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Abstract
The aim of our article is to analyse the disengagement process of a Swiss returnee from Syria and the emergence of dissonances during his involvement with the Islamic State (IS) and to compare this evolution to the pathway of a right-wing extremist willing to leave the violent extremist group Blood & Honour. Although the contexts of these extremist groups are very different, a number of elements – as the ideology based on hate, the groups’ internal pressure and the affinity for violence – are quite similar. The disengagement process of both extremists is analysed by means of reconstructive methods and the theory of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957), as well as by the current state of research on disengagement processes. This serves as a theoretical framework. The findings show that comparing their pathway to defection reveals a number of parallels: the experiences within the extremist groups, especially violent acts against group members, increased their dissonances and provided a trigger to an opening process and ultimately the attempt to opt out of the group.
Highlights
Focussing on individual disengagement processes in this article, we have to consider that the interest in political violence within the social sciences has waned over the last few years, giving way to analyses of radicalisation processes
We focus on the reasons for dissonances caused by cognitive shifts, which can lead to increasing criticism and an opening process and as a final consequence, to leaving the extremist group
Following Festinger’s (1957) theory of cognitive dissonance, contradictions as well as cognitive and emotive dissonances play a important role in the process of leaving the ranks of an extremist group because they force the individual to re-elaborate convictions and beliefs in order to overcome the gap between expectations and reality. We will analyse such processes by comparing two narrative interviews with former extremists: first, as part of a study carried out in February 2009 in Liechtenstein, we interviewed a young right-wing extremist while he was attempting to defect from Blood & Honour4 (Eser Davolio/Drilling 2009); second, during an exploratory study on jihadist radicalisation in Switzerland (Eser Davolio et al 2015) in 2015, we conducted a narrative interview with a “returnee”
Summary
Focussing on individual disengagement processes in this article, we have to consider that the interest in political violence within the social sciences has waned over the last few years, giving way to analyses of radicalisation processes. Rightwing extremism and jihadist extremism are very different forms of radicalisation due to the political, historical and cultural background, but there are a number of parallels with regard to their ideological concepts (Ebner 2018; Eser Davolio/Lenzo 2017). Jihadist extremism can be defined as a religious-political ideology that legitimises violence against so-called unbelievers. Both forms of extremism proclaim the superiority of one’s own group and the dehumanization of the ‘inferior’ other group, which means that both forms are based on group-focused enmity toward those who are religiously or ethnically different or deviant from one’s own standpoint
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