Encountering Extremism

Countering extremism is starting to receive more attention as a subject of research in academia and policy circles alike, demonstrating its rising popularity within the market. Nevertheless, the market currently lacks literature on the topic of extremism (as opposed to terrorism), and critical approaches in particular. The concept of this book thus grows from the need to look at the under-researched approaches to the topic from a critical perspective.This book brings together a set of scholars from a diverse range of countries, experts in many fields of social sciences to present valuable multidisciplinary analysis of both theoretical and practical aspects related to countering extremism. It will thus be of interest for scholars and students of the following disciplines, among others: Anthropology, Comparative Politics, Criminology, Education Studies, Gender Studies, International Relations, Post-colonial Studies, Peace Studies, Sociology, Subaltern Studies, Terrorism Studies.

This volume is a timely contribution to the current debates and potential efforts to study and counter the phenomena of extreme right violence in a period when the rise of right-wing extremism is being witnessed across the globe. Against this backdrop, the violent radicalisation and extremism of individuals and groups belonging to the extreme right threaten to undermine and destabilize societies and democratic orders, leaving a research gap that has only started to be filled in recent years, but that is still quite wide when it comes to counter-terrorism approaches to extreme right violence. Learning from the past, and trying to avoid similar mistakes, this volume creates a much-needed space for open, honest, and ethical debate around countering extreme right violence, answering social and political calls to debate how to counter this kind of violence. This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary scholars to contribute to national and international, academic and policy debates about countering extreme right violence from a critical perspective. Volume II focuses particularly on exploring how extreme right violence has been approached in different spatial and temporal contexts, examining how the criminal justice system has dealt with the threat of and actual violence perpetrated by the extreme right, deconstructing current counter-terrorism approaches from feminist and gender perspectives, and formulating a critical approach to countering extreme right violence. It will be of great interest to all students of terrorism studies, security studies, international relations, and political science in general. The chapters in this book were originally published in Critical Studies on Terrorism.

This book explores and inquiries into the interrelation between normativity and Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS) from a wide range of critical views. The volume draws together authors with very different positions and understandings of normativity and policy-implementations in relation to countering terrorism, to offer the reader a wide range of perspectives and views on this topic. As such, the book is aimed at interrogating the concept of normativity in CTS from a wide range of theoretical angles but also at incorporating within the CTS’ agenda new debates and critiques. In its chapters, the book covers debates that go from more philosophical, theoretical, and ethical discussions to questions revolving around the importance and need of being policy-relevant for CTS scholars. All in all, this volume brings together chapters joining the debate on CTS’ main theoretical tenants and the role of critical scholars in counter-terrorism and prevention policies. Covering a broad spectrum of approaches and perspectives, authors in this book give different answers to central questions such as: how can we rethink CTS? What is the role of the critical terrorism studies community in countering terrorism? The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal, Critical Studies on Terrorism.

This book analyzes key popular culture artifacts linked with United States’ far-right extremism to illustrate how extremists use various narrative strategies to legitimate their interests and goals and to justify violent actions. Recognizing these narrative strategies and how they are used partly explains the back and forth moves between mainstream politics and the far-right of ideas and issues that used to remain within far-right circles. The main objective of this book is to utilize theoretical approaches that centralize processes of racialization to analyze and explain how far-right extremists utilize recognizable narratives to mainstream and communicate their ideas. The book will illustrate processes by which racialized subjects are produced and violence justified. In order to do so, the book concentrates on popular culture as sources of how the far-right constitutes their identities and goals. It first develops a methodological plan to study popular culture artifacts that is drawn from scholarship on race and discourse analysis in International Relations (IR). It then analyzes far-right use of key popular culture artifacts, such as magazines, memes, and manifestos, to note how extremist identities and interests are produced, publicly communicated, and mainstreamed. This will contribute to Security Studies and IR’s understanding of far-right extremism, especially how they utilize similar narrative strategies as used in mainstream contexts to justify their calls for violence.

In this three-volume set, an international team of experts involved in the research, management, and mitigation of hate-motivated violence examines and explains hate crimes in the United States and around the globe, drawing comparisons between countries as well as between hate crimes overall and domestic terrorism. The Psychology of Hate Crimes as Domestic Terrorism: U.S. and Global Issues takes a hard look at hate crimes both domestically and internationally, enabling readers to see similarities and disparities as well as to make the connections between hate crimes and domestic terrorism. The entries in this three-volume set discuss subjects such as the psychology and motivation in hate crimes, the cultural norms that shape tolerance of outgroups or tolerance of hate, and the fact that hate crimes are a pervasive form of domestic terrorism, as well as myriad issues of proliferation, public policy, policing, law and punishment, and prevention. The set opens with an introduction that discusses hate crime research and examines issues of identification of the bias element of hate crimes via empirical and case vignettes. The subsequent chapters discuss subjects such as the socio-demographic profiles of hate crime offenders; hate crime legislation and policy in the United States; the effects of hate crime on their victims as well as society; the incidence of hate crime in specific regions, such as Europe, the Middle East, and South America; and programs and therapeutic interventions to heal victims. Readers will also learn how specific educational approaches in communities, schools, and universities can be implemented to help prevent future escalation of hate-motivated violence.

Bringing together established and emerging voices in Critical Terrorism Studies (CTS), this book offers fresh and dynamic reflections on CTS and envisages possible lines of future research and ways forward. The volume is structured in three sections. The first opens a space for intellectual engagement with other disciplines such as Sociology, Peace Studies, Critical Pedagogy, and Indigenous Studies. The second looks at topics that have not received much attention within CTS, such as silences in discourses, the politics of counting dead bodies, temporality or anarchism. The third presents ways of ‘performing’ CTS through research-based artistic performances and productions. Overall, the volume opens up a space for broadening and pushing CTS forward in new and imaginative ways. This book will be of interest to students of critical terrorism studies, critical security studies, sociology and International Relations in general. Chapters 2 of this book are available for free in Open Access at www.taylorfrancis.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International 4.0 license.