The Psychology of Extremist Identification
2021; Hogrefe Verlag; Volume: 26; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1027/1016-9040/a000439
ISSN1878-531X
AutoresCatarina Kinnvall, Tereza Capelos,
Tópico(s)Populism, Right-Wing Movements
ResumoFree AccessThe Psychology of Extremist IdentificationAn IntroductionCatarina Kinnvall and Tereza CapelosCatarina Kinnvall Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden and Tereza Capelos Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, United Kingdom Published Online:March 12, 2021https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000439PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditE-Mail SectionsMoreFollowing the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States, policy approaches to extremism have mainly focused on understanding the dynamics of religious-based extremism, such as Al-Qaeda and other violent Jihadist/Islamist groups. Predominantly, the emphasis has been on mapping individual pathways into these particular forms of extreme mobilization. Attacks in Paris, Brussels, and Manchester, as well as in North Africa, Somalia, and Yemen confirm the value of this work in light of the continuing dominance of the security challenges posed by radical Islam, not least in relation to the rise of the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS. The large number of incidents in Europe and elsewhere have resulted in calls for counter-strategies to be modified or expanded, but also for greater resources to be devoted to understanding other forms of extremism, particularly those associated with extreme far right responses or ethnic nationalist ideologies. The economic crisis and its policy responses, along with migration, integration and asylum policies, have affected the relationship between populism and extremism in a fundamental and encompassing manner. The electoral successes of populist, Eurosceptic, and far right parties confirm such tendencies, showing the capacity of extremist discourses to mobilize constituencies against vulnerable groups (e.g., ethnic minorities and immigrants), other countries, and international institutions. Various versions of cultural nationalism have underpinned such mobilization, marked among other things by xenophobia, anti-Semitism, misogyny and Islamophobia, in turn fueling violence. The January 6, 2021 attack at the United States Capitol adds to this picture and lays bare a number of issues related to disinformation, polarization, and the challenge to democratic institutions.This special issue aims to widen the analysis of extremism to account for the unresolved puzzles that continue to plague practitioners, policy makers, and academics alike: Why some individuals engage in extremist politics while others in the same environment do not? How do group identification and politicized identities become constructed in extremist contexts? What are the gradual processes of psychological transformation that occur in relation to the beliefs, actions and reactions of different social groups to extremist societal milieus? What are the main drivers of extremist public opinions? How do political participation, recruitment strategies, including social media, public policies, and globalization affect the turn towards extremist political identification? What role do age, ethnicity, class, race and gender play in this process and how can we understand the function of ideology, insecurity and anxiety that often seem to be at the heart of extremist thoughts and beliefs? And perhaps most importantly, how can extremist beliefs and behavior be prevented?Competing Notions of ExtremismPart of the challenge and opportunity of engaging with the concept of extremism and with extremist political identification is to determine what we mean with the concept and process. The conceptual borders of extremism are not easily determined and should be considered alongside related concepts that share the urgent desire for change, such as radicalism, activism, reactionism or fundamentalism, as well as those that share the psychological and often physical engagement with violence, like fanaticism and terrorism. Veldhuis and Staun (2009) make a distinction between violent extremism where emphasis is put on the active pursuit or acceptance of the use of violence to attain the stated goal, and a broader sense of extremism involving the active pursuit or acceptance of far-reaching changes in society which may or may not involve the threat of or use of violence. Terrorism and extremism are also conceptually close since terrorism is a form of collective action which adopts the use of illegal force, threat, and unexpected and shocking violence to promote political motives by intimidating or coercing governments or civilians (Capelos & Demertzis, 2018, Capelos & Katsanidou, 2018; Loza, 2007). Even though there is a tendency, particularly visible in political and media discourses, to associate violence with radical Islamist movements, far right movements can also fuel violence as they often triggers anti-establishment, and anti-immigrant insurgencies propelled by "anger," "frustration," or "resentment" (Müller, 2016). The recent increase in the incidence of acts of violence perpetrated by the so-called nativist, "alt-right" groups and their individual members are evidence of this. Like extremism and radicalism, disengagement from extremist behaviour and de-radicalisation are also complex processes (Della Porta & LaFree, 2012). Here, it is important to note that disengagement (behavioural change) and de-radicalisation (cognitive and attitudinal change) are not the same and as Ferguson (2014) and others have discovered, former combatants can still be radicalised but just employ different non-violent strategies to empower their community or to transform conflict and meet political objectives.Extremism and EmotionsEarly research on the psychology of extremism focused on personality characteristics like dependence and rigidity, or attitudinal dispositions, like the preparedness to commit violent acts on the basis of certain stated beliefs (Bittner, 1963; Cross & Snow, 2012). However, a sole focus on personality or attitudes disregards the fact that preferences, values and expectations are not individually given, but communicatively constructed, thus highlighting the importance of interactive and discursive processes. Moreover, extremist attitudes (or attitudes in general) do not necessarily transform into action, particularly if impediments or costs are involved. And even when transformed into action, there tends to be a mismatch between the conceptual complexities of extremism that involve emotions, attitudes, change-promoting values and organised political action, and their empirical measurements, which often only focus on behavioural indicators of political actions that are legal, illegal, and violent. Rather than focus only on behavioural indicators of extremism, the authors of this special issue recognize the need to pay attention to the social and psychological drivers of extremism highlighting the value of emotions (hope, anger, fear, shame, distress, resentment, ressentiment, envy, shame), perceptions of efficacy, and ideological values to bring about change, allowing individuals to engage in a spectrum of extremist behaviour, or disengage from such behaviour (Capelos, 2010; Capelos & Demertzis, 2018; Demertzis, 2020; Ferguson & Binks, 2015). The focus is also on collective emotions as "patterns of relationships" and "belonging," as related to notions of cultural and political trauma, to ontological (in)security, securitization and the need for cultural memorisation, and for passionate dis-attachments and dis-identifications for social inclusion and non-extremist identifications (Browning, 2018; Kinnvall, 2015, 2018; McAuley, 2014).Extremist Political IdentificationIndividual and collective values are communicatively constructed and involve a number of contextual drivers that are likely to affect extremist political identification. In the literature, such contextual drivers are often labelled societal factors, ranging from deprivation and poor integration (Varady, 2008), to the role of residential segregation and enclavization in which segregated groups lead parallel lives (Cantle, 2001; Kaya, 2020; Kinnvall & Nesbitt-Larking, 2011), to political grievances, such as the war in Syria (Kaya, 2020), and the role of social bonds and networks (Hamid, 2007; Sageman, 2008; Wiktorowicz, 2005). However, on their own such contextual drivers fail to explain how extremist political identification also occurs among parts of the majority populations (as witnessed in increased racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism and hate-crimes), and how the reaction to these societal factors is embedded within larger narratives and counter-narratives of contestations of belonging. Much contemporary research on migration, citizenship, and the emergence of the far right (Modood, 2006; Kinnvall & Nesbitt-Larking, 2011; Kinnvall, 2018, 2019; Mudde, 2017, 2019; Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017; Müller, 2016), shows how people, communities, institutions and states are becoming increasingly concerned with defining and closing down community and national boundaries in response to actual or perceived threats against what they see as their culture, religion, tradition and nation. Here the attachment to a justifying ideology can provide a sense of belonging, rewarding personal and social ties, and increase status and self-esteem. But it can also offer a sense of risk, excitement and danger, being part of the wider Muslim Ummah or the greater national community, as well as fulfilling a desire for revenge and vengeance (Kisić Merino et al., 2020; Silke, 2008). This is likely to have a particular appeal to alienated young Muslim males as well as to disaffected males of the majority communities, who are seeking a place of belonging or exploring their own religious or cultural identity through collective memorisation or by attaching themselves to certain cultural or religious narratives, myths or spaces. Such drivers often provide emotional and structural logics in participation and recruitment strategies.Hence, extremist political identification does not occur in a vacuum but is connected to leadership, persuasion, group-formation and agitation, and also to particular locales such as prisons, criminal networks and social media. Leadership depends on group members sharing a consensual social identity and leaders can play a fundamental part in constructing and framing shared notions of identity. Taking a point of departure in the transformational leadership literature, Collinson (2006) argues that leaders need to identify, satisfy, and even change followers' needs, values, and goals in order to mobilise people and groups on the basis of joint identification with certain ideas or projects. Hence leaders, in attempts at emotional governance, tend to display a discourse that seeks to capture the unease, fear, and resentment felt among certain individuals and groups (Kinnvall, 2019; Mudde, 2019; Richards, 2013). Social media also play a crucial role in these processes, allowing for the rapid spread of ideas, and the planning of gatherings and protests at short notice. Studies of the use of the Internet for recruiting members, disseminating information and establishing cohesion and accord also indicate that it is an effective way for the far right as well as for radical Islamists to bypass and disregard national legislation and police work (Barzegar et al., 2016; Caiani & Wagemann, 2009; Kisić Merino et al., 2020). Social media, moreover, provide opportunities for inducing and maintaining "collective identities" and a sense of "community" that, paradoxically, often strive to make transnational engagements possible (Caiani & Parenti, 2009). However, as noted by Ferguson and McAuley (2021), most people do not join groups as lone individuals, but do so through social and family networks, populated with uncertain people who share proximity, similarity and are bound to a common fate.Special Issue ContributionsThe authors of this special issue attend to a number of these issues. Hence, Neil Ferguson and James McAuley in their article Dedicated to the cause: The role of identity in initiating, sustaining and diminishing violent extremism (2021) examine what happens when a fundamental need to belong is challenged through threats and uncertainty and how this in turn can lead to involvement in violent extremism. Interviews with former members of loyalist and republican groups in Northern Ireland show how such extremist identifications can be both mediated and moderated through collective identity constructions and how this is often linked to group identity and its role and position in the wider conflict. Similarly, Jais Adam-Troian, Ayşe Tecmen, and Ayhan Kaya in their article Youth extremism as a response to global threats? A threat-regulation perspective on violent extremism among the youth (2021), argue that both political and religious extremism aim at restoring a sense of purpose in the face of symbolic and real threats and the feelings of loss of significance. Looking specifically at youth, they discuss how economic and political globalization are linked to youth extremism, highlighting perceived economic threats and perceived relative deprivation as well as perceptions of social-affiliative threats. Linked to this is a desire to achieve collective identity in response to an ontological insecurity brought about by the detrimental effects of globalization. A focus on ontological (in)security is also at the core of Filip Ejdus and Tijana Rečević's article Ontological insecurity as an emergent phenomenon: Understanding anti-migrant mobilization in Serbia (2021). Here, they draw on the literatures on complexity and securitization to show how collective ontological insecurity can emerge, evolve and diffuse spontaneously within or across polities. More specifically, they demonstrate how, in the case of Serbia, ontological insecurity over the "migrant threat" emerged as a consequence of bottom-up rumors, connective action and everyday securitizing acts. Alistair Nightingale, Orla Muldoon and Michael Quayle similarly pay attention to migration and border controls in The transnational patriot: Celebrating cultural diversity between nation-states while promoting hostility toward diversity within nation-states (2021). Employing a psychological-discursive framework, Nightingale et al. analyze international discourses of the populist radical right in which they find a tendency to construct superordinate transnational patriotic identities on the one hand, while constructing exclusive nativist identities, on the other. The final article, Preventing violent extremism – What has gender got to do with it? Gendered perceptions and roles in Indonesia (2021) by Jaqcui True and Sri Eddyono, takes seriously how violent extremism can be prevented. Employing a gendered perspective, the authors show how extremism and extremist political identification are not only gendered phenomena, highlighting the role of masculinity in extremist ideology, but also how women can resist, counter and prevent extremist ideologies. A focus on gender highlights the everyday violence at stake in countering extremism and how extremism takes root in the private sphere of family and intimate relations.Catarina Kinnvall (PhD) is Professor at the Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden and the co-editor for the Palgrave Series in Political Psychology. Her research interests involve political psychology, international relations and critical security studies, with a particular focus on gender, migration and populism in Europe and South Asia. She is also the author of numerous books and journal articles.Tereza Capelos (PhD) is Associate Professor in Political Psychology and Director of the Institute for Conflict Cooperation and Security (ICCS) at the University of Birmingham. She is President Elect of the International Society of Political Psychology, and co-Convener for the Political Psychology Standing Group of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). Her research focusses on the role of values and ressentimentful affect as components of reactionary preferences in the context of populist politics. She also examines the role of uncertainty, fear and trust in international crises and tensions.References Adam-Troian, J. A., Tecmen, A., & Kaya, A. (2021). Youth extremism as a response to global threats? 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First citation in articleGoogle ScholarCatarina Kinnvall, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Box 52, 22100 Lund, Sweden, E-mail catarina.kinnvall@svet.lu.seTereza Capelos, Institute for Conflict Cooperation and Security (ICCS), Department of Political Science and International Studies, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom, E-mail t.capelos@bham.ac.ukFiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Special Issue: Psychology of Extremist Political IdentificationVolume 26Issue 1January 2021ISSN: 1016-9040eISSN: 1878-531X articleChapterHistory.epubMarch 12, 2021 InformationEuropean Psychologist (2021), 26, pp. 1-5 https://doi.org/10.1027/1016-9040/a000439.© 2021Hogrefe PublishingPDF download
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