Multimedia Content Coding and Analysis: Unraveling the Content of Jihadi Extremist Groups' Videos

This article presents an exploratory study of jihadi extremist groups’ videos using content analysis and a multimedia coding tool to explore the types of video, groups’ modus operandi, and production features that lend support to extremist groups. The videos convey messages powerful enough to mobilize members, sympathizers, and even new recruits to launch attacks that are captured (on video) and disseminated globally through the Internet. They communicate the effectiveness of the campaigns and have a much wider impact because the messages are media rich with nonverbal cues and have vivid images of events that can evoke not only a multitude of psychological and emotional responses but also violent reactions. The videos are important for jihadi extremist groups’ learning, training, and recruitment. In addition, the content collection and analysis of extremist groups’ videos can help policymakers, intelligence analysts, and researchers better understand the extremist groups’ terror campaigns and modus operandi, and help suggest counterintelligence strategies and tactics for troop training.     

Is More Violent Better? The Impact of Group Participation in Violence on Group Longevity for Far-Right Extremist Groups

Recent research has begun to explore the causes of organizational death for domestic far-right extremist groups. An important aspect that has not been examined is whether or not a group's participation in violence influences its longevity. This study addresses this gap in the literature by examining over 400 domestic far-right extremist groups that persisted for varying lengths of time to determine whether or not group participation in violence influences their longevity. Additionally, this study also examines whether a variety of external (environmental) and internal correlates influence the longevity of violent and nonviolent groups differently.     

A Continuum for Responding to the Extreme Right: A Comparison between the United States and Germany

This article compares and contrasts the responses to right-wing extremism in the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany. Essentially, the approaches of these respective countries represent two polarities on a continuum. Whereas in theory, the United States allows extremist groups much more freedom to espouse unpopular ideas, the Federal Republic of Germany has the legal authority to disband extremist groups and parties that it deigns a threat to the country's constitutional democracy. Despite these seeming differences, both countries have responded resolutely to manifestations of right-wing extremism and have actually cooperated on numerous occasions to stymie American extremist activists that have propagandized in Germany. There are advantages and disadvantages to the approaches these two countries employ in countering extremism.     

The Implications of Endemic Corruption for State Legitimacy in Developing Nations: an Empirical Exploration of the Nigerian Case

There is an extensive literature on the ramifications of corruption for economic growth, as well as for democracy. Largely unexplored, however, is how corruption works to lessen government legitimacy and empower violent anti-state movements. In this article, the perception of corruption in Nigeria is considered. Noting that Nigeria must suppress the violent extremist group Boko Haram in order to continue to govern the nation, the connections between Nigerian perceptions of corruption and support for the movement are treated. Until this research, however, there existed no empirical evaluation of this relationship. Using analysis of a survey of over 10,000 Nigerians accomplished in 2012 and 2013, we show that issues of state illegitimacy and endemic corruption have contributed to Nigeria’s present security crisis by fomenting support for non-state violent actors.     

The Radicalization Puzzle: A Theoretical Synthesis of Empirical Approaches to Homegrown Extremism

Why and how do individuals residing in relatively peaceful and affluent Western societies come to embrace extremist ideologies that emanate from distant places? We summarize the most recent empirical literature on the causes and dynamics of radicalization, and evaluate the state of the art in the study of Islamist homegrown extremism in the West. We propose a theoretical synthesis based on four factors that come together to produce violent radicalization: personal and collective grievances, networks and interpersonal ties, political and religious ideologies, and enabling environments and support structures. We propose adopting a “puzzle” metaphor that represents a multifactor and contextualized approach to understanding how ordinary individuals transform into violent extremists. We concluded with three recommendations to strengthen the empirical foundations of radicalization studies.     

Failed States and the Spread of Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Plagued by systematic state failure, sub-Saharan Africa's failed states have helped facilitate internationally sponsored terrorist networks and operations. However, until recently, this type of activity was primarily relegated to North Africa and the Horn. But that has begun to change. Now, what was once a seemingly benign terrorist presence in sub-Saharan Africa is starting to transform into a movement, with states such as Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) now lending arms, financial support, and radical militants to the extremist jihadist movement of internationally sponsored terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda. Further, with the recent bombings in Kenya and Somalia, and the failed bombing attempt on a U.S. airliner by a Nigerian national, it is becoming increasingly evident that internationally sponsored terrorist networks have found a permanent home in sub-Saharan Africa and within the hearts and minds of its people, which poses significant challenges for the international community, given the region's patchwork of failed states, where terrorists can easily hide and thrive. Consequently, this study discusses how the conditions of state failure have fostered support for internationally sponsored terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa. Terrorist groups are now actively recruiting more militants from within the region and popular support for extremist acts is on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa. Thus, the article argues sub-Saharan Africa will soon become the site for the next generation of terrorists, and the next wave of terrorist activity.     

Moral Disengagement and Building Resilience to Violent Extremism: An Education Intervention

This article reports on the development of an education intervention, the Beyond Bali Education Resource funded by the Australian Governments’ Building Community Resilience Grants of the Federal Attorney General's Department, that applies a conceptual framework grounded in moral disengagement theory. Beyond Bali is a five module program for schools that is specifically designed to build social cognitive resilience to violent extremism by engaging self-sanctions and preparing students to challenge the influence of violent extremism that can lead to moral disengagement. The theory of moral disengagement has been applied to the study of radicalization to violent extremism to explain how individuals can cognitively reconstruct the moral value of violence and carry out inhumane acts. The mechanisms of moral disengagement through which individuals justify violence, dehumanize victims, disregard the harmful consequences of violence and absolve themselves of blame have been used in the construction of violent extremist narratives. However, they have not been applied to the development of intervention strategies that aim to counter the radicalizing influences of violent extremist narratives.     

Al Qaeda's Uncertain Future

This article considers the current state of the Al Qaeda terrorist movement and its likely future trajectory. It considers the principle assumptions both today and in the past about Al Qaeda and how they affect our understanding of the movement and the threat that it poses; Al Qaeda's current capacity for violence; and its ability to plan strategically and implement terrorist operations. The article further identifies nine key change drivers that will likely determine Al Qaeda's fate in the years to come before concluding that, even while the core Al Qaeda group may be in decline, Al Qaeda-ism, the movement's ideology, continues to resonate and attract new adherents. In sum, it argues that Al Qaeda remains an appealing brand most recently and most especially to extremist groups in North and West Africa and the Levant.     

Organizational [Dis]trust: Comparing Disengagement Among Former Left-Wing and Right-Wing Violent Extremists

In order to move beyond the existing push/pull framework to understand disengagement, we apply a systematic coding scheme derived from Mayer and colleagues' integrative model of organizational trust to examine why people leave extremist groups. In doing so, we also rely on in-depth life history interviews with twenty former left- and right-wing extremists to examine whether antecedents of distrust vary between the two groups. Findings suggest substantial similarities and important differences between left- and right-wing extremists' decision to leave. In particular, perceptions of poor planning and organization, low-quality personnel and vindictive behavior generate perceptions of organizational distrust and disillusionment. Although findings from the current study are based on a relatively small sample, notable similarities were identified between both groups regarding sources of distrust (e.g., leaders, group members). We also identified differences regarding the role of violence in weakening solidarity and nurturing disillusionment with extremist activities. We conclude this article with suggestions for future research that extend the study of terrorism and that may have significance for how practitioners address countering violent extremism initiatives.     

Homegrown Violent Extremism in Trinidad and Tobago: Local Patterns,Global Trends

The article examines the subject of homegrown violent extremism related to militant Islamism in the dual-Island Caribbean state of Trinidad and Tobago (T & T). It employs original research drawn from a series of semi-structured interviews and focus groups conducted between November 2015 and January 2016. Tracing the evolution of endogenous forms of radicalism and extremism the article considers how globalized-exogenous forms of militant Islamism associated with Al Qaeda and its offshoots, such as the so-called Islamic State, have impacted local patterns of violent extremism. The case study draws attention to a state and a region that have received scant attention in terrorism studies. As demonstrated by the article, this oversight is imprudent. There are a number of noteworthy findings from this case study for terrorism studies scholars: the unique historical legacy of radicalism, extremism and insurrection among T & T's Islamists; the country's markedly high levels of extremist travelers on a per capita basis and the high rate of religious converts among those travelers; the inter-linkages between criminality and political violence; and the potential threat posed by Trinidadian and Tobagonian militancy regionally.     

Mentoring in Relation to Violent Extremism: A Study of Role,Purpose, and Outcomes

This article presents the key findings of an evaluation of a mentoring scheme being implemented for individuals deemed vulnerable to violent extremism in the West Midlands region in the United Kingdom. The key findings of this study are, firstly, that mentoring around violent extremism carries distinctive features, and can be distinguished from mentoring in other areas of criminal behavior or in drug/alcohol use. Secondly, there is ongoing debate around what the purposes of mentoring are; crystallizing around the key question of whether mentoring in the area of violent extremism is about changing beliefs or changing behavior, or both; therefore, how to measure success? The article examines the different theoretical fields in relation to de-radicalization, disengagement, desistance, and debiasing in order to situate the article's findings in a broader body of work. This article also links individual mentoring to the notion of community, for it is important to consider the individual who is being mentored in relation to the broader set of communities that they belong to or associate with. Here, it is stressed that in the United Kingdom there are significant tensions between approaches that emphasize community cohesion, and those that emphasze liberal freedoms associated with liberal democracy, particularly in relation to Al Qaeda–linked extremism.     

A Guide to Interviewing Terrorists and Violent Extremists

The quality of studies drawing primary data from terrorists and violent extremist respondents varies substantially, with this body of literature exhibiting a variety of repeating methodological issues. For instance, researchers often uncritically accept interviewee responses at face value, overlook key theoretical insights, downplay or neglect potentially important explanatory variables, fail to offer sufficient information about their sampling methods, and deliver findings with inferences beyond what their sample allows. Indeed, certain studies demonstrate a number of these flaws, including the United Nations Development Programme's recently published Journey to Extremism in Africa report. Within this context, the dual purposes of this article are (a) to discuss ways to overcome these specific methodological problems, and (b) to provide broader guidance for face-to-face research with such respondents.     

Options and Strategies for Countering Online Radicalization in the United States

The purpose of this article is to inform the debate about strategies and options for countering online radicalization within the U.S. domestic context. Its aim is to provide a better understanding of how the Internet facilitates radicalization; an appreciation of the dilemmas and tradeoffs that are involved in countering online radicalization within the United States; and ideas and best practices for making the emerging approach and strategy richer and more effective. It argues that online radicalization can be dealt with in three ways. Approaches aimed at restricting freedom of speech and removing content from the Internet are not only the least desirable, they are also the least effective. Instead, government should play a more energetic role in reducing the demand for radicalization and violent extremist messages—for example, by encouraging civic challenges to extremist narratives and by promoting awareness and education of young people. In the short term, the most promising way for dealing with the presence of violent extremists and their propaganda on the Internet is to exploit their online communications to gain intelligence and gather evidence in the most comprehensive and systematic fashion possible.     

Only the Bad Die Young: The Correlates of Organizational Death for Far-Right Extremist Groups

The domestic far-right movement has existed in the United States for many years. During that time, groups have appeared, disappeared, and reappeared. Unfortunately, very little is known about what causes these groups to disband. Prior research has focused on long-lived groups, but the majority of extremist or terrorist groups fail to survive for an extended period of time. This study examined a variety of external and internal correlates of organizational death identified from both terrorism and organizational literature, to empirically test which correlates lead to a group dying young.     

Let's Play a Video Game: Jihadi Propaganda in the World of Electronic Entertainment

This article argues that video games have become a valid and increasingly significant means of jihadist digital propaganda. “Gaming jihad” has recently shown interesting alterations, mostly due to actions undertaken by the so called Islamic State and its cyber-partisans, which have discovered new ways of using this flexible and immersive medium. Similar to more conventional forms of its online propaganda, which have been imitated by other Islamist terrorist groups for years, the “Caliphate's” exploitation of electronic entertainment software may be a forerunner for the increased interest of other violent extremist organizations in this medium.     

Religiosity and Rebellion in Nigeria: Considering Boko Haram in the Radical Tradition

Testing social movement theory positing that radical organizations are ideologically driven at their core, but are supported by civilians who are driven by social factors, this research interrogates the disparity between radical group ideology and supporter belief set in the context of present-day Nigeria. Content analysis of randomly selected Boko Haram publications establishes the high, and increasing, levels of religiosity exhibited by the violent social movement itself. In contrast, a large-N survey of Nigerians conducted in 2012 and 2013 shows that high levels of religiosity do not significantly predict willingness to justify violence, commitment to non-state violent actors, or positive attitude toward Boko Haram among Nigerians as a whole, but rather the opposite. Given these findings, Boko Haram may be better understood within the tradition of radical extremist movements across the ideological spectrum, even while it frames its struggle as that of a distinctly religious movement.     

Surveying American State Police Agencies About Lone Wolves,Far-Right Criminality,and Far-Right and Islamic Jihadist Criminal Collaboration

This study presents state police agencies’ perceptions about three significant terrorism issues on which there is little empirical research. All three issues have significant implications for understanding the role of state police agencies in responding to terrorism threats. First, the authors investigated whether the respondents believed that supporters of specified extremist movements tended to commit crimes as lone wolves, with others, or both alone and with others. Second, they were asked to provide data to gauge how often far-right extremists committed 13 crime types that varied in magnitude and motivation. Third, they were asked if they had knowledge about whether far-right extremists and Islamic jihadists had cooperated to commit crimes. These data were collected by surveying the 50 state police agencies in the United States. The results indicate that state police officials are concerned with both group and lone-wolf activities. Importantly, there was variation in the potential for lone-wolf crimes when comparing different types of extremist movements. The results indicate that far-right extremists are involved in a range of terrorist, preparatory, and routine criminal activities, but this involvement varies by region. Two state police agencies also indicated that they knew of Islamic and far-right collaboration. The study identified two other instances of direct collaboration and a number of other interesting cases through open source searches. The article concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of the findings and outlines directions for future research.     

Social Media and (Counter) Terrorist Finance: A Fund-Raising and Disruption Tool

Abstract

The proliferation of social media has created a terrorist finance vulnerability due to the ease with which propaganda can be spread, promoting fund-raising for a certain cause. Social media companies recognize the importance of preventing violent extremist and terrorist content, but less attention is paid to their fund-raising role. As well as presenting a threat, the movement of terrorist fund-raising activities online creates a disruption opportunity. This article argues that social media companies need to display greater awareness of their vulnerability to supporting terrorist financing and greater collaboration with law enforcement and financial institutions to strengthen the integrity of the system against abuse.     

Migration,Livelihoods and Institutions: Contrasting Patterns of Migration in Mali

Migration is a common and essential livelihood strategy in the risk-prone environment of Sahelian West Africa. But migration is not a passive reaction to economic and environmental forces. Patterns of movement are determined by context-specific and complex dynamics, mediated by social networks, gender relations and household structures. IDS-based research on sustainable livelihoods illustrated this in two locations in Mali: in a village in the Sahelian dryland with different and gendered migration patterns of various ethnic groups; and exceptional patterns in the Sudano-Sahelian cotton region with extensive and long-lasting engagement in small cocoa and coffee plantations in Côte d'Ivoire.