Employing a theoretical framework based on the concept of identity loss, this book seeks to understand why increased integration has stimulated greater radicalization among the Muslim populations in Western Europe. Through extensive field research in four European countries – the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and France – the authors investigate three key questions: 1) Why are 2nd and 3rd generations of Muslims in Europe more radical than their parents?; 2) Why does Europe experience more "home-grown terrorism" today than thirty or forty years ago?; 3) Why do some European countries feature more radical Muslim communities than others? The book reveals that these three puzzling questions can be solved when analyzing the loss of individuality if the face of integration and identification with European society. While Individualist and structural approaches fail to explain radicalization of Muslims in Europe, this study, by framing radicalization through coupling the public discourse with identity loss, provides a much needed insight into the process of radicalization. Explaining radicalization and gaining an understanding of the drivers of radicalization is crucial to prevent and mitigate intercultural alienation, to further develop immigration policies, redress integration failures as well as to avoid dangerous oversimplifications. This book contributes not only to understanding why greater integration is matched by increasing radicalization, but its insights also contribute to developing ideas about how radicalization can be prevented or overcome and integration policies can be enhanced. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, radical Islam, war and conflict studies, European politics, IR and security studies.

Employing a theoretical framework based on the concept of identity loss, this book seeks to understand why increased integration has stimulated greater radicalization among the Muslim populations in Western Europe. Through extensive field research in four European countries - the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and France - the authors investigate three key questions: 1) Why are 2nd and 3rd generations of Muslims in Europe more radical than their parents?; 2) Why does Europe experience more "home-grown terrorism" today than thirty or forty years ago?; 3) Why do some European countries feature more radical Muslim communities than others? The book reveals that these three puzzling questions can be solved when analyzing the loss of individuality if the face of integration and identification with European society. While Individualist and structural approaches fail to explain radicalization of Muslims in Europe, this study, by framing radicalization through coupling the public discourse with identity loss, provides a much needed insight into the process of radicalization. Explaining radicalization and gaining an understanding of the drivers of radicalization is crucial to prevent and mitigate intercultural alienation, to further develop immigration policies, redress integration failures as well as to avoid dangerous oversimplifications. This book contributes not only to understanding why greater integration is matched by increasing radicalization, but its insights also contribute to developing ideas about how radicalization can be prevented or overcome and integration policies can be enhanced. This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism and counter-terrorism, radical Islam, war and conflict studies, European politics, IR and security studies.

Radicalization is a major challenge of contemporary global security. It conjures up images of violent ideologies, “homegrown” terrorists and jihad in both the academic sphere and among security and defense experts. While the first instances of religious radicalization were initially limited to second-generation Muslim immigrants, significant changes are currently impacting this phenomenon. Technology is said to amplify the dissemination of radicalism, though there remains uncertainty as to the exact weight of technology on radical behaviors. Moreover, far from being restricted to young men of Muslim heritage suffering from a feeling of social relegation, radicalism concerns a significant number of converted Muslims, women and more heterogeneous profiles (social, academic and geographic), as well as individuals that give the appearance of being fully integrated in the host society. These new and striking dynamics require innovative conceptual lenses. Radicalization in Theory and Practice identifies the mechanisms that explicitly link radical religious beliefs and radical actions. It describes its nature, singles out the mechanisms that enable radicalism to produce its effects, and develops a conceptual architecture to help scholars and policy-makers to address and evaluate radicalism—or what often passes as such. A variety of empirical chapters fed by first-hand data probe the relevance of theoretical perspectives that shape radicalization studies. By giving a prominent role to first-hand empirical investigations, the authors create a new framework of analysis from the ground up. This book enhances the quality of theorizing in this area, consolidates the quality of methodological enquiries, and articulates security studies insights with broader theoretical debates in different fields including sociology, social psychology, economics, and religious studies.

First Published in 1988. This is a collection of articles covering right-wing extremism in Post-war Europe, including the countries of Italy, West Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain.

Abstract: In 1914, Sir Edward Grey, the British Foreign Secretary, famously said, "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." The start of the First World War signaled the coming assault on the serene and idyllic nineteenth century. During the course of the war almost twenty million people were killed. The battlefields of Western Europe were dominated by the trenches, bullets, shells, poison gas, bayonet charges, mud, water, lice, hunger, thirst, disease, and death. The soldiers who emerged from these trenches after almost half a decade of fighting were changed by the experience. In my thesis, I argue the change experienced in the trenches is visible in the political systems of Western European governments after the war. In 1919, William Butler Yeats wrote "The Second Coming" which echoed the disharmony of the interwar period stating, "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold ... The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." I will argue that in the interwar period, ex-front soldiers were some of Western Europe's most unsettled participants. Full of passionate intensity, these veterans attacked the social order from the political left and right and radicalized the society by attempting to replace the ethics of rationality by the ethics of visceral feeling. At the same time, these paramilitary organization's ideologies crossed national frontiers, language boundaries, and pre-war political orientations. The most visible representation of the violent social discord of the interwar period is the rapid emergence of modernism into Western European artistic circles. Although modernism has its roots in a time before the First World War, the war drastically accelerated the speed at which modernism was being brought to the public. In the postwar period almost all of the artists who participated in the war were avowed modernists and many of them produced violent, anti-democratic, and anti-bourgeois works. Working with the historical record from England, France, Germany, and Italy between 1917 and 1926, this thesis attempts to recreate the political socio-political climate of an era in European history fraught with social malaise. Looking through the lens of modernist artists, I trace common violent, anti-democratic, and anti-bourgeois themes in veterans' organizations throughout Western Europe. I conclude that fragmentation amongst the left-wing over mutually exclusive economic interests combined with pressure from government supported right-wing groups caused the crucial soldier-worker alliance to collapse. At the same time, the annihilation of the Bolshevik threat, the re-election of conservative governments, and the resumption of more normal economic growth led to a weakening of the political right-wing. Only in Italy did the political center empty bringing Mussolini and the Fascists to power. Nonetheless, the political radicalization which occurred in the postwar period would again prove dangerous for European rationality when these early avant-garde radicals would form the first squads in Hitler's SA and SS.

A Transnational History of Right-Wing Terrorism offers new insights into the history of right-wing extremism and violence in Europe, East and West, from 1900 until the present day. It is the first book to take such a broad historical approach to the topic. The book explores the transnational dimension of right-wing terrorism; networks of right-wing extremists across borders, including in exile; the trading of arms; the connection between right-wing terrorism and other forms of far-right political violence; as well as the role of supportive elements among fellow travelers, the state security apparatus, and political elites. It also examines various forms of organizational and ideological interconnectedness and what inspires right-wing terrorism. In addition to several empirical chapters on prewar extreme-right political violence, the book features extensive coverage of postwar right-wing terrorism including the recent resurgence in attacks. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of right-wing extremism, fascism, Nazism, terrorism, and political violence.

How do collective actors move from moderate politics to (violent) extremism? Faced with high risks of repression and implosion, they need to legitimate such radical change to keep members and followers committed to collective action. Drawing on the texts, audios, and videos of five Islamist organisations in the UK and Germany in the 2000s and 2010s, the book develops a transdisciplinary theoretical framework and innovative methodological approach to explore how radical changes in activism are mediated. Clément argues that political violence has to feel right, as a collective, for an organisation and its followers to move from moderate activism to (violent) extremism. She shows that organisations mediate this change by performing collective emotions in and through narrative. The book offers a provocative and nuanced account which departs from conventional interpretations of radicalisation and reminds us of the power of emotions.