Inspiring Terror: How Right-Wing Extremist Ideas and Violence Reproduce

• In Event: Poster Session: Public Policy & Society, Extremism, and Democratic Backsliding
  In Poster Session: Poster Session: Society, Extremism, and Democratic Backsliding

Abstract

What inspires right-wing extremist violence? This project traces the influences of seven right-wing extremists who committed acts of political violence between 2011 and 2022, and who documented their ideologies and motives in published manifestos written in English. These include the individuals behind the attacks in Norway (2011), Charleston (2015), Christchurch (2019), Halle (2019), Poway (2019), El Paso (2019), and Buffalo (2022). Building on mimetic theory and identity fusion-plus theory, we argue that right-wing extremists – even when motivated by different grievances and oriented against different target communities – are interconnected and imitate their violent predecessors when they commit terrorist attacks. We support our argument with a citation analysis of these seven manifestos and a visual representation of the network(s) of inspiration for each writer. Our findings support the notion that right-wing extremist violence is not the domain of “lone wolf” actors, but of an interconnected international network.

Author

• Farah Rasmi, The Geneva Graduate Institute