By Neumann, Neomi

From the document: "As Palestinians and Israelis mark the thirtieth anniversary of the Oslo Accords, it is worth pausing to examine what remains of the original promise contained in the agreement (hint: something does remain). More than that, it is worth examining whether those remnants can survive the many challenges facing the Palestinian Authority, especially those likely to emerge 'the day after' President Mahmoud Abbas exits the stage. [...] In the three decades since Oslo, a litany of crises has eroded public trust in the very idea of conducting political dialogue in the spirit of those accords, including two Palestinian intifadas, the fallout from Israel's 2005 Gaza disengagement, and even the 2006 Lebanon war. A real window opened during Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's tenure in 2006-08, but it eventually closed as well, whether because of Israeli politics or Abbas's hesitation. Today, the PA has survived to carry out its work in the civilian, economic, and political spheres. But its inherent weaknesses have grown starker, and the West Bank governance system is eroding both ideologically and functionally as a result of political dormancy, distrust from the Palestinian street, and the crowding of the resistance space. This year has already been the most violent under Abbas's tenure--as noted above, 181 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since January, while 30 Israelis and foreigners have been killed by Palestinian attackers from that territory and East Jerusalem. The dysfunction and violence have raised questions about the PA's ability to navigate future crises, including the day after Abbas leaves the scene."

Washington Institute For Near East Policy . 2023.. 8p.

By Suraj Lakhani, Jessica White and Claudia Wallner

The intersection between (violent) extremism and video-gaming – spanning across jihadist, farright, and other types of ideologies – is long-standing, though is an area that is under-researched. As part of this, particularly scant attention has been paid to the concept of ‘gamification’; i.e. the application of gaming and game-design principles within non-gaming environments (Lakhani and Wiedlitzka, 2022). The primary objective of this paper is to provide an understanding of how (violent) extremism can be (and has been) gamified, what emerging trends and future scenarios might be, and the potential influence (or lack thereof) that gamification has within (violent) extremism. On the basis of this understanding, this paper will outline relevant concepts of action through preventing and countering (violent) extremism (P/CVE) considerations and offer policy (and broader) recommendations on how to account for the element of gamification and potential actions to prevent and counter the phenomenon. Through existing literature and open-source materials – including academic articles, research reports, policy documents, newspaper articles, investigative journalism, government inquiries and previous relevant Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) Policy Support (PS) deliverables, etc. – this paper will investigate the following key questions: what is gamification of (violent) extremism, what are the current and future threats it presents to the European Union (EU), and how can it be countered? In order to address this, the paper is organised into the following sections. SECTION 1 (‘CONCEPTUALISATION OF GAMIFICATION’) Section 1 (‘Conceptualisation of gamification’) will provide a conceptual overview of gamification, including outlining a working definition, in order to provide a foundation for the remainder of the paper. This section will also outline the concept’s origins and examine how these can be applied to the context of (violent) extremism. There will additionally be a contextualisation of the phenomenon in regard to the threat of (violent) extremism within EU Member States (MS) overall. SECTION 2 (‘CURRENT AND FUTURE THREATS’) Section 2 (‘Current and future threats’) will discuss the potential ways in which (violent) extremism can be gamified, predominantly through outlining a range of current examples. These examples are by no means exhaustive, but do provide a sufficient overview regarding the types of gamification approaches taken within this context, by both (violent) extremist organisations and individuals. This section will conclude by considering the emerging trends and conceivable future scenarios in this field. SECTION 3 (‘ADDRESSING GAMIFICATION WITH P/CVE’) Section 3 (‘Addressing gamification with P/CVE’) outlines how gamified (violent) extremism can be addressed in P/CVE programming and whether or not it requires specifically tailored responses. This section will also inform discussions on whether current responses are fit for purpose and how these approaches potentially need to be tailored or evolve in order to deal with the threat posed by the gamification of (violent) extremism more effectively. SECTION 4 (‘POLICY AND RECOMMENDATIONS’) Section 4 (‘Policy and recommendations’) will then consider any current policy which relates to the gamification of (violent) extremism across EU MS. This will be followed by a number of relevant recommendations for policymakers stemming from existing research and literature. This includes providing recommendations for P/CVE based on promising approaches. This section will also discuss the current state of work in this area of study and make relevant research-related recommendations. CONCLUSIONS Finally, a ‘Conclusions’ section will discuss the potential value and limitations of gamification as a concept in relation to (violent) extremism. This is underpinned by the consideration of whether gamification is purposeful or relates to actions undertaken by those familiar with a particular subculture, i.e. gamers.

Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2022 25p.

by Linda Schlegel

The concept of gamification is increasingly applied as a framework to understand extremist online subcultures and communications. Although a number of studies have been conducted, the theoretical and empirical basis to understand the role of gamification in extremist contexts remains weak. This article seeks to contribute to the development of a gamification of radicalization theory by exploring how Marczewski’s HEXAD, a user typology for gamified applications, may facilitate our understanding of individual variations in engagement with gamified extremist content. Five user types, named after their core motivational drivers for engagement, are discussed: Socializers, Competitors, Achievers, Meaning Seekers, and Disruptors. This typology may support future studies by providing a preliminary understanding of how different game elements may appeal to different users and increase their engagement with and susceptibility to extremist content in cyberspace.

Perspectives on Terrorism , August 2021, Vol. 15, No. 4 (August 2021), pp. 54-64 .

By The Violence Prevention Network and the Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy

Anti-feminist and anti-gender ideologies - and their basis in hostility and hatred towards women and LGBTQI* people - have long been an overlooked factor in analysing radicalisation and violent extremism. Both ideologies strongly appeal to groups organised around exclusionary principles because they provide language and a framework for the defence of hierarchical structures in society (Denkovski et al., 2021, 18). This trend is increasingly manifesting itself across a spectrum of violence. Despite a striking prevalence of anti-feminism and anti-gender attitudes within extremist worldviews, these motives have been considered at best secondary when analysing extremist attacks and groups (Wolf 2021). Yet, for extremist actors, they constitute a core element of their ideologies, a relevant area of recruitment within and outside extremist scenes, and an opportunity for strategic alliances. Throughout right-wing attacks in the past decade, such as those in Christchurch, Hanau, and Halle, a clear pattern of anti-feminist and misogynistic beliefs can be detected. Within such attacks, the ideological basis for mass public violence is formed by adherence to multiple, overlapping exclusionary attitudes. For instance, one conspiracy theory that finds popularity among right-wing actors is that of the “Great Replacement”. According to this idea, feminism was invented by Jewish elites to lower birth rates and advance mass migration, with the goal of replacing white European populations with non-European, non-white people, specifically Muslims (Fedders 2018). The Christchurch attacker had uploaded an online “manifesto” titled “the Great Replacement” before the attack on two mosques that killed 51 people - illustrating how anti-feminism is often intricately interwoven with racist and anti-Semitic thinking. The issue of overlapping ideological codes, elements, and groups is becoming increasingly important as we witness growing complexity in the right-wing landscape of radicalisation and violence. However, misogyny and anti-feminism are also integral to violent attacks outside of right-wing scenes. Several terrorist attacks by members of the incel1 community, such as those in the Californian city of Isla Vista in 2014, as well as the 2018 Toronto and 2019 Tallahassee attacks, have led to an increased awareness of the incel threat and the beginning of its consideration as a security threat in Western countries (see, for instance, Moonshot 2021). While embedded in a much broader online misogynist scene, misogynist incel ideologies promote particularly extreme misogyny, anti-feminism, and sexism. Misogynist incels see women as depriving them of their natural entitlement to sex. The use of dehumanising and aggressive language – and, in parts, open calls to violence Anti-feminist and anti-gender ideologies - and their basis in hostility and hatred towards women and LGBTQI* people - have long been an overlooked factor in analysing radicalisation and violent extremism. Both ideologies strongly appeal to groups organised around exclusionary principles because they provide language and a framework for the defence of hierarchical structures in society (Denkovski et al., 2021, 18). This trend is increasingly manifesting itself across a spectrum of violence. Despite a striking prevalence of anti-feminism and anti-gender attitudes within extremist worldviews, these motives have been considered at best secondary when analysing extremist attacks and groups (Wolf 2021). Yet, for extremist actors, they constitute a core element of their ideologies, a relevant area of recruitment within and outside extremist scenes, and an opportunity for strategic alliances. Throughout right-wing attacks in the past decade, such as those in Christchurch, Hanau, and Halle, a clear pattern of anti-feminist and misogynistic beliefs can be detected. Within such attacks, the ideological basis for mass public violence is formed by adherence to multiple, overlapping exclusionary attitudes. For instance, one conspiracy theory that finds popularity among right-wing actors is that of the “Great Replacement”. According to this idea, feminism was invented by Jewish elites to lower birth rates and advance mass migration, with the goal of replacing white European populations with non-European, non-white people, specifically Muslims (Fedders 2018). The Christchurch attacker had uploaded an online “manifesto” titled “the Great Replacement” before the attack on two mosques that killed 51 people - illustrating how anti-feminism is often intricately interwoven with racist and anti-Semitic thinking. The issue of overlapping ideological codes, elements, and groups is becoming increasingly important as we witness growing complexity in the right-wing landscape of radicalisation and violence. However, misogyny and anti-feminism are also integral to violent attacks outside of right-wing scenes. Several terrorist attacks by members of the incel1 community, such as those in the Californian city of Isla Vista in 2014, as well as the 2018 Toronto and 2019 Tallahassee attacks, have led to an increased awareness of the incel threat and the beginning of its consideration as a security threat in Western countries (see, for instance, Moonshot 2021). While embedded in a much broader online misogynist scene, misogynist incel ideologies promote particularly extreme misogyny, anti-feminism, and sexism. Misogynist incels see women as depriving them of their natural entitlement to sex. The use of dehumanising and aggressive language – and, in parts, open calls to violence provides the framework in which attacks, as mentioned above, occur. The most well-known incel attacker, for instance, just weeks before the attack in Isla Vista called upon incels to “realise their true strength and numbers”, “overthrow this oppressive feminist system”, and “start envisioning a world where WOMEN FEAR YOU” (Glasstetter 2014). These attacks were broadly referenced and discussed within incel and misogynist scenes and the extreme right more specifically. In Halle, the right-wing extremist who killed two people and tried to enter a local synagogue was listening to music that makes explicit references in name and content to the incel attack in Toronto in 2018.

Berlin: Violence Prevention Network, 2021. 15p.

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

The question of who is accountable for the proliferation of antisemitism, hate, and extremism online has been hotly debated for years. Are our digital feeds really a reflection of society, or do social media platforms and tech companies actually exacerbate virulent content themselves? The companies argue that users are primarily responsible for the corrosive content soaring to the top of news feeds and reverberating between platforms. This argument serves to absolve these multi-billion-dollar companies from responsibility for any role their own products play in exacerbating hate.

A new pair of studies from ADL and TTP (Tech Transparency Project) show how some of the biggest social media platforms and search engines at times directly contribute to the proliferation of online antisemitism, hate, and extremism through their own tools and, in some cases, by creating content themselves. While there are many variables contributing to online hate, including individual users’ own behavior, our research demonstrates how these companies are taking things from bad to worse.

For these studies, we created male, female, and teen personas (without a specified gender) who searched for a basket of terms related to conspiracy theories as well as popular internet personalities, commentators, and video games across four of the biggest social media platforms, to test how these companies’ algorithms would work. In the first study, three of four platforms recommended even more extreme, contemptuously antisemitic, and hateful content. One platform, YouTube, did not take the bait. It was responsive to the persona but resisted recommending antisemitic and extremist content, proving that it is not just a problem of scale or capability.

In our second study, we tested search functions at three companies, all of which made finding hateful content and groups a frictionless experience, by autocompleting terms and, in some cases, even auto-generating content to fill in hate data voids. Notably, the companies didn’t autocomplete terms or auto-generate content for other forms of offensive content, such as pornography, proving, again, that this is not just a problem of scale or capability.

What these investigations ultimately revealed is that tech companies’ hands aren’t tied. Companies have a choice in what to prioritize, including when it comes to tuning algorithms and refining design features to either exacerbate or help curb antisemitism and extremism.

As debates rage between legislators, regulators, and judges on AI, platform transparency, and intermediary liability, these investigations underscore the urgency for both platforms and governments to do more. Based on our findings, here are three recommendations for industry and government:

Tech companies need to fix the product features that currently escalate antisemitism and auto-generate hate and extremism. Tech companies should tune their algorithms and recommendation engines to ensure they are not leading users down paths riddled with hate and antisemitism. They should also improve predictive autocomplete features and stop auto-generation of hate and antisemitism altogether.

Congress must update Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to fit the reality of today’s internet. Section 230 was enacted before social media and search platforms as we know them existed, yet it continues to be interpreted to provide those platforms with near-blanket legal immunity for online content, even when their own tools are exacerbating hate, harassment and extremism. We believe that by updating Section 230 to better define what type of online activity should remain covered and what type of platform behavior should not, we can help ensure that social media platforms more proactively address how recommendation engines and surveillance advertising practices are exacerbating hate and extremism, which leads to online harms and potential offline violence. With the advent of social media, the use of algorithms, and the surge of artificial intelligence, tech companies are more than merely static hosting services. When there is a legitimate claim that a tech company played a role in enabling hate crimes, civil rights violations, or acts of terror, victims deserve their day in court.

We need more transparency. Users deserve to know how platform recommendation engines work. This does not need to be a trade secret-revealing exercise, but tech companies should be transparent with users about what they are seeing and why. The government also has a role to play. We’ve seen some success on this front in California, where transparency legislation was passed in 2022. Still, there’s more to do. Congress must pass federal transparency legislation so that stakeholders (the public, researchers, and civil society) have access to the information necessary to truly evaluate how tech companies’ own tools, design practices, and business decisions impact society.

Hate is on the rise. Antisemitism both online and offline is becoming normalized. A politically charged U.S. presidential election is already under way. This is a pressure cooker we cannot afford to ignore, and tech companies need to take accountability for their role in the ecosystem.

Whether you work in government or industry, are a concerned digital citizen, or a tech advocate, we hope you find this pair of reports to be informative. There is no single fix to the scourge of online hate and antisemitism, but we can and must do more to create a safer and less hate-filled internet.

New York: ADL, 2023. 18p.

By Arno Tausch

This open access book presents an international comparison of religiously motivated extremism in the Arab world and around the globe. Based on data from the Arab Barometer and the World Values Survey, it applies advanced statistical techniques to analyze how religiously motivated political extremism affects political and social outcomes as well as political violence. The study clearly shows that identification with a political Islam that also influences elections, promotes religious and gender discrimination, and advocates an Islamist interpretation of Islam, are the main interrelated syndromes of political Islam that together explain more than 50% of the total variance of the 24 model variables used

Cham: Springer Nature, 2023. 108p.

Edited by Fred H. Cate and James X. Dempsey

• Examines national practices and laws regarding government access to personal information held by private-sector companies

• Contains updated reports on government surveillance and data collection in twelve major countries

• Describes evolving international law and human rights principles applicable to government surveillance

• Explores the principles and practical elements of transparency, accountability, and oversight

• Contains recommendations for both governments and industry on how to balance privacy and national security/law enforcement needs

• Includes chapters on the impact of encryption on the surveillance debate, and on reform of the international system for mutual legal assistance

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017. 505p.

Stephen P. Reyna

As US imperialism continues to dictate foreign policy, Deadly Contradictions is a compelling account of the American empire. Stephen P. Reyna argues that contemporary forms of violence exercised by American elites in the colonies, client state, and regions of interest have deferred imperial problems, but not without raising their own set of deadly contradictions. This book can be read many ways: as a polemic against geopolitics, as a classic social anthropological text, or as a seminal analysis of twenty-four US global wars during the Cold War and post-Cold War eras.

New York: Oxford, UK: Berghahn Books, 2016. 606p.

By Etchenique, Nicolas Cimarra

From the document: "While great power competition is the domain of geopolitics, democratic resilience mostly concerns domestic politics. President Biden has defined the domestic political challenges to democracy in the U.S. as a 'battle for the soul of the nation'. This narrative correlates with the 'battle between democracy and autocracy' that takes place at the geopolitical level. Rising distrust in government and society, polarization and illiberalism are particularly relevant to the international position of Washington and its soft power, as they are compromising democratic stability within the U.S. The paper will be divided in two parts: a diagnosis, called 'the global maelstrom of distrust', and a policy proposal, called 'the lighthouse of democracy'. The diagnosis focuses on the cumulative effect of three sets of challenges to democracy: a) great power competition and the authoritarian offensive against democracy, b) the rise of polarization and illiberalism, and c) the impact of social media and AI on democracy. This section of the paper will argue that these sets of challenges feed on distrust and amplify it. Furthermore, they have evolved into a series of cycles of distrust within democracies and into a great geopolitical cycle of distrust. Finally, the entanglement and feedback loops among the domestic and the geopolitical cycles of distrust have generated a cohesive threat to democracy. This threat is represented by a downward spiral that is pulling societies and the global community towards enmity. It feeds on and generates destructive human emotions, such as outrage and hatred, which include a strong irrational and unconscious dimension, and thus leads to violence, war, and autocracy."

Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. 2023.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

Edited by Shlomo Deshen and Walter P. Zenner

FROM THE PREFACE: “This work sterns from many decades of effort and affection which we, as social anthropologists, have invested in research on Jews from Muslim lands for over thirty years. We have been engaged in uncovering the present-day life of Middle Eastern Jews in Israel, the United States, in other countries in Europe and the Americas, as well as North Africa. Together with our interest in the present, we both have a lively interest in the social history of these people. In 1982, we published a volume of selections which tried to reconstruct the lives in Jews in traditional Middle Easter societies, as well as syntheses by anthropologists and historians. Jewish Societies in the Middle East: Community, Culture and Authority was well received at the time. But, since 1982, much has been published on the Jews of North Africa and Southwest Asia, both by professional historians and anthropologists. Anthropological thinking has become more critical of earlier theoretical approaches. The perspectives of scholars have been affected by political changes in the relationship of Israel and her Arab neighbors. We decided to respond to these developments by editing a new volume.”

NY. New York University Press. 1996. 297p.

By Irene Bucelli and Abigail McKnight

• Geographical concentration of disadvantage can lead to concentrated exclusion. Place-based policies have an important role to play, affecting a range of quality-of life dimensions and experiences of economic, social and civic participation. • These types of localised solutions are limited in relation to poverty reduction, suggesting they should not be considered in isolation of complementary national and regional policy around, for instance, housing, employment, education and social security. • To make sure those who are disadvantaged benefit from local regeneration policies, clear equity and social inclusion objectives need to be set, together with adequate forms of evaluation and monitoring – growth and prosperity cannot be expected to organically ‘trickle down’. • There are connections between neighbourhood environment and policy areas covered in other reviews, for instance: o Digital exclusion: Many strategies for urban regeneration have recently focused on leveraging the potential benefits of digitalisation. Strategies that support digital inclusion are required to reduce the risk of reinforcing existing inequalities. o Household debt; Food insecurity; Fuel poverty: Regeneration strategies can disrupt informal support networks (families, friends, neighbours) which play a critical role in mitigating vulnerability experienced by poor households. • We conclude the review with some promising actions identified in the international literature, namely: o Setting clear objectives in relation to poverty and social exclusion reduction is important for regeneration efforts to make sure benefits reach the most disadvantaged and to avoid gentrification. o This calls for evaluations to be planned alongside interventions which focus on distributional outcomes, not only processes and outputs. Realistic timeframes and estimates of ‘social value’ should also be included. o Community-led approaches can mitigate the risks of gentrification but require proactive engagement of disadvantaged citizens in the community.

Cardiff: The Wales Centre for Public Policy, 2022. 36p.

By Amy Prevost & Petra Jonas

Research on the negative outcomes of social media use have particularly focused on Facebook, with limited studies examining the relationship to Instagram use. This study explored the connection between Instagram use and six relevant themes related to overall well-being, including the potential for victimization. The study used both quantitative and qualitative methods. For the quantitative component, surveys were distributed to undergraduate students at two Canadian Universities. The qualitative nature of the study consisted of two focus groups which were conducted at the University of the Fraser Valley. Each focus group consisted of nine participants who engaged in dialogue regarding the six preliminary themes identified from the survey data. The study revealed that Instagram use is correlated with escapism, frustration, fear of missing out, validation, anxiety, addiction, and vulnerability to cyber victimization. Consistent with other studies in this area, our results indicated that regular Instagram use has negative psychological outcomes for individual users. The research offers some important implications and recommendations for early education, increased awareness about the potential for victimization, and early intervention strategies.

Vancouver, BC: International Centre for Criminal Law Reform , 2020. 36p.

USED BOOK. ,AY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Gaddis Smith

FROM THE FOREWORD: “"The United States always wins the war and loses the peace," runs a persistent popular complaint. Neither part of the statement is accurate. The United States barely escaped the War of 1812 with its territory intact, and in Korea in the 1950sthe nation was forced to settle for a stalemate on the battlefield. At Paris in 1782, and again in 1898, American negotiators drove hard bargains to win notable diplomatic victories. Yet the myth persists, along with the equally erroneous American belief that we are a peaceful people. Our history is studded with conflict and violence…”

NY. Knopf. 1985. 213p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Jack Temple Kirby

FROM THE PREFACE: “The New South Entered the American language at least as early as 1866, when Georgia's Benjamin H. Hill proclaimed the miraculous transformation of the former Confederacy to a New York audience. By new Hill meant a South unburdened of slavery, secessionist feeling, and a host of habits and practices out of step with industrializing, urbanizing America. Hill's successor as New South spokesman, the Alanta publisher Henry W. Grady went much furtier. During the 1880s Grady and like-minded colleagues declared that southerners had become creatures of the bourgeois world-entrepreneurs, mechanics, hustlers--progressives who had put the primitive worlds of the village, farm, and plantation behind them. So positive and eloquent were Grady and his generation of publicists that after most of them were dead, serious scholars of the early twentieth century ac- cepted their proclamations as truth. Subsequently, the hyperbole and fraud of this rhetorical New South….”

Baton Rouge and London. Louisiana State University Press. 1987. 407p.

Edited by Nissa Finney, James Nazroo, Laia Bécares, Dharmi Kapadia and Natalie Shlomo

This book provides the most comprehensive and up-to-date evidence on ethnic inequalities in Britain. This is highly pertinent to contemporary social and political race debates and policy agendas in the post-pandemic recovery context. The COVID-19 pandemic brought ethnic inequalities to the fore as it became evident that infection and mortality rates were higher among ethnic minorities than the population as a whole (ICNARC, 2020; Nazroo and Bécares, 2020; ONS, 2020; Platt and Warwick, 2020). In May 2020, as the devastating and unequal impacts of the pandemic were being realised, the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota in the US saw a resurgence of Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements globally (Alexander and Byrne, 2020). In response, the UK government published the Sewell Report in 2021 which relayed the conclusions of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, 2021), and, subsequently, the Inclusive Britain report in 2022 which laid out policy recommendations (Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, 2022).

Bristol, UK: Policy Press, 2023. 234p.

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.