Radicalization

Dealing with the threat of terrorism has shaped national se­curity agendas since 9/11. German poli­tics, too, reacted to what was per­ceived as a “new di­mension” of threat. The German approach, how­ever, relies on legal mea­sures and the rule of law, defining terrorism as a form of crime which has to be dealt with in legal terms (in contrast to the US “war on terror”-approach). Conse­quently, numerous laws concern­ing counter­terrorsim have been passed on the fe­deral and state level since 2001. They cover a va­riety of legal areas, reflect a broad concept of security and have repea­tedly trans­formed the frame­work of national security. Some mecha­nisms of the rule of law have been challenged or over­whelmed by these trans­formations: Risk-manage­ment and prevent­ive measures intend­ed to enable security agen­cies to act as far ahead of the situ­ation as possible also invade areas pro­tected by the Grund­recht (funda­mental rights) and dilute basic prin­ciples such as the presump­tion of inno­cence.

In her disser­tation project, Isa­belle Stephan­blome exa­mines the legis­lative reactions to terrorism in Ger­many within the field of tension bet­ween politics, law and inse­curity. To this end, different strate­gies for controll­ing inse­curity are typolo­gised and argu­ments for their legiti­macy are ana­lysed. The em­pirical basis for this is the legis­lation of the federal govern­ment and selected Bundes­länder (states). The legal texts as well as the docu­ments of their drafting pro­cesses will be exa­mined with an inter­pretative approach in a quali­tative case study. The project is located in political science legal research and aims to contri­bute to opening up law for security studies as a state instru­ment for pro­cessing uncer­tainty.

Dealing with post­migrant diversity is a current challenge for state insti­tutions in Germany. Demo­graphic change as well as debates on racism lead to pressure to deal with quest­ions of belong­ing, represen­tation and partici­pation of people with migration back­ground. In Germany, an effort by police to address and employ people with migrat­ion back­ground in recruit­ment cam­paigns can be observed. However, this diversi­fication does not necessa­rily lead to institu­tional change due to the estab­lished cop culture and organi­zational culture.

Even if there is no para­digm shift yet, a change in the way the German police is dealing with post­migrant diversity can be observed. This disser­tation project uses ethno­metho­dological methods and quali­tative inter­views to investi­gate under­standings of diver­sity within the German police by analyz­ing practices of creat­ing diver­sity.

Radical positions are current­ly on the rise again in many Euro­pean coun­tries as well as in Ger­many, and anti-demo­cratic and anti-emanci­patory ideas are sprea­ding. Hate crime is on the rise, espe­cially online, and comments and state­ments in the virtual world are beco­ming more uninhi­bited. This develop­ment has become particu­larly evi­dent for seve­ral years in the pheno­mena of Sala­fist jiha­dism and right-wing extre­mism.

By winning over more people to right-wing or Sala­fist ideo­logy and increa­sing the willing­ness to use vio­lence within the scenes, the mobili­zation strate­gies and tech­niques of extre­mist actors seem to be pay­ing off. By means of a quali­tative con­tent ana­lysis of Facebook con­tent of Salafist and right-wing extre­mist actors, Man­jana Sold investi­gates in her disser­tation project which mobili­zation techni­ques are used by diffe­rently radi­cal indivi­duals and which differen­ces can be observed within the pheno­menon areas.

This PhD project in­vestigates the rise of antifeminist conspiratorial mobilization in Germany, fueled by conservative, Catholic, and right-wing actors who oppose gender e­quality as well as queer and trans rights, because they view them as causing societal collapse due to the ero­sion of “natural” gender roles. Support of anti-feminism is not easily under­stood from a psychological needs perspec­tive, as it entails an opposition to politics which promise emanci­pation for many. The particular form of conspiracist opposition to these politics further­more connects them to anti­semitic notions and supports a perceived urgency to defend oneself against the supposedly femi­nist elites. This PhD project aims to ex­plore how individuals of different gender identities nevertheless experience political empower­ment within these movements and how they view those they perceive as threatening. Employing a mixed-method approach, in­cluding interviews and online narrative analysis, the project aims to explore the socio-psychological mechanisms by which indi­viduals gain political agency.

So-called Reichs­bürger (‘citizens of the Reich [German empire]’) are not a new pheno­menon in Germany. However, recent events, such as the investi­gation into ‘Patriotische Union’ (‘Patriotic Union’) since December 2022, the Covid-19 protest move­ments, and several serious acts of violence have been high­lighting their increasing socie­tal relevance. And yet, the currently existing body of knowledge is highly fragmen­ted which hinders an in-depth analysis of this particular ideo­logical spectrum and its followers. Interestingly, preli­minary analyses suggest potentially substan­tial differences between the Reichs­bürger follo­wing and the followers of other, better-studied extremist pheno­mena. This relates to, for example, demo­graphic factors, social dynamics, and forms of organisation. As a result, existing concep­tualisations of radica­lisation cannot easily be transfer­red to Reichs­bürger, which necessi­tates new and dedi­cated research into the topic.

In his disser­tation, Maximilian Ruf investi­gates indivi­dual pathways and causali­ties of radica­lisation of Reichs­bürger in Germany based on biographical-narrative interviews. The over­arching aim of the project is to generate and syste­matise new knowledge on Reich­sbürger radica­lisation and to de­lineate it from other radica­lisation pheno­mena in order to identify new starting points for further research and practical develop­ment.

Lotta Rahlf’s doc­toral project syste­matically compares how evaluations of efforts to prevent and counter violent extre­mism (P/CVE) are structu­rally organised across Europe. By mapping various ‘P/CVE evaluation systems’ and exami­ning factors that may explain their differences, her disser­tation draws attention to the variety of ways countries orga­nise the generation of evaluative know­ledge to respond to increasing demands for evidence-based P/CVE measures. Filling crucial theo­retical and empirical gaps in P/CVE research, Rahlf parti­cularly examines the levers that make P/CVE evaluation sys­tems more centralised in some countries and more decen­tralised in others. This means that her disser­tation explores why P/CVE evaluations are strongly controlled by the govern­ment in some contexts while such activities are more distri­buted among several entities, including civil society, in others. After a com­parative mapping of evaluation manage­ment in the P/CVE field in Europe, she will use qualitative compa­rative analysis (QCA) to analyse which factors have an influence on certain designs of such eva­luation systems. Based on the results, Rahlf will then select three countries to analyse their respec­tive evaluation systems in depth. This disser­tation, which is part of the EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie PhD network VORTEX, also has a high prac­tical relevance as it enables P/CVE practi­tioners and policy makers to learn from other European con­texts.

During the last decade terro­rist attacks by so-called lone wolf terro­rist have occurred. The attacks by Anders Breivik in Norway and Arid Uka in Germany are just two examples of this growing pheno­menon. Those perpe­trators act alone and allegedly radica­lize alone. Yet, radicalization research high­lights the importance of social ties in radica­lization and mobilization to terrorism. Therefore, one has to pose the question, how lone wolves radica­lize, if social ties are highly relevant in radicali­zation, yet the main feature of lone wolves is supposedly their lone­liness. To date little research has been conducted to address this puzzle systemati­cally on a theore­tical or empirical basis.

In her disser­tation project, Annika von Berg addresses the question how social ties affect radicali­zation processes of lone actors. To answer this question, an identity-theory-based model will be used to examine these radicali­zation processes in single-case-studies via pro­cess-tracing. The case studies will investi­gate incidents in the field of right-wing extremism and Islamism extremism.

Cogni­tive radicali­zation is charac­terized by an individual’s accep­tance of a certain extre­mist ideo­logy. It is widely believed that contem­porary radi­cali­zation processes of both jihadists and right-wing extre­mists are partially shaped by the narra­tives and stories extre­mists postu­late in their propa­ganda. In many cases, the consump­tion of these narra­tives takes place in the digital sphere.

Consider­ing that narra­tives are per­ceived as crucial for radicali­zation processes, it is unsur­prising that narra­tives also feature promi­nently in efforts to prevent and counter (violent) extre­mism (P/CVE). Narrative cam­paigns against extre­mism, often labeled counter-narratives and alter­native narratives, have become a prominent yet heavily criti­cized tool to mitig­ate the impact of extre­mist narra­tives online.

In her disser­tation, Linda Schlegel exa­mines an aspect that has been conspi­cuously absent from the current litera­ture on P/CVE narra­tive cam­paigns: How can good story­telling support the per­suasive effects of narra­tive cam­paigns against extre­mism? To this end, she trans­fers insights on narra­tive persuasion in other con­texts such as enter­tain­ment-education efforts, to the P/CVE field. The aim is to demons­trate the impor­tance of high-quality story­telling in counter-extremism efforts and show that narra­tives against extre­mism can be improved signifi­cantly by build­ing upon existing insights on narra­tive persuasion generally.