By Haroro J. Ingram and Jon Lewis

This study begins by establishing the foundation for the conceptual framework through which the authors analyze the leadership and impact of Beam, Pierce, and Mason. It draws on the Ligon et al. CIP (Charismatic, Ideological, and Pragmatic) leadership model with its dual focus on leadership typologies and six life events that tend to characterize the life narratives of outstanding leaders. Our framework is further supplemented by a more nuanced conceptual grounding in charismatic leadership theory.  It then features the three central case studies. These case studies seek to examine the respective backgrounds, leadership styles, influence, and lasting appeal of these American ideologues. It traces their life experiences, reviewing the totality of their contributions to their respective far-right milieus. In doing so, it examines their roles within specific right-wing movements as well as their roles as nodes that connected disparate elements of the modern far-right. This study concludes by drawing out key overarching findings that emerge from the preceding analysis. Specifically, it focuses on the enduring legacies of Beam, Pierce, and Mason by reflecting on how they have collectively impacted the evolution of violent far-right movements, and considers how the differences in the leadership types and life narratives have shaped that legacy. Finally, it offers policy insights and avenues for future research with respect to the modern far-right landscape and the role of charismatic leadership in prominent white supremacist movements active today.

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2023. 85p.

By Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Moustafa Ayad

In May 2019, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued an intelligence bulletin which included one of the first official acknowledgments of what they and other similar agencies in the West identified as an emerging violent extremist threat.  It warned that “anti-government, identity-based, and fringe political conspiracy theories” were playing an increasing role in motivating domestic extremists to commit criminal, sometimes violent, acts. Since then, officials have also noted the emergence of individuals acting on the basis of “salad bar ideology” extremism, a term used in 2020 by FBI Director Christopher Wray to describe the nature of some of the recent violent extremist threats. Their ideologies, according to Director Wray, “are kind of a jumble…a mixture of ideologies that don’t fit together.”  He went on to say that some extremists “take a mish mash of different kinds of ideologies often that don’t fit coherently together, and sometimes are even in tension with each other, and mix them together with some kind of personal grievance,” to justify their attack. Director Wray concluded that “it’s more about the violence than it is about the ideology.”

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2023. 39p.

By Jacob Ware

When a 13-year-old boy was caught by Estonian police in early 2020 for leading an international terrorist organization, shockwaves rippled through the Western counterterrorism community. But, it was merely the latest uncomfortable milestone in a long-term trend of extremist material growing increasingly accessible online. “Accessing a world of hate online today is as easy as it was tuning into Saturday morning cartoons on television,” Oren Segal of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) opined, offering a painful comparison illustrating how modern extremism has replaced more benign pastimes. The capture of Feuerkrieg Division’s leader provided perhaps the most shocking—if not outright damning—evidence yet of the ever-increasing impact of social media on the extremism and terrorism stage: individuals in their early teens were not just being recruited by neo-Nazis but were actively recruiting and leading their peers.

Although many scholars have tackled the question of online radicalization, far fewer have connected the nuances of the online world to their offline impacts beyond the simple question of whether terrorists inspired online commit violence offline. This article aims to assess how online extremism changes over time, and therefore, how it impacts terrorism and counterterrorism on the ground level. This longer-term and more strategic look at the history of online radicalization is worthwhile in part because it captures the array of research performed over several decades and sorts it into three overarching, chronological categories. Research conducted into key sub-elements such as platforms, groups, networks, moderation evasion, and radicalization patterns informs the framework and helps reveal the characteristics of each generation. The following paper should therefore be understood, in part, as a literature review highlighting important work on key factors in online radicalization. It also reflects the need to constantly reassess our understanding of the latest trends in extremism on the internet. As Meili Criezis writes, “Online environments can be fast-paced; with dynamics constantly shifting and evolving, researchers are required to frequently revisit and reassess these spaces.”

Washington, DC: George Washington University, Program on Extremism, 2023. 36p.

By The Counter Extremism Project

Far-left extremism in the United States largely centers around the notion of correcting an injustice but is otherwise broad in its ideological catchment. In the 20th century, U.S. left-wing extremism was synonymous with either communism or causes such as environmentalism. In the 1960s and ’70s, the Weather Underground declared war against the U.S. government and carried out a campaign of political violence.* According to the FBI, far-left extremism in the United States was most active during the period between the 1960s and 1980s. Special-interest extremism began to emerge on the far-left in the 1990s, resulting in the promulgation of groups such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) and Earth Liberation Front (ELF). The FBI estimated that between 1996 and 2002, these two groups were responsible for 600 criminal acts in the United States that caused more than $42 million in damages.*

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, ALF and ELF targeted animal research facilities and corporations for acts of vandalism and destruction of property. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the U.S. government reevaluated how it approached terrorism abroad and at home. While the government focused on al-Qaeda as the primary foreign threat, federal authorities—partly in response to government lobbying by corporations victimized by ecoterrorists—considered ALF and ELF to be the primary domestic terrorism threat in what media dubbed the Green Scare.* By 2010, however, federal authorities had shifted their domestic focus to the threat of the far right, which continued to overshadow the radical far left in violent attacks while ALF and ELF focused on property damage.* A July 2020 report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reviewed almost 900 politically motivated attacks since 1994. Researchers found that far-left attacks had resulted in only one fatality in that 25-year span, compared with 329 fatalities in attacks by the far right.* In recent years, however, the radical far left has seen a resurgence in response to the rise of the far right, particularly since the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when far-right protesters clashed with far-left counter-protesters. A revitalized American far left has emerged to lead protest movements against the far right and perceived injustices. Armed groups such as the John Brown Gun Club formed to directly confront the violent far right and a broad interpretation of fascism, which often include symbols of capitalism and corporations. These manifestations have been on display during 2020 protests against police brutality, during which the far left have become increasingly visible and destructive, leading then-President Donald Trump in May 2020 to call for designating the broad anti-fascist ideology Antifa a terrorist organization.*

New York: Counter Extremism Project, 2022. 143p.

By  Nestar Russell

Horrified by the Holocaust, social psychologist Stanley Milgram wondered if he could recreate the Holocaust in the laboratory setting. Unabated for more than half a century, his (in)famous results have continued to intrigue scholars. Based on unpublished archival data from Milgram’s personal collection, volume one of this two-volume set introduces readers to a behind the scenes account showing how during Milgram’s unpublished pilot studies he step-by-step invented his official experimental procedure—how he gradually learnt to transform most ordinary people into willing inflictors of harm. The open access volume two then illustrates how certain innovators within the Nazi regime used the very same Milgram-like learning techniques that with increasing effectiveness gradually enabled them to also transform most ordinary people into increasingly capable executioners of other men, women, and children. Volume two effectively attempts to capture how step-by-step these Nazi innovators attempted to transform the Führer’s wish of a Jewish-free Europe into a frightening reality. By the books’ end the reader will gain an insight into how the seemingly undoable can become increasingly doable

Cham: Springer Nature, 2019. 333p.

Edited by: Juliet Pietsch, Haydn Aarons

The latter years of the first decade of the twenty-first century were characterised by an enormous amount of challenge and change to Australia and Australians. Australia’s part in these challenges and changes is borne of our domestic and global ties, our orientation towards ourselves and others, and an ever increasing awareness of the interdependency of our world. Challenges and changes such as terrorism, climate change, human rights, community breakdown, work and livelihood, and crime are not new but they take on new variations and impact on us in different ways in times such as these.

In this volume we consider these recent challenges and changes and how Australians themselves feel about them under three themes: identity, fear and governance. These themes suitably capture the concerns of Australians in times of such change. Identity is our sense of ourselves and how others see us. How is this affected by the increased presence of religious diversity, especially Islamic communities, and increased awareness of moral and political obligations towards Indigenous Australians? How is it affected by our curious but changing relationship with Asia? Fear is an emotional reaction to particular changes and challenges and produces particular responses from individuals, politicians, communities and nations alike; fear of crime, fear of terrorism and fear of change are all considered in this volume.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2012;   204p.

By  Monika Schwarz-Friesel and Jehuda Reinharz

Antisemitism is on the rise in Europe, sometimes manifest in violent acts against Jews, but more commonly noticeable in everyday discourse. This innovative empirical study examines written examples of antisemitism in contemporary Germany. Drawing on 14,000 letters and e-mails sent between 2002 and 2012 to the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the Israeli embassy in Berlin, as well communications sent between 2010 and 2011 to Israeli embassies across Europe, the authors show how language plays acrucial role in activating antisemitism across a broad spectrum of social classes, investigate the role of emotions in antisemitic argumentation patterns, and analyze “anti-Israelism” as the dominant form of contemporary hatred of Jews.

Waltham MA: Brandeis University Press, 2017. 468p.

By Aoife Gallagher

Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has found that in the year since June 2022, anti-drag mobilisation in the UK has become a key focus for a variety of groups and actors. Anti-vaxxers, white nationalist groups, influential conspiracy theorists and “child protection” advocates have at times formed an uneasy – even fractious – coalition of groups opposing all-ages drag events. The driving force behind these protests is a mix of far-right groups and COVID-19 conspiracists.

While public debate about what is appropriate entertainment for children, and at what ages, is absolutely legitimate and deserves fair hearing, the identified tactics used by these actors only serve to undermine that discussion with chilling consequences for free expression, and create fertile ground for a potential uptick in violence. Furthermore, our analysis has found evidence that the UK is importing anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and strategies from similar movements in the US, with the “groomer” slur – used to frame LGBTQ+ people as a danger to children – becoming commonplace among anti-LGBTQ+ campaigners. Even though UK activity has not reached the level of violence seen in the US, abuse and harassment of hosts, performers and attendees at such events is a regular occurrence, and multiple events have been cancelled due to safety concerns. This report documents anti-drag activity in the UK by searching news reports, Twitter mentions and messages shared in relevant UK Telegram channels and groups. It outlines the actors involved, the tactics used and the impact of such activity between June 1, 2022 and May 27, 2023

Amman; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023. 20p.

By Clara Martiny and Sabine Lawrence

This country profile provides an analysis of on- and offline anti-drag mobilization in the United States; key tactics used by groups and individuals protesting drag events; and principal narratives deployed against drag performers. Through ethnographic monitoring of relevant US-based Telegram channels, Twitter profiles, Facebook groups, and use of external resources such as the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Crowd Counting Consortium, and previous reports on anti-drag activity by groups such as GLAAD and the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), ISD analysts compiled, categorized and analyzed anti-drag protests or online threats against drag events from June 1, 2022 to May 20, 2023.

The findings of this research reveal that the first five months of 2023 have seen more incidents of anti-drag protests, online and offline threats, and violence (97 in total; average of 19.4 per month) than in the last seven months of 2022 (106 in total; average of 15.1 per month).1 Notably, ISD analysts find that the actors behind anti-drag activity are not just traditional anti-LGBTQ+ groups but include growing numbers of assorted other actors, from local extremists and white supremacists through to parents’ rights activists, members of anti-vaxxer groups, and Christian nationalists. ISD also finds an increasing number of incidents where online hate speech has manifested in offline activity – for example, a popular online slur being found spray painted on a location hosting a drag event. This report also shows the concerning upward trend of anti-drag mobilization across the US, and shows how it harms the LGBTQ+ community, small business, parents, and poses serious risks to community security throughout the nation. And, while public debate about what is appropriate entertainment for children, and at what ages, is absolutely legitimate and deserves fair hearing, the identified tactics only serve to undermine that discussion, with chilling consequences for free expression, and create fertile ground for a potential uptick in violence.

Amman; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023.24p.

By Tim Squirrell and Jacob Davey

Internationally, rising hate and extremism pose an existential threat to human rights and democratic freedoms. LGBTQ+ communities are often the first group to come under attack, and understanding the contours of these assaults matters both for the protection of these communities and to be better able to safeguard human rights and democracy more broadly. In new research by ISD, including four country profiles, we examine the trends in anti-LGBTQ+ hate and extremism with a particular focus on harassment targeting all-ages drag shows. In this report, ISD analyses the narratives, themes, actors and tactics involved in anti-drag activism in the US, UK, Australia and France. It examines the footprint of 274 anti-drag mobilisations: 11 in Australia, 3 in France, 57 in the UK and 203 in the USA. Anti-drag activity was also found in Ireland, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland as well as other European countries during the reporting period, usually in isolated cases. Due to finite resources these instances were not analysed in depth, but would merit further research. This research draws on ethnographic monitoring of over 150 Telegram channels, Twitter profiles and Facebook groups, as well as external resources such as news reports, Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) and Crowd Counting and previous reports on anti-drag by GLAAD and the Southern Poverty Law.

Amman; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023. 19p.

By Aoife Gallagher

Research by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has found that in the year since June 2022, anti-drag mobilisation in the UK has become a key focus for a variety of groups and actors. Anti-vaxxers, white nationalist groups, influential conspiracy theorists and “child protection” advocates have at times formed an uneasy – even fractious – coalition of groups opposing all-ages drag events. The driving force behind these protests is a mix of far-right groups and COVID-19 conspiracists. …This report documents anti-drag activity in the UK by searching news reports, Twitter mentions and messages shared in relevant UK Telegram channels and groups. It outlines the actors involved, the tactics used and the impact of such activity between June 1, 2022 and May 27, 2023.

Amman; Berlin; London; Paris; Washington DC: Institute for Strategic Dialogue, 2023. 20p.

By Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe

The purpose of this Guide is to describe and analyze hate incidents and hate crimes faced by Roma and Sinti, as well as the corresponding security challenges. Considering cases from many of the 57 OSCE participating States, this Guide highlights measures that promote safety and security without discrimination, in line with OSCE commitments. This Guide provides relevant stakeholders - government offcials, political representatives, civil society and the broader public - with an overview of the situations Roma and Sinti communities face, an analysis of their corresponding security needs and areas where positive actions could improve their access to rights.

Warsaw: OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) , 2023. 138p.

By The Anti-Defamation League, Center for Technology & Society  

Over the past year, online hate and harassment rose sharply for adults and teens ages 13-17. Among adults, 52% reported being harassed online in their lifetime, the highest number we have seen in four years, up from 40% in 2022. Both adults and teens also reported being harassed within the past 12 months, up from 23% in 2022 to 33% in 2023 for adults and 36% to 51% for teens. Overall, reports of each type of hate and harassment increased by nearly every measure and within almost every demographic group. ADL conducts this nationally representative survey annually to find out how many American adults experience hate or harassment on social media; since 2022, we have surveyed teens ages 13-17 as well. The 2023 survey was conducted in March and April 2023 and spans the preceding 12 months. Online hate and harassment remain persistent and entrenched problems on social media platforms.

New York: ADL, 2023. 51p.

By Randolph Hohle

This book explains the emergence of two competing forms of black political representation that transformed the objectives and meanings of local action, created boundaries between national and local struggles for racial equality, and prompted a white response to the civil rights movement that set the stage for the neoliberal turn in US policy. Randolph Hohle questions some of the most basic assumptions about the civil rights movement, including the importance of non-violence, and the movement’s legacy on contemporary black politics. Non-violence was the effect of the movement’s emphasis on racially non-threatening good black citizens that, when contrasted to bad white responses of southern whites, severed the relationship between whiteness and good citizenship. Although the civil rights movement secured new legislative gains and influenced all subsequent social movements, pressure to be good black citizens and the subsequent marginalization of black authenticity have internally polarized and paralyzed contemporary black struggles. This book is the first systematic analysis of the civil rights movement that considers the importance of authenticity, the body, and ethics in political struggles. It bridges the gap between the study of race, politics, and social movement studies.

New York; London: Routledge, 2013. 188p.

Edited by Vishwas Satgar

"Racism after Apartheid, volume four of the Democratic Marxism series, brings together leading scholars and activists from around the world studying and challenging racism. In eleven thematically rich and conceptually informed chapters, the contributors interrogate the complex nexus of questions surrounding race and relations of oppression as they are played out in the global South and global North. Their work challenges Marxism and anti-racism to take these lived realities seriously and consistently struggle to build human solidarities."

Johannesburg " Wits University Press. 2019. 264p.

By Lee D. Baker

In the late nineteenth century, if ethnologists in the United States recognized African American culture, they often perceived it as something to be overcome and left behind. At the same time, they were committed to salvaging “disappearing” Native American culture by curating objects, narrating practices, and recording languages. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Lee D. Baker examines theories of race and culture developed by American anthropologists during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth. He investigates the role that ethnologists played in creating a racial politics of culture in which Indians had a culture worthy of preservation and exhibition while African Americans did not. Baker argues that the concept of culture developed by ethnologists to understand American Indian languages and customs in the nineteenth century formed the basis of the anthropological concept of race eventually used to confront “the Negro problem” in the twentieth century. As he explores the implications of anthropology’s different approaches to African Americans and Native Americans, and the field’s different but overlapping theories of race and culture, Baker delves into the careers of prominent anthropologists and ethnologists, including James Mooney Jr., Frederic W. Putnam, Daniel G. Brinton, and Franz Boas. His analysis takes into account not only scientific societies, journals, museums, and universities, but also the development of sociology in the United States, African American and Native American activists and intellectuals, philanthropy, the media, and government entities from the Bureau of Indian Affairs to the Supreme Court. In Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture, Baker tells how anthropology has both responded to and helped shape ideas about race and culture in the United States, and how its ideas have been appropriated (and misappropriated) to wildly different ends.

Durham, NC: London: Duke University Press, 2010. 294p.

By Jonathan Hsy

How do marginalized communities across the globe use the medieval past to combat racism, educate the public, and create a just world? Jonathan Hsy advances urgent academic and public conversations about race and appropriations of the medieval past in popular culture and the arts. Examining poetry, fiction, journalism, and performances, Hsy shows how cultural icons such as Frederick Douglass, Wong Chin Foo, Alice Dunbar-Nelson, and Sui Sin Far reinvented medieval traditions to promote social change. Contemporary Asian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and multiracial artists embrace diverse pasts to build better futures. “Makes the crucial move of tying medievalism studies readings to social and racial justice work explicitly … innovative and greatly needed in the field.” Seeta Chaganti, author of Strange Footing “A major accomplishment that belongs on the shelves of every person who believes in antiracism.” Geraldine Heng, author of The Invention of Race in the European Middle Ages

Leeds, UK:  Arc Humanities Press,, 2021. 180p.

By Hannah Noel

Details the appropriation of social justice rhetoric to claim Whiteness as an aggrieved social status, enabling White supremacy and deepening racial inequities.

Columbus, OH: The Ohio State University Press,  2022.  236p.

Edited by Ayhan Kaya, Ayşenur Benevento and  Metin Koca

This book analyses the factors and processes behind radicalisation of both native and self-identified Muslim youths. It argues that European youth responds differently to the challenges posed by contemporary flows of globalisation such as deindustrialisation, socio-economic, political, spatial, and psychological forms of deprivation, humiliation, and structural exclusion. The book revisits social, economic, political, and psychological drivers of radicalisation and challenges contemporary uses of the term “radicalism”. It argues that neoliberal forms of governance are often responsible for associating radicalism with extremism, terrorism, fundamentalism, and violence. It will appeal to students and scholars of migration, minority studies, nationalisms, European studies, sociology, political science, and psychology.

New York: London: Routledge, 2023. 262p.

By Bjørn Enge Bertelsen

On 29 September 2015 a motorcade comprising a number of cars holding Afonso Dhlakama, his aides, and soldiers drove along a main road from Chimoio in central Mozambique toward the city of Nampula when they were attacked—apparently by the forces of the Mozambican state. Dhlakama, the long-term leader of Renamo, the country’s largest opposition party, had just spoken at a rally in Chimoio. The attack left a number of people dead, but Dhlakama himself allegedly escaped quite spectacularly: He transmogrified into a bird, a partridge—the symbol of his party Renamo—spread his wings, and fl ew off. Various and conflicting accounts of the attack broke on social media a mere hour after it happened. However, a key element in coverage in Mozambican papers and on social media was that so-called traditional leaders confirmed Dhlakama’s transmogrification and escape (Cuna 2015). I spoke with my interlocutors in nearby Chimoio and Honde by telephone in the days that followed, and they also confirmed the story, with one elderly man expressing with some glee, “The state should have known he would escape like that! Dhlakama has a lot of power from tradition.” This book is not only about disentangling key national events such as these—events where forces of the state allegedly seek to eradicate the leader of the political opposition by violence, or about what could easily be labeled beliefs, cosmologies, even ontologies of this particular part of Mozambique. Rather, it examines the multiplex, historical, and contemporary relations between hierarchically oriented structures, state (for short), and what lies beyond: the domain of the social, including what is often referred to as “tradition.”  

New York: London: Berghahn Books, 2016. 360p.