The report Right- and left-wing violent extremist abuse of digital technologies in South America, Africa and Asia, jointly published by UNICRI and VOX-Pol, investigates the underexplored phenomenon of right- and left-wing violent extremist groups in the Global South and their abuse of digital technologies. As technology evolves at an unprecedented pace,…

This article shows how an arrangement of divine justification has led the popular culture of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) to incite violent actions towards the charismatisation and imaginary connection of God, Caliph and territory. ISIS’s discourse includes the mental reconstruction of the world map using imaginary geographies…

Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers are increasingly interested in examining online posting behaviors in virtual communities known to facilitate violent racially and ethnically motivated extremism. However, little is empirically known about how such behaviors develop over time, and even less is known about how the content of posts is related to other…

The rapid advancement in technology has made society increasingly dependent on information and communication technology (ICT). Unfortunately, this dependence has also created new opportunities for terrorist groups to use the Internet for their activities. Over the years, there has been a significant rise in terrorist online activity, with these groups…

In the settler-colonial context of Australia, this paper addresses the specific framing of masculinity with which right-wing populism seeks to engage. It reports on a recent online survey completed by 335 men. Their written responses pointed to troubles in their lives, including difficult relationship and career circumstances. However, they did…

This paper examines radicalization through the lens of contemporary psychoanalysis and social theory, challenging the dominant view of radicalization as a singular pathological transformation from a “normal” to an “abnormal” state. Instead, it conceptualizes radicalization as a psychosocial process embedded in subjective identity structures and broader historical conditions. Drawing on…

The question of what roles, if any, former extremists can or should play in PVE efforts is one that has received increased attention in recent years. This article contributes to that conversation by collecting input from preventing violent extremism (PVE) experts we brought together in June 2023 for a full-day…

Despite the increasing need for tertiary prevention programme interventions, knowledge is lacking on which methods used in programmes work and which do not. Through semi-structured interviews with twelve practitioners and combination of grounded theory and reflexive thematic analysis, this article explores: how do tertiary prevention intervention providers measure the progress…

In the last decade, growing concerns about radicalized violence have led governments to make important efforts and invest significant sums of money in developing programs to prevent violent extremism (PVE). Despite these efforts, current knowledge regarding best practices in prevention remains disparate, and the effectiveness of practices used at present…

How to best chart and analyse extremist digital ecosystems? This paper proposes to complement standard mapping methods based on URL outlinks, which are typically deployed but present several critical flaws, with socio-semantic network analysis. Adapting bi-nodal socio-semantic network principles to the specificities of extremist and terrorist digital communications, we put…

Are there things schools can do to build pupils’ resilience to extremism? The UK ‘Prevent duty’ assumes there are, but schools are poorly served by existing government advice. Here I offer a cautious defence of the idea that the acquisition of extremist beliefs and attitudes can be forestalled by educational…

The radicalisation of young people has been a noted challenge in security discourse. This study sought to better understand the radicalisation of young Australians. We suggest that the engagement of young Australians with violent extremism can be understood through ideological entitativity, in which extremist communities satisfy unmet needs in the…