggering the voting schedule or placing polling stations outside gang-controlled territory could make balloting possible in some areas. But the result would likely be very low turnout, possibly under the 20 per cent witnessed in Haiti’s last polls in 2016. Gangs could also sow fear in places under their sway to ensure that their allies win positions of power. Instead of rushing toward elections, the transitional government should focus on the nuts and bolts of responsible governance. Drawing on the agreement that created the administration, it should establish an assembly where political groups represented in the Transitional Presidential Council can resolve their grievances without threatening to upend the state. The authorities should also act quickly to appoint a National Security Council and to provide the secretary of state for public security with the support required to map a strategy for reducing violence anchored in concrete, achievable steps. The government should also show it is serious about fighting corruption by ensuring that its members are held accountable. Transitional authorities should work alongside foreign partners to explore how security assistance from abroad can be made more sustainable and effective. It is all the more crucial that they do so at a time when funding from the U.S., Haiti’s main donor, has been partially frozen by the Trump administration, putting Washington’s commitment to underwrite future security operations in serious doubt. Donations for the multinational mission have fallen far short of what was expected, and not all the promised 2,500 officers and materiel have arrived. The UN could backstop the mission’s financial and logistical needs along the lines of its support for African Union forces in Somalia, but it is unclear whether this approach would address all the current gaps in its operations. The UN Security Council is also considering the possibility of turning the Kenyanled force into a blue-helmet peacekeeping operation, as the Haitian government has requested, which would help address the mission’s funding shortfall. Should the Council choose this option, the UN, in close coordination with Haitian authorities, should make the campaign to weaken gangs its priority and stand ready to follow up with support for state-building and development. For almost three years following President Jovenel Moïse’s assassination in July 2021, many Haitians cried out for a government that could build on broad public support to quell rising violence. The gang siege of Port-au-Prince appeared to mark a turning point. But Haiti’s transitional government has been drawn toward battles of self-interest rather than the pursuit of safe polls. The country’s new leaders should now rise to the occasion, working with foreign partners to stem the bloodshed that has tipped Haiti close to the breaking point.

Latin America & Caribbean Report N°107, Port-au-Prince/Mexico City/New York/Brussels : International Crisis Group, 2025. 40p.

By Nilay Saiya, Stuti Manchanda

This study examines the relationship between Christian nationalism—a political theology and cultural framework that seeks to amalgamate the Christian faith and a country's political life and privilege Christianity in the public square over other faith traditions—and attacks against religious minorities in the United States. Some Christian nationalists believe that it is justifiable to undertake violent actions in order to realize the goals of Christian nationalism. We theorize that the political empowerment of Christian nationalist ideology in the form of politicians expressing Christian nationalist sentiments corresponds to physical attacks on religious minorities carried out by self-professing Christians. We test this theory using a cross-sectional, time-series analysis of antiminority violence in the United States. The results provide robust support for our theory.

Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion: Volume 64, Issue 1, 2025, 16p.

By The Center for Countering Digital Hate

Amidst the worst period of public disorder and violence targeting minority communities in recent history, social media platforms failed the British public. Worse still, they played a significant role in fomenting the lies, hate, extremist beliefs, and antipathy towards institutions that erupted over a series of warm summer nights into extraordinary spasms of violence across the United Kingdom. False claims about the Southport attacker’s identity – lies identifying him as a Muslim asylum-seeker – spread widely and quickly. Far-right agitators received millions of views on X, formerly Twitter. Towns and cities across the UK saw attacks on mosques and hotels housing asylum seekers, inspired by these online posts. My family was among those affected; my mother, sisters and nieces were among those to experience hate on British streets. While affected communities and authorities struggled to cope with violent attacks on- and offline, social media platforms did little to quell its spread and, worse still, profited from it. We have seen this before. In the immediate aftermath of tragic incidents, bad actors weaponise online spaces to spread disinformation and sow informational chaos. Before the facts are known, extremists capitalise on the opportunity to spread hate, mobilise new followers, and inject conspiracy into the public discourse at the moment of maximum vulnerability. Underpinning this cynical behaviour are powerful financial incentives: hate actors turn the grief that follows a tragic incident into online engagement for financial reward from social media platforms. One platform stood out. The owner of X, Elon Musk, shared false information about the situation to his 195 million followers and made a show of attacking the UK Government’s response to the outbreak of violence.i Rather than ensuring risk and illegal content were mitigated on his platform, Musk recklessly promoted the notion of an impending “civil war” in the UK.ii CCDH found far-right figures, previously banned from Twitter but reinstated under Musk’s leadership, receiving millions of views per day on X. The platform ran ads against posts inciting hate, encouraging the mobs to “permanently remove Islam from Great Britain.” iii Musk has transformed Twitter, once the go-to  source for journalists, politicians, and the public for real time news, into X, a platform with imperceptible moderation and the morality of Telegram. On the 16th of August, CCDH convened stakeholders from government departments, law enforcement, the online safety regulator, British advertisers, and frontline civil society groups to chart a path forward. The insights and policy proposals which emerged from that discussion are detailed in this paper. While recognising that there was undue criticism levied at the regulator for powers it cannot yet use under the Online Safety Act (OSA), there is also a case for action to ensure the OSA is fit for purpose. Future amendments will be needed to tackle its most glaring omissions 

London; Washington, DC: Center for Countering Digital hate, 2024. 19p.

By Stéphane Carcillo, Marie-Anne Valfort, Pedro Vergara Merino

This paper presents the first rigorous evaluation of school-based interventions aimed at reducing LGBTphobia. We focus on a classroom intervention that addresses the issue of LGBT harassment through perspective-taking and narrative exchange. Using a field experiment in France with more than 10,000 middle and high school students, we find robust evidence of strong positive effects, with variations across gender, age, and socio-economic status. We argue that changing perceptions of group norms is a key channel driving these heterogeneous effects.

IZA DP No. 17683, Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics , 2025. 65p

By The Center for Countering Digital Hate

Meta announced six key policy changes on January 7th . Halting “proactive” enforcement of some policies on harmful content . Demoting less content “that might violate our standards” . Dropping policies on “immigration, gender identity and gender” . Replacing independent fact-checking with Community Notes . Demoting less content about “elections, politics or social issues” . Moving trust and safety teams from California to Texas Meta intends for these policy changes to be “expanded beyond the US” • Meta’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, Joel Kaplan, has said that changes to fact-checking and enforcement will be “expanded beyond the US” in time. • Kaplan also said that changes to Meta’s hate speech policies announced on January 7th “have been implemented worldwide immediately.” 1) Meta will halt “proactive” enforcement of some policies on harmful content • Meta will halt proactive enforcement (including automatic detection) for some policies on harmful content, instead acting only in response to user reports. • Meta’s announcement explicitly states proactive enforcement will continue for terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams. • Meta has not stated if proactive enforcement will continue for these policy areas used in Meta’s transparency reports, which we call “at risk” policy areas: o Bullying & Harassment o Dangerous Orgs: Organized Hate o Hate Speech o Suicide and Self-Injury o Violence And Incitement o Violence & Graphic Content • Meta previously credited its “proactive detection technology” as a key factor in reducing the prevalence of hate speech and harmful content on its platforms. Meta could halt 97% of its enforcement in key policy areas such as hate speech • We analyzed Meta’s transparency reports to examine the potential impact of Meta halting proactive enforcement in policy areas such as hate speech. • Last year, over 97% of Meta’s enforcement actions in “at risk” policy areas were “proactive”, with less than 3% made in response to user reports. • Even accounting for Meta’s claims about mistakes in proactive enforcement, Meta correctly acted on 277 million pieces of content in “at risk” policy areas. Meta must tell users which policies it will no longer proactively enforce, and how it will keep them safe if it stops acting on millions of pieces of harmful content.  

Washington, DC; London: Center for Countering Digital Hate, 2025. 31p.