By Michael Fürstenberg

In the past, far-right aggression predominantly focused on national settings and street terror against minorities; today, however, it is increasingly embedded in global networks and acts within a strategic framework aimed at revolution, targeting the liberal order as such. Ideologically combining antisemitism, racism, and anti-feminism/anti-LGBTQI, adherents of this movement see modern societies as degenerate and weak, with the only solution being a violent collapse that they attempt to accelerate with their actions. The terrorist who attacked the synagogue and a kebab shop in Halle, Germany, in October 2019 clearly identified with this transnational community and situated his act as a continuation of a series of attacks inspired by white supremacy in the past decade. The common term ‘lone wolf’ for these kinds of terrorists is in that sense a misnomer, as they are embedded in digital ‘wolf packs’. Although this movement is highly decentralized and heterogeneous, there are interactive processes that connect and shape the online milieu of extremists into more than the sum of its parts, forming a structure that facilitates a certain degree of cohesion, strategic agency, and learning. This paper uses the model of collective learning outside formal organizations to analyze how the revolutionary accelerationist right as a community of practice engages in generating collective identities and knowledge that are used in the service of their acts of death and destruction.

Halle (Saale), Germany: Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, 2022. 62p.

By William Rosenau, Megan McBride

The alleged participation of off-duty law enforcement personnel in the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol has generated fresh interest in the broader issue of police participation in right-wing extremist groups and activities. Such extremism poses obvious but significant challenges for police agencies and their  communities. It can undermine the rule of law, damage police morale, compromise investigations, hinder successful prosecutions, and disrupt relationships between the police and the communities they serve (particularly communities of color). In the words of one police captain, “whenever the police department shirks its unbiased responsibility. . .the community then is in for real trouble.” Although we know that there are right-wing extremists among the nation’s 800,000 law enforcement officers, we do not know the extent of that presence or the most common ideologies. We also lack a detailed understanding of the strategies and tactics right-wing extremists use to infiltrate and recruit within police ranks and the extent to which the extremist presence may imperil investigations, including those concerning criminal extremist activities. In addition, while much has been made of the threat posed by intentional infiltrations, a potentially greater concern is the organic and gradual radicalization of those already on the force. This paper provides an overview of the current state of knowledge about police officer engagement in rightwing extremism, including the sustained use of racist, misogynistic, and homophobic language and stereotyping, both online and offline. After surveying the contemporary right-wing extremist landscape, this paper uses publicly available sources to explore in a preliminary way aspects of extremist penetration and recruitment, pre-employment screening challenges, police participation in extremist activity, and the role of social media platforms and the internet in enabling extremism. The paper concludes with a set of analytical questions that practitioners and policy-makers must answer if they hope to mitigate the rightwing extremist threat. 

Arlington, VA: CNA, 2021. 9p