A Witch's Brew of Grievances: The Potential Effects of COVID-19 on Radicalization to Violent Extremism

Historically, pandemics had inevitably produced demonization and scapegoating, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. Some individuals and groups have attempted to weaponize and exploit the pandemic, to use it as a means of spreading their extremist ideologies and to radicalize others to t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStudies in conflict and terrorism Vol. 46; no. 11; pp. 2327 - 2350
Main Authors Davies, Garth, Wu, Edith, Frank, Richard
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Washington Routledge 02.11.2023
Taylor & Francis LLC
Subjects
Complaints
COVID-19
COVID-19 (Disease)
COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-)
Extremism
Jihad
Pandemics
Radicalism
Radicalization
Regression analysis
Scapegoating
Transmission
World Health Organization
CANADA
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Summary:Historically, pandemics had inevitably produced demonization and scapegoating, and the COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. Some individuals and groups have attempted to weaponize and exploit the pandemic, to use it as a means of spreading their extremist ideologies and to radicalize others to their causes. Segmented regression analyses of seven online extremist forums revealed that posting behavior on violent right-wing extremist and incel forums increased significantly following the declaration of the pandemic. The same was not true of left-wing or jihadist forums. These unequal effects likely reflect the particular grievance-based and online nature of right-wing and incel extremism.
Bibliography:STUDIES IN CONFLICT AND TERRORISM, Vol. 46, No. 11, Nov 2023, 2327-2350
Informit, Melbourne (Vic)
ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 14
ISSN:1057-610X
1521-0731
DOI:10.1080/1057610X.2021.1923188