Differentiating Specific Forms of Violent Extremist Intentions in a General Population Survey

• In Event: EXTREME Panel 5. The development of extremist attitudes and intentions

Abstract

Survey studies aim to highlight potential indicators for involvement in violent extremism, and have progressed our understanding of risk factors and their interdependency. However, nearly all use generic measures of violent extremism support, attitudes, or intentions in the aggregate, rather than intentions for more specific behaviours. This study asks whether there would be utility in specificity, through analysing a general population survey measure of violent extremist intentions: Moskalenko and McCauley’s (2009) Radicalism Intentions Scale (RIS). Using an online survey (N = 1506), the RIS was firstly examined using exploratory principal components analysis to validate the single factor structure of this scale. Next, multiple regression models were conducted for each of the four RIS items, to explore whether meaningfully different correlates emerge. Results show there are many different statistically significant correlates for each individual item that align with theory and prior research, and many relationships that would be obscured if the average RIS alone had been used. This further validates emerging literature arguing that dominant approaches in the field may be too simplistic with their use of uniform constructs of violent extremism. Even among the un-radicalised general population, it is feasible that meaningful differences appear between different forms of violent extremist intentions, and it may prove useful to detect these where the aim is to aid risk or threat assessment for specific outcomes of concern.

Author

• Amber Seaward, University College London