Articles of the month: May 2020

This article attempts to bridge the gap between social and religious explanations for Islamist radicalisation in the West by understanding the role of religion through the under-utilised perspective of sociology of religious emotions and Wiktorowicz’s concept of cognitive openness. The article draws on interviews with 23 different actors with first-hand knowledge of Islamist radicalisation, and analyses five in-depth interviews with former so-called radicals, four of whom were converts to Islam. The analysis thus has a special focus on the narratives and experiences of converts to radical Islamist worldviews. The radicalisation process of the formers was characterised by an interplay between context specific experiences and individual religiosity. There are social causes for seeking religion as it can provide an emotional meaningfulness in a state of cognitive openness connected to personal family social background, which can stretch over a long period. However, the interviews also show that religiosity affects the social: the religious emotions within radical Islamist groups create a tight-knit community of self-perceived righteous believers, tied to an emotional experience of empowerment that amplifies their radicalisation. The article concludes that the primary role of religion is to structure and direct the emotions from which so-called radical Islamists think and act within religious frameworks.

Many nonstate military organizations provide a wide range of social services to civilians. The apparent contradiction between their use of violence and their provision of charity has been the subject of a great deal of research in the conflict studies literature. Two of the most common sets of arguments hold that such services are either a form of bribery aimed at controlling and isolating constituents and potential recruits, or an extension of the organization’s ideological commitments. Our findings, based on a new analysis of the BAAD dataset, demonstrate that neither explanation is correct. Rather, we find that the provision of social services represents a means of confronting and undermining the authority of the state. In this sense, the provision of social services represents an extension of the broader political goals of the nonstate armed groups providing them.

This article reports two studies conducted in the United States, Germany, South Korea, and China to examine how online content providers (OCPs) exercise their responsibility in dealing with harmful online communication (HOC) by moderating user‐generated content. The first study employed content analysis of 547 HOC policy documents. In the second study, 41 representatives of OCPs were interviewed regarding the implementation of these policies. We show that HOC policies are most often communicated through user‐unfriendly terms of service. Only Korean OCPs present their policies very vividly. Few organizations, mainly United States and German, encourage counter‐speech. The most common organizational actions against HOC mentioned in the policies are deleting posts or blocking accounts. The interviews reveal, however, that organizations—apart from those from China—are cautious in implementing such reactive actions. They fear accusations of censorship and acknowledge the tension between free speech and their content moderation practice. What emerged as the “gold standard” for identifying HOC was manual inspection. However, organizations operating large platforms widely apply machine‐learning technology or artificial intelligence. In sum, our research suggests that OCPs are not proactive enough in their communication for HOC prevention and often focus more on avoiding legal ramifications than on educating users when handling HOC.

Extreme militant groups use their media campaigns to share information, recruit and radicalize followers, share worldviews, and seek public diplomacy ends. While previous research documents that various on-the-ground events correspond to changes in the groups’ messaging strategies, studies of how competing militant groups influence one another’s media campaigns are nascent. This study helps fill that gap by examining how successful attacks by one militant group correspond to changes in both the perpetrating and competing groups’ visual media messaging strategies. It examines attack success through the lens of violent acts that result in direct impact (measured through death counts) and indirect impact (measured through traditional media coverage levels). The study utilizes a content analysis of 1882 authority-related images in AQAP’s al-Masra newsletter and ISIS’s al-Naba’ newsletter appearing three issues before and after each attack, and a chi-square analysis comparing four ISIS attack conditions (high death/high media, high death/low media, low death/high media, and low death/low media). The findings show that a high number of resulting deaths, rather than a high level of media coverage, correspond to changes in the media campaigns of both the perpetrators and the competing groups, with key differences in visual content based on group identity.

The gender dimension of violent extremism is under-studied; and “women terrorists” are stereotyped as either men’s dupes or (internet) warriors. Applying a gender lens, this study uses content analysis to examine Islamist extremist websites in Indonesia. Analysis reveals distinct recruitment language targeted at women and men, and rigid gender segregation of content and spaces. Extremists co-opt the language of women’s rights while also promoting gender-discriminatory harmful practices with the intent of establishing what they consider to be a more devout Islamic state. Gender analysis of online extremism has implications for strategies to counter and prevent radicalization to violence.

This research proposes a methodology for extracting and analyzing geographical perspectives of terrorists and insurgents from online textual media. The information age has afforded organizations platforms that can be used to control their own media messages. Given that power, terrorist groups are able to create customized messages and define themselves in their own eyes on an international scale, often generating widespread sympathies and increased popularity. Within their online messaging, important information is provided that can potentially unveil geopolitical strategies. A mixed-method approach comprised of computer-aided content analysis, manual content analysis, and cartographic visualization is applied to ISIS’s Dabiq magazine as a case study to demonstrate the utility of this methodology. This research highlights the importance of considering the territoriality of terror groups and movements in geohistorical and present-day contexts.

In this commentary, I compare the ABC model of radicalization with the Two Pyramids model of radicalization. Both models distinguish radicalization of opinion from radicalization of action. Beyond this agreement are questions about the concepts deployed in advancing the ABC model and research issues relating to applications of the two models. I conclude with an optimistic assessment of recent progress in research on terrorism, including the suggestion that deradicalization of action may be forwarded by giving up on deradicalization of opinion.

This article focuses on rebel governance and rebel legitimacy during civil war. It investigates how external intervention in support of an incumbent government and withdrawal of external forces shape rebel legitimacy dynamics and rebels’ opportunities to govern. It adopts a longitudinal perspective on Afghanistan’s Taliban, analyzing three phases of the movement’s existence. Moral forms of legitimacy resonated particularly during instances of external intervention, whereas pragmatic forms of legitimacy became more relevant after the withdrawal of external forces and during periods of the Taliban’s opponents’ ineffective governance. The article is based on a literature review and fieldwork in Afghanistan.

There are more displaced persons worldwide today than there ever has been before. Many countries, despite the urgent need for collective effort in providing for these persons, have been slow to accommodate them. Applicants continue to face stringent legal and practical barriers to asylum, even in countries party to the various international refugee agreements. Restrictions on applications are routinely justified with reference to national security, and in particular to defense against terrorism. There is a belief in some sectors of the polity and public that allowing greater numbers of refugees into the country will result in more incidences of violent terrorism. Refugee resettlement programs are caricatured as the Trojan horse permitting terrorists’ passage through national borders. Little has been done, empirically, that could testify to the veracity of such a theory, and that which has been done has been equivocal. Moreover, previous studies were unable to establish anything past a coincidental association between refugee populations and experiences of terrorism. This study explicitly tests the idea that refugees, by their own actions, cause terrorism. The findings of the study do not support Trojan horse or other theories that villainize refugees, nor are they decisive of a connection between refugees and terrorism.