What role do political opportunities play in far-right mobilisation? The case of Georgia indicates that modernisation in itself may be insufficient to trigger a far-right backlash. A systematised database of 154 far-right protest events in Georgia in the period 2003–2020 shows that the movement remained dormant for over two decades…
In April 2021, following concerns raised by some European countries, UNICRI launched a research initiative to explore, assess, and understand the potential interplay between regular and irregular movements of people and the threat stemming from ISIL and Al-Qaida inspired terrorism in Europe. The research also looked at the risks posed…
European citizens who travelled to Syria, Iraq and other conflict zones where terrorist groups have taken control have been coming back since 2012. Since the defeat of the so-called caliphate in early 2019, a large number of Daesh fighters have been captured by Kurdish forces and detained in north-east Syria,…
The mental well-being of youth is influenced by life events, which affects mental health in adulthood. Social support has been shown to have a buffering effect on the impact such events may have on mental health. This research aimed to explore the effect social support has on risk factors, such…
This book tells the stories behind the impact of the growth of violent extremism, acting as an imminent threat to peace, stability and development in Africa. Despite significant investment by the international community to counter the devastating impact of violent extremism, it has further expanded and spread in subSaharan Africa,…
In the aftermath of the fall of ISIS’ so-called “caliphate”, tens of thousands of children, women, and men with alleged ISIS affiliations from some 60 countries fell under the custody of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). As an increasing number of states start to heed…
This study maps the surface web information ecosystem exploited by the Islamic State (IS) and its followers between December 2020 and June 2021. Open-source intelligence investigation allowed a massive online presence of Daesh, manifested by hundreds of communication channels, to be detected. Its propaganda dissemination was founded mainly on one…
Research has explored how the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a wave of conspiratorial thinking and online hate speech, but little is empirically known about how different phases of the pandemic are associated with hate speech against adversaries identified by online conspiracy communities. This study addresses this gap by combining observational methods…
Domestic violent extremists, specifically white supremacist extremists, have long plotted against U.S. democracy. As the United States experiences a period of heightened animosity toward elected officials and other political leaders, the history of WSE assassination — and the context in which these attacks have occurred — suggests a stark outlook for…
In previous studies, multiagency collaboration was identified as a key strategy for early intervention in violent extremism. However, there has been little focus on professionals’ shared communication to support collaboration. The aim of this study was to describe trust in multiagency collaboration teams in the Nordic countries tasked with preventing…
The potential exploitation of video games, gaming (-adjacent) platforms and gaming-related content by extremist actors has become an increasingly debated issue over the last years. International organisations, policymakers, tech companies, researchers and practitioners alike devote a considerable amount of attention to delineating how and why extremist groups of multiple ideological…
State responses to repatriation of Islamic State (ISIS) foreign fighters and their children detained across Syria and Iraq are highly diverse. Repatriation policies implemented between 2018 and 2020 range from denying repatriation of nationals and revocation of citizenship to repatriation and subsequent gender-responsive rehabilitation programmes. What explains the variation in…
