Youth Extremisms: Understanding across Ideological and Religious Contexts (Research Seminar Series)

The proposed seminar series builds on the experience of the co-investigators in organising the ESRC Research Seminar Series on Right Wing Extremism in Europe (2014-2015). It arises from the recognition of the potential benefit of extending the success of the current seminar series in enhancing cross-disciplinary knowledge and creating a safe space to share research and best policy and intervention practice across substantively and ideologically different radicalisms and extremisms. The proposed new series will draw on the wide international academic and non-academic participant network developed through the existing seminar series (focused on anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and right wing extremism) but extend its reach to those engaged in research, policy and practice related in particular to religion-based extremism and extreme left and anti-corporativist radicalism.

Radical and extremist groups have embodied a broad range of cultural and political forms in Europe since World War II. While some groups have remained on the political fringes, others have become known through spectacular acts of public violence - such as bombings by left-wing and right-wing radical groups in Germany or the killing of a British soldier by Islamists on a London street in May 2013. Youth engagement is one of the most pressing concerns for researchers and policymakers who work on radicalism and violence. Young people are easier to recruit and easier to radicalise than older individuals; they are also disproportionately responsible for violent attacks. In this seminar series, we explore comparative trends in youth engagement in radical and extremist movements and subcultures across national, religious, and ideological contexts.

Coming on the heels of significant electoral successes and instances of extraordinary extremist violence, there has been renewed political, media, and scholarly attention to extremist and radical growth in Europe, and in particular to the role of youth in domestic and foreign extremist movements and violence. But there have been few sustained comparative discussions across or between European countries and almost no empirical comparative research on the many dimensions of radicalism and violence. We need more cross-disciplinary conversation as well as more discussion across ideological or substantive areas of focus. Scholars of the far left rarely compare their work to scholars of religious extremism or vice versa; so too historians and political scientists tend to present and publish their findings within their core disciplines rather than in cross-disciplinary venues. The vast majority of research scholars do not find ways to connect their empirical findings with policymakers. We need opportunities to compare and contrast issues such as radicalist engagement, propensity to violence, or the influence of transnational networks and new media platforms on extremist and radical recruitment and radicalisation of youth across these various disciplinary, national, and ideological spheres.

We need also structured venues to better connect policymakers with researchers and to share research findings in ways that are accessible to the broader public. To this end in the proposed series, seminars will be co-hosted with non-academic organisations, include dedicated space for presentations by non-academic organisation participants and will feature joint academic/non-academic small group discussions feeding in to the production of co-owned 'evidence briefings' related to each seminar theme.

The proposed series focuses on youth engagement in radicalism and extremism across ideological and religious contexts and consists of six thematically focused one-day seminars exploring: paths to radicalism and extremism; global and local horizons of action; social media and corporate responsibilities; terrorism; gender dimensions of radicalism and extremism; and deradicalisation and education.

This seminar series benefits a wide range of non-academic users. It is aimed at policy makers from local and national government, frontline workers from the police, NGOs and educational charities engaged in monitoring, countering and preventing violent extremism. Contacts in these bodies (see Case for Support) have been invited to co-host a seminar in order to cement active engagement in shaping the series to reflect their concerns and interests. Youth engagement with violent political and religious extremism remains a chronic social problem and the composition of participants in our seminar series will reflect the wide range of groups and agencies working to combat this problem. By linking up organisations who often only deal with one particular form of youth extremism (i.e. groups monitoring right-wing extremism rarely monitor Islamist extremism or vice-versa) the series will directly enhance their better networking with youth workers, and community/social cohesion practitioners working in different contexts and countries and with policy makers, think tanks and indeed academic researchers drawn from other fields. Through the seminar on social media and corporate responsibility the Seminar Series will also link such communities with participants from the private, commercial sector providing for greater interaction between those who work directly with young people who consume on-line extremist content and those managing such platforms enabling discussion of strategies to better combat such challenges. This broadens the impact of the series further still for non-academic users and, ultimately, contributes to broader community resilience.

The potential impact of such a seminar series to non-academic users is reflected in the inter-disciplinary and cross national forum that it will provide such groups and individuals, where cutting edge insight will be generated into the problem of youthful engagement with political and religious extremism that will help bolster their analytical armoury in their day-to-day response to it at street level. Historical, sociological and transnational perspectives on various factors determining or deterring engagement with a range of youth extremisms will help users compare and contrast different forms of extremism and in so doing draw new insights for their own strategies to insulate potentially vulnerable youth against violent extremism, increasing the effectiveness of public services and policy.

The cutting-edge research showcased by the seminar series (see Case for Support) will be of particular use to law enforcement and probation agencies, practitioners working in youth and community services, those working in 'Exit' programmes and indeed those managing Prevent/Channel portfolios in local authorities. Addressing the pivotal importance of local agency and transnational networks for violent extremisms within an internationally connected seminar series will ensure the impact of, and engagement with, the research by non-academic users with a variety of international experiences, perspectives and counter-networks. It will increase their ability to reflect on the wider phenomenon of youth engagement with extremism whilst offering greater potential for open exchange and discussion of theoretical and methodological issues for mutual benefit. This creates a greater synergy between academics, think tanks and government currently working on different aspects of youth engagement in certain forms of extremism without perhaps utilizing the full range of academic research on the broader phenomenon. The ultimate impact of such research for both academic and non-academic users will be the creation of an ongoing dialogue and network: that enables such problems to be seen holistically; which informs local and national strategies; and which highlights to policy makers and practitioners, the range of research and researchers working to curtail youthful engagement with violent extremism.