Influencing factors of violent extremist attitudes among Swiss young people

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

Abstract

Extremist violence has been a central challenge for internal security in many countries around the world for decades. Of great scientific interest, therefore, is the identification of causes that radicalise people to such an extent that they carry out extremist violence. In the past, a variety of possible influencing factors have been identified, among others regarding the individual, the immediate social environment and the society. A central problem of most studies is that they do not analyse radicalisation longitudinal, so that only correlations, not causes, are analysed. In contrast, in the presentation a 4-wave representative survey of young people in Switzerland is used to identify causes of violent extremist attitudes. The surveys were conducted in 2022 to 2025 at yearly intervals among people aged 15 to 25 at the start of the study. Data from over 500 young people is available for longitudinal analyses. To analyse the causes, variables based on control theory and other personal characteristics of the respondents (conspiracy mentality, depression, general delinquency) are used and analysed using structural equation modelling.

Author

• Dirk Baier, University of Zurich/Zurich University of Applied Sciences