By Carmine Conte

Migration Policy Group (MPG) has released a groundbreaking report that exposes the pervasive, yet often overlooked, forms of racism embedded within the structures of society across eight EU member states: Czechia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, the Netherlands, Romania, Spain, and Sweden. This research was conducted thanks to the Robert Bosch Stiftung’s support. The report reveals how structural and institutional racism systematically disadvantages specific communities, operating within social, economic, and political institutions.

Unlike overt acts of racial violence, structural racism is entrenched in sectors like housing, education, healthcare, employment, policing, and justice. It manifests through seemingly neutral policies and practices that disproportionately impact racial and ethnic groups, perpetuating inequality and marginalisation.

“Addressing structural and institutional racism is crucial for creating a more just and equitable society,” said Isabelle Chopin, Director of MPG. “This requires concerted efforts at both national and European levels to dismantle the systems that sustain racial inequality.”

MPG, a leading advocate for racial equality since the 1990s, has significantly influenced European policy, including the adoption of the Racial and Employment Equality Directives in 2000. The organisation has also provided extensive training and published significant research on racial discrimination.

The new report, part of a broader project led by MPG, offers a comparative analysis of structural racism in the eight examined countries. Despite the absence of explicit legal definitions, EU law mandates protection against racial discrimination. However, many national legal frameworks adopt a “colour-blind” approach, complicating efforts to address systemic issues.

The report highlights how structural racism disproportionately affects Roma, Black people, Muslims, and, in Sweden, the Sámi population. It also underscores challenges such as racial profiling, excessive use of force by law enforcement, and the underreporting of racism against Asians and antisemitism.

Structural racism is particularly evident in the justice system, healthcare, education, employment, and housing, with far-reaching impacts on the lives of racialised groups. The report also points to more subtle forms of racism, including online hate speech, prejudice, and denial of access to services.

While the EU’s Anti-racism Action Plan 2020-2025 acknowledges structural racism, the report notes that most countries still view racism as isolated incidents rather than a systemic problem.

MPG calls for urgent action at both national and European levels to dismantle the structures that perpetuate racial inequality and to empower historically marginalised communities.

Brussels: Migration Policy Group, 2024. 103p.

By András Kádár

The report, authored by András Kádár and coordinated by MPG, for the European network of legal experts in gender equality and non-discrimination, reveals widespread anti-Muslim discrimination and bias, highlighting critical gaps in legal protections and enforcement. Despite existing frameworks, many Muslims and individuals perceived to be Muslim face systemic barriers and societal prejudice across key areas of life.

Key findings include:

Employment: Nearly one-third of Muslim respondents reported experiencing discrimination during their job search.

Harassment: One in four faced harassment linked to their ethnic or immigrant background.

Access to Housing and Healthcare: Half of the respondents encountered discrimination based on their names, skin colour, or physical appearance.

The report also highlights a surge in anti-Muslim hate following the October 2023 attacks, with entire communities targeted by harmful stereotypes and divisive rhetoric. Structural challenges, such as underreporting and the normalisation of bias in public discourse, further hinder progress.

The report calls on policymakers and institutions to:

Address enforcement gaps in anti-discrimination laws.

Provide robust support mechanisms for victims of discrimination.

Challenge anti-Muslim rhetoric at every level of society.

This report reinforces MPG’s commitment to advancing evidence-based strategies for equality and inclusion.

The time to act is now. Together, we can build societies where diversity is celebrated, and everyone is treated with dignity and respect.

As the European Union’s anti-racism action plan for 2020-20251 (EU anti-racism action plan) emphasises, ‘[r]acism damages society in many different ways. Most directly, it means that a large number of people living in Europe face discrimination, affecting their human dignity, their life opportunities, their prosperity and their well-being, and often also their personal safety.’2 This predicament described by the action plan is the everyday reality of many Muslims and persons perceived to be Muslims across Europe. The persistence of anti-Muslim sentiment in a number of European societies and the widespread discrimination against members of the Muslim community are strongly substantiated by sociological research. Nearly one-third of the Muslim respondents to the second European Union minorities and discrimination survey (EU-MIDIS II survey) carried out by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) in 2017 indicated that they had suffered discrimination when looking for a job; one in four Muslim respondents reported harassment due to their ethnic or immigrant background, while their names, skin colour or physical appearance prompted discrimination against about half of the respondents when they were looking for housing or a job, or were receiving healthcare.3 The FRA’s 2019 fundamental rights survey showed that 32 % of the more than 28 000 respondents would feel uncomfortable about having a neighbour who is Muslim; 41 % would not feel comfortable with a family member of theirs marrying a Muslim person; and 31 % were of the view that it would be acceptable for a shop not to hire a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf because of concerns about how some customers might react.4 The 2023 Eurobarometer survey on discrimination in the European Union5 also confirmed the existence of antiMuslim bias, although it was conducted before the attack of 7 October 2023, which has resulted in a surge of anti-Muslim hate speech on the internet, and intensified racism, intolerance and discrimination against Muslim people in several European countries. As the 2023 annual report of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) concludes: ‘the number of hate incidents against Muslims […] increased manifold in the aftermath of the attack. Muslims received blame for the attack and other attacks in the Middle East, based on stereotyping of whole communities and their perceived connections with the use of violence.’6 Similar trends have been reported for the purposes of the present study in countries including Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Sweden. In this situation, joint European efforts to combat anti-Muslim hate are gaining increased importance. The European Union has not only adopted policies and commitments with a view to combating racial and/or religious hatred, including anti-Muslim hate, but has also put in place numerous legal instruments that can be used to counter different manifestations of anti-Muslim bias, including but not limited to the Framework Decision on combating certain forms of expressions of racism and xenophobia,7 the Racial Equality Directive,8 the Employment Equality Directive,9 the Victims’ Rights Directive,10 the Audiovisual Media Services Directive,11 and the Digital Services Act.12 In the EU anti-racism action plan, the European Commission encourages the Member States to ensure that they fully transpose and properly apply these pieces of EU law designed to provide protection against racism. In line with this call, this thematic report provides a comparative overview of how these legal instruments have been complied with in the 27 EU Member States, and aims to establish how and to what extent the legal framework and its practical application in the different Member States provide protection against anti-Muslim hate in three main areas: (i) non-discrimination; (i) hate crimes; and (iii) hate speech. It identifies gaps in the existing legal protections and/or their enforcement across the EU Member States and makes recommendations on mechanisms for the provision of effective protection against acts motivated by anti-Muslim hate. Important trends in anti-Muslim hate The research conducted for the purposes of this report has identified some overarching and strongly interlinked trends in anti-Muslim hate across Europe: the ‘racialisation’ of Muslims; the structural nature of anti-Muslim discrimination; the appearance of anti-Muslim hate in the political mainstream; and the enormous degree of underreporting of anti-Muslim incidents. As described in ECRI’s General Policy Recommendation No. 5 on preventing and combating anti-Muslim racism and discrimination, anti-Muslim discrimination is structural, because it ‘does not solely manifest in instances of interpersonal hostility or discrimination’, but ‘is woven into the ways our societies function, and operates through norms, routines, patterns of attitudes and behaviour that create obstacles in achieving […] effective equality’. The document also points to the ‘racialisation’ of Muslims, i.e. the process by which certain groups of society (identified by, for example, phenotype or cultural identifiers) are ascribed ‘certain […] attributes that are presented as being innate to all members’ of that group. ‘[O]nce identified or perceived as a member of a group, one is deemed as embodying characteristics based on, for instance, skin colour, ethnic or national origin or religion inherent to all members of that group. This process is […] turning a diverse set of people into an allegedly homogeneous group, whose members are presented as “Other”.’13 The main challenges in tackling anti-Muslim hatred are strongly linked to these two specific, and also interconnected, phenomena: the racialisation of Muslims paves the way to falsely presenting and stigmatising them as a homogeneous, monolithic block posing threats to European values and security, which greatly contributes to the success of populist political forces using fear, anger and anxiety as key elements of their strategy to enter the political mainstream. It also reinforces the structural nature of anti-Muslim discrimination, which in turn has a devastating impact on, among others, Muslim communities’ trust in the legal and institutional system that should be protecting them, leading almost directly to the unsettling extent of underreporting of instances of anti-Muslim hate and discrimination.

Brussels: EUROPEAN COMMISSION , 2024. 156p.

By Robert A. Pape

Many urgent questions face college campuses in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, which kicked-off numerous student-led pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian protests, intimidation, and violence. In response, the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago (CPOST) conducted a study of the national campus environment. Based on two national surveys of 5,000 college students from over 600 four-year academic institutions, with an additional 5,000 American adults as a comparison set, which were fielded from mid-December 2023 to mid-January 2024, and with the benefit of a previous baseline survey of 8,000 American adults fielded in Spring of 2023, this study provides the most extensive survey evidence today about the extent of campus fears and changes in antisemitism after October 7. This study is also among the few efforts to disentangle different meanings of antisemitism and compare antisemitism and Islamophobia among respondents.

The overarching finding is that campus fears related to the current Israel-Palestinian conflict are more intense among certain groups and widespread across the student body than previously known. As a consequence of the conflict, numerous students are fearful because of their support of one side or the other:

56% of Jewish college students felt in personal danger

52% of Muslim college students felt in personal danger

16% of other college students felt in personal danger

This equates to 2 to 3 million college students.

The findings also show that Jewish and Muslim students report fearing for their physical safety, and other students fear being caught in the crossfire. Many are additionally concerned about academic discrimination and loss of professional opportunities.

Different perceptions of intent are likely contributing to these fears. 66% of Jewish college students understand the pro-Palestinian protest chant “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free” to mean the expulsion and genocide of Israeli Jews, while only 14% of Muslim students understand the chant that way; of Jewish students who understand the phrase this way, 62% report feeling afraid. About 10% of college students would permit student groups to call for genocide against Jews, and 13% of college students say that when Jews are attacked, it is because they deserve it. When these same questions are asked about Muslims, we find the same percentages: 10% and 13%.

Campus fears are occurring in a national climate of increasing antisemitism: violent antisemitism has increased 13% nationally since Spring 2023, when CPOST conducted its previous probe of antisemitism.

The findings are concerning. College students of various backgrounds feel personally unsafe on college campuses, and there is a disturbing trend toward greater acceptance of violence, even calls for genocide, than befits the mission of the university to enable all students to flourish.

This study provides extensive information to help university and national leaders better understand and navigate the most intense challenges facing the higher education community and the country today.

In particular, the findings are an opportunity to re-center the national discussion around students and away from politics. The findings show strong support for calming actions, such as major public statements by university and national leaders that would condemn violence of any kind against any group of people. Every leader in a position of power, including protest organizers, should thus find ways to send the message, repeatedly and convincingly, that violence is never justified. They should also clarify policies on permissible political action on campus by students toward students and mechanisms and obligations to report and respond to incidents and inform campus communities about the different perceptions of intent associated with protest phrases that are encouraging campus fears. These steps will not solve everything, but reducing fears for some can have cascading calming effects for many.

Chicago: University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) 2024. 446p.

By Arnold A. Rogow and Harold D. Lasswell

When Lord Acton observed without qualification that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely/’ he found words for one of the deepest convictions of modem liberals and democrats. Based on broad and unstated sentiments, the Acton aphorism instantly took on something of the quality of a law or of a fundamental axiom of mathematics. Everywhere there was a feeling that in the mechanics of achieving power men and institutions acquired some malignancy and the greater the power the greater the degree of malignancy. “Power . . . corrupts . . seemed to be the trickle of truth brilliantly squeezed out of a mountain of agreement, sentiment, and experience. Tire aphorism was immediately incorporated into the doctrinal exercises of the professional philosophers of democratic and liberal outlook. But it went much further. It appealed to the common sense of the citizen at large and became a mandatory article of faith in the public declarations of men of democratic action.

prentice-hall, INC. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1963, 141p.

By Joanna Perry, et al.

This guide supplements existing ODIHR guidance on prosecuting hate crime by outlining the legal and conceptual differences between hate crime and criminalized ‘hate speech’; outlining the consequences of misapplying ‘hate speech’ provisions to prosecute hate crime, providing practical guidance on how to avoid this; and making recommendations on how to improve practice at the national level. It does not provide guidance on how to handle individual cases of any form of criminalized ‘hate speech’, nor does it suggest what forms of behaviour should be criminalized.

The guide includes the Prosecutor Decision Tree tool, which shows how hate crime provisions should be applied and how they are distinguished from criminalized ‘hate speech’; it also maps other relevant offences at the intersection of hate crime and criminalized ‘hate speech’.

Prague: The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), 2024. 90p.

By Ghayda Hassan 1 Sébastien Brouillette-Alarie 1 Sarah Ousman 1 Deniz Kilinc 1 Éléa Laetitia Savard 1 Wynnpaul Varela 1 Lysiane Lavoie 1 Arber Fetiu 1

  Over the past two decades, planned and executed attacks attributed to extremist movements or “lone actors” have intensified and spread throughout many parts of the world, amplifying the fears of local populations and prompting a number of governments to invest significant sums of money into preventing violent radicalization and extremism  Despite these investments, current knowledge regarding best practices for prevention remains disparate, and the effectiveness of current practices has not yet been clearly established. This means that trillions of dollars are currently being spent funding programs whose effectiveness and potential side effects are unknown. Considering the above, the Canadian Practitioners Network for Prevention of Radicalization and Extremist Violence (CPNPREV; https://cpnprev.ca/) has conducted a systematic review on the effectiveness of primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs in the field of preventing violent extremism (PVE). The goals of this review were threefold: 1) to determine if primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention programs are able to counter violent radicalization; 2) to identify specific program modalities associated with a higher chance of success or failure for the targeted populations; and 3) to assess the quality of the literature in order to identify less reliable evidence, knowledge gaps, and studies which should be given more weight in the interpretation of results The review integrated evidence on the following: a) religiously-inspired (e.g., Islamist), right-wing, extreme-left, and “singleissue” (e.g., misogyny) violent radicalization; b) outcomes classified by prevention levels; and c) benefits/harms, costs, transferability, and community-related implementation issues when mentioned by the authors. We used systematic review methods developed by the Campbell and Cochrane collaborations. The logic model driving the review is grounded in an ecosystemic public health model, dividing programs into primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention levels. Because the outcomes of primary/secondary PVE programs and those of tertiary prevention programs were very disparate, we decided to treat results of primary/secondary prevention programs separately from those of tertiary prevention programs. However, we used a common method for both reviews. Of the 11,836 studies generated from the searches undertaken (up to June 2019), only 56 were found to be eligible for this review (i.e., they included an empirical—quantitative or qualitative—evaluation of a primary or secondary prevention initiative using primary data). Among these, 23 were found to be of insufficient methodological quality (score of 3/10 or less on the Quality of Study Assessment tool) and were therefore excluded The final set of studies comprised 33 evaluations of primary or secondary prevention programs. They reached a total sample of 6,520 individuals from 15 countries, with sample sizes ranging from 5 to 1,446 participants (M = 210.32, SD = 396.0). Most of the identified studies (k = 24) evaluated programs targeting violent Islamist radicalization. Nine studies assessed the outcomes of “general” prevention programs, that is, programs that do not target a specific type of violent radicalization but rather aim to improve openness towards others, respect, civic education, etc., within both “vulnerable” individuals and the general population. Only one study assessed programs targeting violent far-right radicalization, and none targeted far-left or single-issue violent radicalization. Among the 33 program evaluation studies, 18 reported mostly positive outcomes, seven reported mixed outcomes (both positive and negative), and eight reported mostly negative outcomes. Of note, all negative assessments were related to initiatives under Prevent, the UK’s national PVE strategy. On average, primary and secondary prevention programs seemed more effective than targeted primary prevention programs. However, this result is inevitably linked to the multiple negative assessments of Prevent, a strategy encompassing multiple targeted primary prevention programs.  

Montreal::Canadian Practitioners Network for the Prevention of Radicalization and Extremist Violence., 

2021. 152p.

By Gauthier Marchais, Christian Mastaki Mugaruka, Raúl Sánchez de la Sierra, and David Qihang Wu

We use a sharp withdrawal of the state that precipitated a rise in insecurity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to analyze the role of community in the rise of militias. Through a range of data collection techniques, we find that the withdrawal led to a spectacular rise and growth in militia village chapters that were supported by the communities to fight the instigators of that insecurity. While some of this growth can be attributed to the release of pent-up revenge motivations among previously victimized households, the extraordinary expansion is driven by communities facing a sharp new increase in insecurity as a result of the withdrawal, highlighting the perceived value of community security. In these villages, community members were propelled to join the newly formed militia chapters by both intrinsic and extrinsic social motivations, including the desire to protect their community and concerns about social status. Moreover, this rise is accentuated in villages where the local elite mobilizes informal community mechanisms in response to the heightened insecurity, upholding informal norms and amplifying intrinsic social motivations to join among community members. These findings offer a new perspective on militia emergence, emphasizing the role of social motivations and of community, and nuancing the distinction between economic and noneconomic incentives, consistent with an extensive literature using qualitative methods.  

WORKING PAPER · NO. 2024-87 

Chicago: University of Chicago, The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics, 2024. 107p.

Edited by Davide Giovanzana

This book offers an exhaustive approach to all forms of staged violence and an in-depth analysis of their emergence and repercussions (dramaturgically and physically). This study explores instruments to surpass the dichotomic opposition victim-oppressor, to demystify the spell of violence, and to get rid of the morbid voyeurism often connected to staged violence, and eventually, it proposes transformative tools to explore empowering experiences through violence. Considering all the aspects of a theatre performance engaging with staged violence (the story displaying violence, the actors’ embodiment of violence, the spectators’ experiences of being exposed to violence, and the process of performing violence), this book proposes analytical and practical tools to explore the limit and to transform the experience of performing violence. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and performance studies.

Oxford; New York: Routledge, 2024, 179p.

By Ariana Markowitz 

This research explores how urban violence intersects with mass atrocities to establish identity-based mass violence (IBMV) in cities as a cross-disciplinary field of scholarship and practice. Cities affect mass violence in three main ways. First, cities offer places and reasons to gather. Second, neighborhoods, mobility infrastructure, utility systems, and other city spaces can be read as proxies for specific groups of people. Third, violence can be both a cause and a symptom of urbanization, a uniquely urban process by definition, such that urbanization can be one way to mortally wound a city. Scholars and practitioners working to prevent urban violence and the atrocity prevention community have more that unites than divides them, and preventing urban atrocities requires the active engagement of them all. Nine case studies of IBMV from Srebrenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Mazar-i Sharif, Afghanistan; Kaduna, Nigeria; San Salvador, El Salvador; Nairobi, Kenya; Flint, Michigan, USA; Aleppo, Syria; Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; and Jerusalem, Israel, illustrate the multiplicity of forms that such violence can take. The cases aid in the development of a typology of urban atrocities, a tool to identify potential risk and protective factors. An overall finding is that the local context and the built environment were salient for efforts to prevent mass violence. This was especially true where the city (1) was an enclave or was divided into enclaves, (2) had a place of encounter where groups in conflict were likely to cross paths, or (3) experienced a recent political shock. Attackers sought to dehumanize their victims as often as they sought to kill them and were most likely to define their victims based on religion. Given the prevalence of cases that featured enclaves, places of encounter, and recent political shocks, we mapped out how these values related to all other values and compared those results to the overall frequency analysis, revealing relationships that differed from what the overall frequency analysis would have predicted. Taken together, the cases shed light on four pivotal questions for preventing urban atrocities: – How does structural violence contribute to both acute and chronic mass violence in cities? – How does scaling atrocity prevention to the city affect the Responsibility to Protect? – How can municipal actors be better recognized, resourced, and empowered? – How can city residents and institutions work in partnership to take inclusive steps toward justice and healing? The analysis discusses urban vulnerability to lethal and especially nonlethal violence and unpacks the perils and possibilities of external involvement. By acknowledging the challenges to effective local peacebuilding while celebrating successful initiatives, this report establishes common ground between atrocity prevention and urban violence prevention, identifying five strategies to sustain and strengthen cities, their inhabitants, and the communities of scholarship and practice that support them. This research thus champions the fundamental role that cities play in reducing risk, building sustainable peace, and enabling community transformation. The report advocates for using urban space for justice and healing, learning from local peacebuilders, working with formal and informal actors and tools, identifying models of urban violence prevention practices, and committing to an inclusive ethics of care 

Muscatine, IA: The Stanley Center for Peace and Security, and Impact Partnere, 2020; 35p.

By Andrew Blum

The core goal of this report is to explore how “democracy can provide the antidote” to political violence within the United States. In the last several years, we have seen extremist attacks, a surge in hate crimes, protests by heavily armed militias, and vicious acts of brutality by law enforcement. Violence and the threat of violence are harming communities throughout the U.S. and undermining our democracy 

At the same time, hard-won experience from communities within the United States and around the world has revealed concrete strategies that can be used to prevent, respond to, and recover from political violence. Political violence imposes real costs, but it also drives communities to create real solutions. Many of those solutions were on display during the 2020 election, which contributed to creating a largely peaceful election. The polarization and violent rhetoric on display during the election, however, also makes clear that we have work to do moving forward. Now is time to start that work. Now more than ever people understand the risk of political violence and the urgent need to invest in efforts to prevent it. Our goal must be to leverage that awareness and that energy into creating longer-term, sustainable, democracy-strengthening solutions to prevent political violence in the United States. This paper thus focuses on two basic questions: • Why should we care about political violence? What are the human and economic impacts of political violence? After the headlines cease and attention fades, what are the real costs of political violence to communities? • What can communities do about political violence? What are the community-centered strategies that address political violence? What does the evidence say about which strategies are most effective? How do we build communities that are resilient to various forms of political violence? We pose these questions primarily to funders. Democracy Fund has commissioned this research to inform the community of funders to which it belongs— funders committed to strengthening democracy within the United States 

Washington, DC: Democracy Fund, 2021. 40p.

By  Rachel Locke , Cari Luna

Democracy cannot function without individuals stepping up to serve as representatives of their community. The presence and growth of threats and harassment directed towards elected representatives poses a direct risk to our democracy, weakening community cohesion and our ability to address collective challenges. While our research found threats and harassment to be present across political parties, it identified women as far more likely to be on the receiving end both in terms of quantity and severity. If under-represented groups are pushed out of the processes of debate and decision-making, solutions will not be oriented around the diversity of our society. Without clear data on the scale of the problem, the rise in threats and ad hominem attacks are too easily discounted by public officials, the media and the public at large. Possible consequences range from an increased potential for physical violence and the resignation from public life of elected officials. The research outlined in this report helps to expose the scale of threats and harassment, while in turn providing recommendations from those directly impacted, concerned community members and scholars on how to reinforce safe and non-threatening local governance. While several studies have shown that cities, counties and states across the country are experiencing an increased level of hostility towards elected officials, very few geographically designated areas are measuring incidents in any structured way. The research outlined in this report aims to set a clear baseline on the extent of aggressive behavior towards nearly all categories of elected office in San Diego County. Our research looked at all County School Boards, Community College Boards, City Councils, Mayors, and the County Board of Supervisors. Using a mixed methods approach that included surveys, interviews, a traditional media review and social media review, our team was able to get a clear picture of the problem both objectively and subjectively. Our findings confirm that the rise in threats and harassments targeting elected officials identified in national studies is also occurring at the local level in San Diego County. This rise in hostile threatening behavior towards elected officials is having a measurable impact on a) the ability of elected office holders to effectively participate in the public policy process; b) the likelihood of elected officials seeking to encourage others to enter public life or remain in public life themselves; and c) the psychological and physical health of office holders and their families. The vitriol we are seeing risks significantly and negatively impact the vitality of local democracy, civic engagement and effective policy making on across the policy spectrum. The vast majority of local elected officials in San Diego County are impacted. Seventyfive percent of all elected officials reported being on the receiving end of threats and harassment. Of these, 47% reported the threats and harassment occurs monthly. Thus, not only do threats and harassment impact most of San Diego County elected officials, but the aggression is taking place on a regular basis. Of those who have not themselves been threatened or harassed, nearly half said they had witnessed threats and harassment against others. These data indicate nearly 90% of all San Diego County elected officials have either been threatened or harassed or have witnessed such abuse directed at their peers. While there is not a significant partisan difference, with moderates most likely to be on the receiving end of threats and harassment, there is a big gender divide. Women are far more impacted than men. Eighty-two percent of female elected officials reported being on the receiving end of threats and harassment compared with 66% of all men. Of the 24 incidents of threats and harassment reported in local media, 19 incidents involved women, and five involved men. On social media, when examining men and women of comparable Twitter usage and prominence of position, women received 15 to 20 times the aggressive interaction as their male peers. With 66% of survey respondents reporting that threats and harassment have gone up over the course of their time in office, the implications of a continued rise are concerning. Roughly half (52%) of all survey respondents have considered leaving public service because of the threats and harassment they endure. Disaggregating by gender, twice as many women considered leaving public office as did men (61% compared to 32%). This is alarming, although not surprising given the elevated frequency and intensity of threats and harassment women face compared to men. Forty-five percent of those we surveyed stated they think new solutions are needed to handle the increasingly vitriolic environment. Several initiatives have been developed in the San Diego area in the last 2 years to provide new solutions, but more work is needed. As part of our effort to understand potential solutions, we conducted three “community conversations” across the County. The group discussions, and the recommendations that came from them, form the backbone of our recommendations, alongside insights from other national studies and academic sources. A summary of those recommendations is here, with detail provided in the relevant section below. 

San Diego: University of San Diego, Kroc School, Violence, Inequality and Power Lab: Institute for Civil Civic Engagement,  2023. 36p.

By Neil J. Kressel

The twentieth century has been a century of hostility, an epoch in which the brutality of humankind has erupted and flowed more expansively than ever before. During the past eight decades, mass hatred has reached genocidal proportions in Turkey, Germany, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Burundi, Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and elsewhere. Blood has gushed so freely, and with such frequency, that one might consider the urge to kill one's neighbor an inborn characteristic of our species. Moreover, during the latter part of the century, the power to wreak bloody havoc on innocent civilians across the globe has fallen into the hands of terrorists whose hate knows no bounds. By the early years of the next century, these terrorists may possess nuclear devices that will make their previous methods seem quaint.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, 1996, 342p.

By Parliament of Victoria, . Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee  

There is no single source of information that tells us about the profile and volume of people who use family violence in Victoria—or one single way to build our understanding of this cohort. Data is collected and held in multiple places and used for different purposes—including risk assessment and management, policy development, service planning, research and evaluation activities. Inquiry stakeholders identified consistent barriers to the collection, sharing and use of data about people who use family violence—all of which contribute to the barriers of achieving a full understanding of this cohort. This report’s recommendations seek to address these. Consistent barriers identified by stakeholders were: • system silos and data fragmentation—many sectors operate in data silos, making it challenging to see all the services someone is using and tracking their journey through sectors and multiple relationships. Data can also be fragmented within an organisation because they may be using multiple, different and unaligned databases. • data accuracy and reliability—several factors contribute to this, including inconsistent data collection standards, bias in data collection, and data collection not always being meaningful or what is needed. Collecting inaccurate or incomplete data about diversity also contributes, as does the underreporting of family violence. • organisational capacity and databases—data quality is impacted by the high level of administrative burden, and may be impacted by staff resources and capabilities. Outdated or onerous databases can add to the administrative burden, especially when the data comes in different formats that are difficult to analyse or share.  

East Melbourne Victoria: Parliament of Victoria,  Legislative Assembly Legal and Social Issues Committee , 2025. 318p.

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 Garen J. Wintemute, Andrew Crawford, Elizabeth A. Tomsich & Veronica A. Pear

Background

In 2022, a nationally representative longitudinal survey in the USA found concerningly high prevalences of support for and personal willingness to engage in political violence, but those prevalences decreased in 2023. This study examines changes in those prevalences from 2023 to 2024, an election year in the USA.

Methods

Participants were members of Ipsos KnowledgePanel. Wave 3 of the survey was conducted May 23-June 14, 2024; invitations to participate were sent to all respondents to prior waves who remained in KnowledgePanel. Outcome measures concern justification for the use of violence to advance any of 17 specified political objectives, personal willingness to engage in political violence at 4 levels of severity and against 9 target populations, and expectation of firearm use in political violence. Outcomes are expressed as weighted proportions. Year-to-year change is based on the means of aggregated individual change scores, which have a potential range from 0 (no change) to ± 2.

Results

The 2024 completion rates were 88.4% (8896 respondents/10,064 invitees) overall, 91.6% (8185 respondents/8932 invitees) for invitees in 2024 who had responded in 2023, and 62.8% (711 respondents/1132 invitees) for invitees in 2024 who had responded in 2022 but not in 2023. After weighting, 50.9% (95% confidence interval (CI) 49.5%, 52.3%) were female; weighted mean (SD) age was 48.5 (24.9) years. From 2023 to 2024, the prevalence of the view that violence was usually or always justified to advance at least 1 political objective did not change (2024: 26.2%, 95% CI 25.0%, 27.5%; 2023: 25.3%, 95% CI 24.1%, 26.5%). There were no changes from 2023 to 2024 in willingness to damage property, threaten a person, injure a person, or kill a person in an act of political violence, and no changes in expectations of firearm use in situations where respondents considered political violence justifiable. Changes on other measures were infrequent (17 of 58 comparisons in the main analysis) and small where they occurred (with 2 exceptions, change < 0.05).

Conclusions

Contrary to expectation, support for and willingness to participate in political violence in this cohort showed little to no change from 2023 to 2024, an election year in the USA. These findings can help guide prevention efforts.

Inj. Epidemiol. 12, 4 (2025), 29p.

Edited by Silvio Cruschina & Chiara Gianollo

Language is a key element in constructing and reinforcing social identities. Through hate speech, language becomes an instrument of creating and spreading stereotypes, discrimination, and social injustices based on attributes such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality, political ideology, disability, or sexual orientation. The rise of digital communication, especially social media, has made hate speech a major topic of research in various fields. An Investigation of Hate Speech in Italian analyses hate speech from a linguistic perspective. The focus is not only on lexical means, but also on more subtle grammatical and pragmatic strategies related to implicit meanings or conversational dynamics. The volume identifies the common linguistic characteristics of hate speech in different domains of communication and explores criteria that can help distinguish between hate speech and freedom of expression. The studies in this volume focus on Italian, but the methods and findings can easily be extended to other languages for comparative and contrastive purposes. The chapters utilize extensive research data. Social media platforms have provided linguistic data that would otherwise be challenging to collect and analyse systematically. The chapters allow readers to link linguistic insights to different real-world contexts, helping them understand the impact language has on various aspects of life and society.

Helsinki: Helsinki University Press, 2024. 384p.

By Fernanda Otilla

This book investigates how digital technologies, such as social media and artificial intelligence, can contribute to combatting corruption in Brazil. Brazil, with its long history of scandals and abundant empirical data on digital media usage, serves as a perfect case study to trace the development of bottom-up and top-down digital anti-corruption technologies and their main features. This book highlights the connections between anti-corruption reforms and the rapid implementation of innovative solutions, primarily developed by tech-savvy public officials and citizens committed to anti-corruption efforts. The book draws on interviews with experts, activists and civil servants, as well as open-source materials and social media data to identify key actors, their practices, challenges and limitations of anti-corruption technologies. The result is a thorough analysis of the process of digitalisation of anti-corruption in Brazil, with a theoretical framework which can also be applied to other countries. The book introduces the concept of “integrity techies” to encompass social and political actors who develop and facilitate anti-corruption technologies, and discusses different outcomes and issues associated with digital innovation in anti-corruption. This book will be a key resource for students, researchers and practitioners interested in technologies and development in Brazil and Latin America, as well as corruption and anti-corruption studies more broadly.

Oxford, UK: Routledge, 2025. 152p

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 Maka Julios-Costa and Camila Montiel-McCann

Six months on from riots where asylum accommodation, mosques and minority-owned businesses were systematically attacked by groups of far right supporters, a new Runnymede Trust report highlights the role that media and politicians play in fuelling this violence.

Our latest report, A hostile environment: language, race, politics and the media, the first of two reports analysing parliamentary and media debates from 2010-2024, shows how large sections of these debates encouraged widespread hostility to migrants. 

We show how the ‘hostile environment’ is not a new approach to immigration, but a continuation of a long history of racist, xenophobic immigration policies - designed to exclude people of colour.

It is a form of modern racism, designed to keep as many people of colour and ethnically minoritised people as possible out of the UK, without appearing to be racist. 

This first report covers the period 2010-2014, and shows that:

• The British media and politicians have played a key role in creating a culture in which racial discrimination is permissible. In parliamentary debates and media reporting, negative terms like “illegal”, “flood” and “influx” are persistently used in association with migrants, posing them as a threat, dangerous and outsiders. The word “illegal” is in the top five most strongly associated words with ‘migrant’. 

• Following Theresa May’s announcement in 2012 to “create a hostile environment for illegal immigrants”, media coverage containing hostile rhetoric around migration and migrants more than doubled (a 137% increase), compared to the two years prior. 

• Politicians and the media have pushed this racist narrative to cement the myth that migrants and migration is criminal, in order to justify harsh and discriminatory migration policies. Framing migrants as inherently ‘illegal’ is a key feature of the ‘hostile environment’ and subsequent immigration law.

• When migrants are defined as both illegal, and as ‘too many’/’an onslaught’, measures to expand the scope of immigration restrictions can be more easily accepted.

• A distinctive characteristic of the ‘hostile environment’ compared to former immigration law is that it ‘deputises’ ordinary citizens to act as immigration enforcers - from landlords and healthcare providers to teachers and colleagues. JCWI found that 42% of landlords are less likely to consider tenants without a British passport due to the Right to Rent requirements, and 27% are hesitant to engage with individuals who have ‘foreign accents or names’. Meanwhile, between 60-70% of employment raids target Bangladeshi-owned businesses.

• Politicians and the media cannot continue to deny their role in pushing harmful narratives. We urge them to take meaningful action to eliminate racist hate speech - among public figures and in the media - and we call on the government to end ‘hostile environment’ immigration policies once and for all.

‍London: Runnymede Trust, 2025.   79p.