Abstract
Abstract A vast amount of social science research has been dedicated to the study of Islamist extremism – in particular, to uncover its psychological and structural drivers. However, the recent revival of extreme-right extremism points to the need to investigate this re-emerging phenomenon. This article highlights some of the characteristics of the extremisation of Islamism in Europe in parallel with the rise of the extremisation of right-wing extremist groups. In doing so, we explore similarities between Islamist and right-wing extremist individuals and groups. The main premise of the article is that a threat-regulation approach fails to understand the role of contextual and structural factors in the political and religious extremisation of individuals. Instead, the article claims that a reciprocal-threat model can better explain extremist violence since it is based on the idea that nativist and Islamist extremist individuals/groups are mutually threatening each other.
Highlights
A general trend of political extremization can be observed across the globe
Drawing on insights from social anthropology and social psychology, this paper proposes to highlight some of the characteristics of extreme-right wing terrorism
This is indicated by numerous electoral successes of populist parties in the EU and the US, the authoritarian/hawkish shift of governments in ‘illiberal democracies’ such as Russian Federation, Brazil, India and Turkey (Berezin, 2009), or even the revival of nationalist aspirations in Western democracies such as the Brexit debate in the UK (Kelsey, 2017). It is political extremism, nativism and right-wing populism, and violent extremism in the form of terrorism is on the rise across the world (START, 2018; Fielitz, 2018; Kruglanski et al, 2014)
Summary
A general trend of political extremization can be observed across the globe. This is indicated by numerous electoral successes of populist parties in the EU and the US, the authoritarian/hawkish shift of governments in ‘illiberal democracies’ such as Russian Federation, Brazil, India and Turkey (Berezin, 2009), or even the revival of nationalist aspirations in Western democracies such as the Brexit debate in the UK (Kelsey, 2017). Research over the past decades has established that individuals react to various threats such as death, exclusion, failure, insecurity and ambiguity by extremizing their adherence to ideologies, which may lead to violent intergroup behaviour through processes pertaining to threat-regulation (Lieberman et al, 1999; Kay et al, 2009; Xu et al, 2018) This is because meaning systems including religions and political ideologies, buffer anxiety (Greenberg et al, 1992; Jost, 2017), and provide individuals with feelings of living in an understandable/controllable environment in the face of a social world becoming more and more uncertain, insecure, chaotic and anomic due to the complexity of the present age, characterized with globalization, deindustrialization, unemployment, poverty, multiculturalism, diversity and mobility (Whitson and Galinsky, 2008; Proulx et al, 2010; Proulx and Inzlicht, 2012; Modest and de König, 2016). These findings make it clear that a threat-regulation approach to violent extremism is a robust framework for understanding it (Jonas et al, 2014)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
