Leiden University Student Repository

Voorde, Zoe ten (2021)

Far-right Groups Enhance Violence: A thematic analysis on the manipulation of radicalization trajectories by right wing extremist groups

Bachelor thesis | Security Studies (BSc)

This study seeks to find out how far-right groups influence the radicalization trajectories of individuals, by analyzing six autobiographies of violent right wing extremists. This study uses thematic analysis guided by Kruglanki and colleagues’ Significance Quest Theory (2009; 2014). It has uncovered themes regarding problematic childhoods, violent ideologies, and violence as means to gain significance within these groups. This study shows that a traumatic childhood makes individuals more vulnerable to far-right group recruitment, as they want to belong somewhere. These far-right groups promoted ideologies driven by violence, and therefore has led the individuals down a path of violence in order to belong. Eventually the studied individuals found out that their violent actions increased their status within these far-right groups and the white supremacist network, that they missed out on in their childhoods.

Far-Right

Radicalization

Violent Extremism

Groups

Author

Voorde, Zoe ten

Faculty

Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs

Supervisors

Carthy, S.L.

ECTS Credits

15

Language

en