By United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence

From the Introduction: "The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc across the country, with almost every household feeling its effects. The United States' death toll from this virus has surpassed one million people. Although concrete data is hard to lock down, millions of Americans are suffering from the long-term effects directly attributed to this virus. [...] This Committee is uniquely positioned to assist in answering the questions surrounding the origins of COVID 19. This unclassified report attempts to add to the discourse of COVID-19 origins with the understanding that information held by the United States Intelligence Community (IC) that has yet to be shared with this Committee could be useful in making a final determination of the question of whether the origin of this pandemic was natural or lab-related. [...] U.S. officials have pushed China to be more transparent about what it knows. However, as explained below, the U.S. government has itself withheld relevant information, namely, information regarding Chinese research activities and goals. Indeed, because of its access to nonpublic, classified intelligence, the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) has unique capabilities in obtaining relevant information and in determining the origins of COVID-19. Unfortunately, its efforts to date have fallen short, both in its own assessments and in what it has been willing to share with Congress and the public. The classified version of this Committee report was prepared with access to some, but not all, of the IC's classified reporting. The IC has largely refused our requests for additional information. This unclassified summary of the underlying classified report necessarily omits vital information in order to comply with our obligations regarding classified information."

United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 2022. 22p.

By United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence

From the Document: "Today, the House Intelligence Committee released a declassified report examining the Intelligence Community's response to the COVID-19 pandemic following a two-year investigation. The report examines the IC's [Intelligence Committee's] posture to support global health security policymakers, the IC's performance in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the steps the IC must take to strengthen any future pandemic response. The report details how the Intelligence Community was not well positioned or prepared to provide early warning and unique insights on the pandemic due to an inconsistent focus on health security and pandemics as a national security threat."

United States. Congress. House. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. 2022. 85p.

By Alvin W. Gouldner.

From the Preface: Social theorists today work within a crumbling social matrix of paralyzed urban centers and battered campuses. Some may put cotton in their ears, but their bodies still feel the shock waves. It is no exaggeration to say that we theorize today within the sound of guns. The old order has the picks of a hundred rebellions thrust into its hide.

While I was working on this study, one of the popular songs of the time was "Come on Baby, Light My Fire.” It is characteristic of our time that this song, which during the Detroit riots was used as an ode to urban conflagration, was also subsequently made into a singing commercial by a Detroit auto manufacturer. One wonders: Is this “repressive tolerance,” or is it, more simply, that they just do not understand? It is this context of social contradictions and conflicts that is the historical matrix of what I have called “The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology.” What I shall be examining here is the reflec­tion of these conflicts in the idiom of social theory.

The present study is part of a larger work plan, whose first product was Enter Plato, and whose objective is to contribute to an historically informed sociology of social theory. The plan envisages a series of studies called "The Social Origins of Western Social Theory,” and I am now at work on two other volumes in it. One of these is on the relation of the nineteenth century Romantic move­ment to social theory, and another is a study in which I hope to connect the various analytic threads, presenting a more systematic and generalized sociological theory about social theories.

NY. Avon Books. 1970. 518p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Frantz Fanon. Translated by Lamb Marksman. “.. it is Fanon the man, rather than the medical specialist or intellec­tual, who makes this book so hard to put down. His ideas and feelings fairly pour out...he became a fighter ancfa voice for the op­pressed, whom he also had the courage to warn: no religious or mystical attitude, no psychologi­cal ‘defense’ will enable the Negro to feel ‘secure’ or ‘himself’ until he is no longer the white man’s social and economic prey . . .”- Robert Coles, The New York Times Book Review

NY. Grove Press. 1967. 237p.

By Ernest Becker

What I have tried to do here is to present in a brief, challenging, and readable way the most important things that the various disciplines have dis­covered about man, about what makes people act the way they do. This is the most intimate question that we know, and what I want to do is to present to the intelligent reader that knowl­edge that the experts themselves get excited about. One curi­ous thing that separates the social from the natural sciences is that the natural sciences, with much fanfare, immediately com­municate to the general public their most exciting new ideas: the social sciences tend to nurse their significant insights in scholarly oblivion. As a result people feel that the social sciences are not doing anything important or exciting. But the opposite is true: probably the most thrilling and potentially liberating discoveries have been made in the fields of anthropology, so­ciology, psvchology, and psychiatry. The result is that we are today in possession of an excellent general theory of human nature, and this is what I want to reveal to the reader.

NY. The Free Press. 1971. 238p.

By Thomas J. Harbin.

“This is a book that I had to write. I had to write it for two reasons. First, I need­ed some materials to give to my patients, men who have a problem dealing with their anger. But writing this book also helped me organize my thoughts and feelings about the role of anger in my own life. Many years ago, others had told me that I had a problem with anger, but I didn’t take them seriously. In fact, I may never have been motivated to take this look at myself if I had not come close to ruining the most important thing in my life: my marriage. On our 10th wedding anniversary, my wife told me that “if the next 10 years are going to be like the last 10 years, I’m outta here.” Her words were not spoken in anger, but there was no doubt that she meant what she had said. What I had seen as a very good marriage with occasional arguments, she had seen as a constant, heavy burden. She felt as though she was always walking on eggshells so as not to “set me off.” When we had a disagreement, I brooded about it for days. Any time she disagreed with me, I immediately went on the attack and tried to defeat her and her point of view by almost any means. When she told me that she had taken all that she could stand, I took her seriously and decided that I had to do some frank soul searching to keep from losing the most impor­tant person I had ever known.”

NY. Marlowe & Company. 2000.217p.

By Oliver Sacks

This is the extraordinary account of a group of 20 patients, survivors of the great sleeping-sickness epidemic which swept the world in the 1920s, and the astonishing, explosive ‘awakening’ effect they experienced 40 years later through a new drug L-DOPA administered by Dr Sacks. The stories he tells of these remarkable individuals are moving, often courageous and sometimes tragic. Through them he also explores the most general questions of health, disease, suffering, care and the human condition. Now hailed as a medical classic, Awakenings was first published in 1973 and won the Hawthomden Prize of that year. It has since inspired a TV documentary, radio and stage plays, including Pinter’s A Kind of Alaska, and a major feature film. For this revised edition the author has written much new material, including a section about Awakenings on stage and screen.

London. Pan Books. 1973. 424p.

By Robert Nozick

In this brilliant and widely acclaimed book, winner of the 1975 National Book Award, Robert Nozick challenges the most commonly held political and social positions of our age—liberal, socialist, and conservative.

[“Nozick’s] faculties of reasoning and imagination are rare; his learning is enormous and interconnected. . . . His ability to surround a subject, to anticipate objection, to see through weakness and pretense, to extract all the im­plications of a contention, to ask a huge number of rele­vant questions about a seemingly settled matter, to en­large into full significance what has only been sketched by others, is amazing.”           —George Kateb. The American Scholar

“No contemporary philosopher possesses a more imagina­tive mind, broader interests, or greater dialectical abilities than Robert Nozick.”        —Harper’s

“A brilliant and important book, bound to contribute no­tably both to theory and, in time, to the good of society.”—W. V. Quine. Harvard University

NY. Basic Books. 1974. 376p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele.

This book “is a solid indictment of how the rulemakers in Washington and the dealmakers on Wall Street have changed the rules of the game to favor the privileged, the powerful, and the influential — at the expense of everyone else.. Expanding on an unforgettable series of articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, this book is the culmination of two years of research by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporters Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele. Assembling over 100,000 pages of documents and interviewing men and women at all levels of the work force across the nation, Barlett and Steele have managed to tell the story we all suspected in language so clear—and graphics so dramatic—that every reader will see how the lives of all of us have been touched by public acts and private greed. America: What Went Wrong? is a gripping portrayal of the painful dismantling of the American middle class.

Universal Press Syndicate. 1992. 246p.

By Jonathan Kenyon,  Jens Binder, and Christopher Baker-Beall

This study explored the role of the Internet in radicalisation pathways of convicted extremist offenders in England and Wales, continuing the work previously reported in Kenyon et al. (2021b). Specific considerations included technological advances and changes in online activities, exploring the relevance of mental health including specific types of difficulties and disorders, and focusing on the sub-group of convicted extremist offenders identified as attackers. Methodological approach and interpreting findings The study built on an existing data set of 269 individuals from the study by Kenyon et al. (2021b) but expanded the numbers substantially by adding those with a completed initial Extremism Risk Guidance (ERG22+) report from January 2018 to December 2021. This resulted in a data set of 490 individuals who had been convicted of an extremist offence, equating to nearly all offenders who have been subject to either a Structured Risk Guidance (SRG) or initial ERG22+ report from October 2010 up to December 2021. The analysis focused on 437 individuals who were identified as ‘Radicalised Extremists’ following a review of all reports. Online behaviours commonly associated with radicalisation, demographic information and offence characteristics were coded for all cases. Professional ratings for overall levels of engagement, intent and capability to commit violent extremist acts were also included. Future offence data was obtained for all individuals by accessing up-to-date offending information and reviewing their current location. Statistical analyses were used to compare three radicalisation pathway groups: those who primarily radicalised online; those who primarily radicalised offline; and those subject to radicalising influences in both the online and offline domain  

London: Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, Ministry of Justice Analytical Series , 2022. 70p.

By Ronald C. Slye

This paper provides a framework for policymakers to tailor more effective negotiation and transitional justice strategies to address root causes, break cycles of violence, and strengthen the rule of law in settings affected by violent extremism. This paper draws on an earlier paper authored by me and Mark Freeman of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (also published here on SSRN), the three case studies commissioned for that first paper (ISIS in Iraq, Al Shabaab in Somalia, and Boko Haram in Nigeria), and three newly-commissioned case studies on negotiations with violent extremist groups (Libya and the Libya Islamic Fighting Group, Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army, and Afghanistan and the Taliban). All six case studies can be found on the website of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (https://www.ifit-transitions.org).

Barcelona: Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), 2020. 204p.

By Lorand Bodo and Inga Kristina Trauthig

  The World Wide Web, since its development by Sir Tim Berners‑Lee in 1989, has steadily evolved into an ecosystem in which billions of users have become dependent on relatively few but large corporations. Using a search engine, posting on social media, communicating with others, or storing data in the cloud, for example, these companies have benefited billions of users positively. However, as the user base has grown over the years, so too has their power. Shifting the power from these few, large corporations back into the hands of users is critical to adherents of the Decentralised Web (DWeb). This ‘re‑decentralisation’ should also give the user more control over their data. As extremist actors try to innovate and find inventive ways to spread their propaganda and be more resistant to account and content removals, the DWeb is on their radar. This report gives a brief overview of the current status of the DWeb and ties it to existing and possible future exploitation of the DWeb by extremists. We focus on right‑wing extremist (RWE) and the so‑called Islamic State (IS) as these two strands of extremists are accredited with the highest threat potential in many parts of the world. We analyse a sample of thirty Telegram channels that fulfil our categorical features as being attached to the RWE spectrum. The second dataset, which was provided by UN‑supported Public‑Private Partnership Tech Against Terrorism (TAT), subjects the so‑called Islamic State’s exploitation of the DWeb to critical scrutiny.  

London:  Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), 2022. 44p.

By Daniel Allington

The purpose of this report is to explore the role that conspiracy theories, especially as disseminated through social media, may play in the process of radicalisation, and to make recommendations about how to minimise their occurrence. As it will show, there is clear evidence: • That conspiracy theories are disseminated through social networking and media sharing platforms • That conspiracy theories have historically played an important role in radicalisation, terrorism, persecution and genocide • That belief in conspiracy theories is psychologically associated with bigotry, extremism and willingness to break the law • That the perpetrators and alleged perpetrators of many recent mass shooting events were motivated by belief in conspiracy theories • That conspiracy theories have played a key role in recent political violence in the USA, including the insurrection of 6 January 2021 • That actions taken by social networking and media sharing platforms are inadequate to solve the problems associated with conspiracy theories, in part because the platforms themselves are designed in a way that serves to nurture and protect conspiracy beliefs  

London:  Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), 2021.  48p.

By Paul Thomas

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. How should we understand home-grown terrorism like the 7/7 London bombings? This is a classic monograph focusing on recent British attempts to 'prevent violent extremism', their problems and limitations, and what lessons this can offer for more effective policy approaches in future. Paul Thomas's extensive research suggests that the Prevent policy approaches, and the wider CONTEST counter-terrorism strategy, have been misguided and ineffective, further alienating British Muslim communities instead of supporting longer-term integration. He argues that new, cohesion-based approaches encouraging greater trust and integration across all communities represent the best defence against terrorism.

London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2012. 190p.

By  Hannah Rose and AC

• Young people – politicised, active and highly connected – are no longer just passive consumers of online terrorist content by adult groomers but are themselves propaganda creators, group organisers, peer recruiters, extremist financers and terrorist convicts.

• This process, called “youth‑on‑youth radicalisation”, emphasises the agency that young people have in a digital era in which the information hierarchy is increasingly flattened.

• Noting the formation of several new young extreme‑right groups and a series of terrorist convictions across Western Europe, this paper takes first steps to investigate the specific nature of this emerging threat.

• Ten extreme‑right youth groups from across Western Europe will be analysed to evidence the independence of extremist youth activism: Bastión Frontal, Eisenjugend, Junge Revolution, KS Nuoret, Sonnenkrieg Division, Blutkrieg Division, Feuerkrieg Division, Junge Tat, National Partisan Movement and The British Hand.

• More.....

  groups included have emerged since 2018, have an average membership age of under 25 and are associated with arrests for hate crimes, incitement to violence or acts of violence. These groups demonstrate racial nationalist ideologies with a youth‑centric focus, often using unique framings that differentiate them from other, older groups. While the role of social media on young people’s lives is self‑evident, an overview of the platforms to which young extreme‑right groups are attracted and the nature of their external communications will be provided, emphasising the role of Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and Telegram. Instagram is a useful tool for young racial nationalists, providing them with a powerful opportunity to recruit, reach young audiences and present striking visual content. Young extremists use different platforms for different purposes, dedicating themselves to maintaining presence on mainstream platforms through second accounts and circumventing platforms’ content moderation algorithms. As such, they “funnel” users to accounts on platforms with increasingly extreme content and ecosystems.. Offline presence continues to be a vital tool for the majority of extreme‑right youth groups, who engage in fitness or martial arts and organise community service in order to foster an in‑group identity. They incite against out‑groups through expertly styled propaganda and aggressive, often racist rallies, protests and banner drops. The threat posed by extreme‑right youth will be emphasised through exploration of incitement to violence and analysis of hate crimes and terrorist convictions.

London: ICSR King’s College London , 2021. 68p.

By Marc-André Argentino, Blyth Crawford, Florence Keen, Hannah Rose  

This report provides an overview of domestic extremism in the United States. It examines the various groups and movements that gained momentum under the administration of former President Donald Trump, the key discourses and motivations of those that were a part of the 6 January insurrection, and how these have evolved in the first 100 days of the Biden administration. • Through analysis of the MAGA movement and some of its various components, including the Oath Keepers, the Boogaloo Bois, Three Percenters, Proud Boys, and QAnon, this report reveals a country contending with a persistent domestic extremist threat which, despite Trump’s defeat, is unlikely to dissipate any time soon. • The 100 days that followed the inauguration of President Biden revealed a number of common narratives under which previously distinct groups have begun to converge, including anti-government ideologies, COVID conspiracy theories, election misinformation, racism, antisemitism, misogyny and transphobia. This report considers how these have evolved, and how they may continue to be a threat in the coming months and years. • The authors applied a mixed methods approach, leveraging data scientific methods and digital ethonography, in an effort to better understand MAGA-related groups, movements, and narratives both prior to and after Biden’s inauguration.  

London: ICSR King’s College London , 2021. 94p.

By Jared Holt

Domestic extremist movements have evolved and adapted their strategies, infrastructure, and messaging in the year since the insurrection at the US Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. Such movements were initially jubilant at the sight of extremist groups and former President Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters crashing through windows and brawling with police, temporarily halting the US Congress as it certified the 2020 election results. But, resulting arrests and scrutiny soured that cheer into a wicked brew of paranoia and fear that played out among these movements, both online and offline. After a short period of relative inactivity, some radical movements began to resurface publicly. By the summer of 2021, other movements reorganized, making strategic adjustments along the way. This report by the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) provides an overview and analysis of the shifts observed in domestic extremist movements since the 2021 Capitol attack. As noted in the National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, domestic extremist threats include groups and individuals “whose racial, ethnic, or religious hatred leads them toward violence” and those who incite “imminent violence in opposition to legislative, regulatory, or other actions taken by the government,” including self-proclaimed militias, “sovereign citizen” movements, and others promoting fringe ideological grievances.

• More.....

  This research is informed by continued online monitoring and analysis of extremist individuals, groups, and movements, and how their online behavior influences offline activities. Daily monitoring efforts, primarily comprising open-source and investigative reporting, began in the latter half of 2020 and continued through the entirety of 2021, producing a comprehensive record of extremist movements online that informed this report, as well as other efforts to combat the threats that domestic extremist movements pose to democracy and public safety. These findings portray a domestic extremist landscape that was battered by the blowback it faced after the Capitol riot, but not broken by it. In fact, the sentiments espoused by domestic extremist causes are as public and insidious as ever, making their way into mainstream conservative discourse. This underscores the importance of periodic accounting and strategizing of methods to confront threats. Just as extremist movements adapt and evolve, so should approaches to preventing the harms they produce.  

Washington, DC: Atlantic Defense Council, Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab). 2022. 47p.

By André Bank / Yannick Deepen / Julia Grauvogel / Sabine Kurtenbach

This Working Paper examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on state and non-state violent actors in the Global South. We provide an ACLED-based interregional map-ping of trends in Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. Cross-regional case comparisons shed further light on the similarities and differences of countries characterised by long-term armed conflict (Colombia, Iraq, Nigeria) or having transitioned from authoritarianism but facing inequality and political exclusion (Chile, Tunisia, South Africa). We identify a temporal variation: Initially, state armed actors’ new responsibilities to implement COVID-19–related control measures led to an increase in violence against civilians, but over time there was a decrease. We also find that COVID-19 had an early demobilising effect vis-à-vis protest and mob violence, a consequence of lockdowns and mobility restrictions. Yet, protest has quickly returned to pre-pandemic levels in many countries, underlining continued – sometimes aggravated –grievances. Moreover, different violent actors’ responses to the pandemic were decisively shaped by their respective conflict histories.

Hamburg: German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA), 2022. 56p.

By Maura Conway

This report treats developments in the violent extremist and terrorist online scene(s) and responses to them in the 13-month period from 1 December 2018 to 31 December 2019. It is divided into two parts: Part I focuses on the online activities of the extreme right, with a particular emphasis on the Christchurch attacks, and Part II on violent online jihadism, particularly the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (hereafter IS). The Conclusion provides a summing-up and identifies issues in this realm that bear watching in 2020. Those familiar with our previous reports will know that the structuring of these was slightly different, with analysis of violent jihadi activity preceding discussion of extreme right online activity in all instances. The March 2019 Christchurch attacks and a series of subsequent attacks in the United States and Germany put extreme right online activity firmly centre stage however, which is reflected in the structuring of the present report.

Dublin: VOX-POL Network of Excellence, Dublin City University, 2919. 26p.

Edited by Bharath Ganesh and Jonathan Bright

Extreme digital speech (EDS) is an emerging challenge that requires co-ordination between governments, civil society and the private sector. In this report, a range of experts on countering extremism consider the challenges that EDS presents to these stakeholders, the impact that EDS has and the responses taken by these actors to counter it. By focusing on EDS, our consideration of the topic is limited to the forms of extreme speech that take place online, often on social media platforms and multimedia messaging applications such as WhatsApp and Telegram. Furthermore, by focusing on EDS rather than explicitly violent forms of extreme speech online, we (as Matti Pohjonen writes in this report) ‘depart’ from a focus on violence and incorporate a broader range of issues such as hateful and dehumanising speech and the complex cultures and politics that have formed around EDS. This focus brings into view a much broader range of factors that help assemble extremist networks online.  

• More.....

  This perspective is necessary, given the role that hate speech plays in extreme right-wing networks and the complexity of Daesh propaganda which uses videos to synthesise utopic images of life in the so-called ‘Khilafa’. Following JM Berger’s recent book, Extremism (2018), we can think of EDS as a core practice that produces an archive of online extremist resources that reinforce the sense of in-group belonging across a network of geographically dispersed users, whether this be the networks of jihadists connected on Telegram, or right-wing extremists that use trolling tactics to hack mainstream opinion on Twitter. All the same, while it is well-known that EDS is prolific online, there is little understanding of what kind of impact participation in these networks actually has on the likelihood of an individual’s engagement in political violence. Moreover, very little is known about what methods are being used to challenge EDS and what solutions are  best suited for this problem. This report seeks to provide policymakers, researchers and practitioners with an overview of the context of EDS, its impact, and the responses and solutions being mobilised to counter it. In order to do this, this report assembles a set of ten brief essays intended to serve as a starting point for further exploration of a range of topics related to the management of EDS across government, civil society and the private sector.

Dublin: VOX-POL Network of Excellence, Dublin City University, 2019. 123p.