Globalizing Extremism

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

How does extremism manifest, spread, and evolve in an interconnected world? This session uses micro-level evidence from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Twitter to explore the impacts of globalization on extremism. Extremism may develop organically as a response to changing socio-political conditions, for example as backlash against migrants. Migration may also contribute to the spread of extremism by exposing individuals to new ideas which they transfer to their home communities, or by facilitating the transfer of illicit funds across regions. Extremists enlist decentralized communication technologies like social media to spread ideology and recruit supporters, offering them a global reach. Finally, the global, multifaceted nature of extremism provides individuals with a choice of how, where, and with whom to act. Members of militant extremist organizations switch affiliations frequently and for a variety of reasons, allowing organizations to transform and evolve, and allowing potential extremists to tailor their participation as their needs and goals shift. Collectively, these papers shed light on the way that the modern, globalized world facilitates the development and execution of extremism.

Sub Unit

• Division 11: Comparative Politics

Individual Presentations

• Rejecting Coethnicity: The Politics of Migrant Exclusion by Minoritized Citizens - Yang-Yang Zhou, Dartmouth College

• Circular Migration and the Transnational Diffusion of Extremism - Matthew Nanes, Saint Louis University

• The Strategy of Religious Extremists: Military Power and Ideological Appeals - Luwei Ying, University of California, Los Angeles

• Why Jihadis Switch: Unpacking the Phenomena of Inter-Extremist Group Migration - Julie Chernov Hwang, Goucher College

Chair

• Thomas Pepinsky Cornell University

Discussants

• Thomas Pepinsky Cornell University

• Yuhki Tajima Georgetown University