As a result of the Christchurch shooting in 2019 by Brenton Tarrant, ecofascism suddenly gained a lot of attention in research. Where most studies focussed on the origins, definition and...Show moreAs a result of the Christchurch shooting in 2019 by Brenton Tarrant, ecofascism suddenly gained a lot of attention in research. Where most studies focussed on the origins, definition and implications of ecofascism, few studies tried to understand the justifications ecofascists used to justify their violent narratives. Therefore, in this thesis the following research question was answered: How do ecofascists try to justify their violent extremist ideas? To this extent, Sykes and Matza’s 1957 neutralization techniques were applied to the manifestos written by Brenton Tarrant and Patrick Crusius through a deductively coded narrative analysis. Sykes and Matza’s 1957 neutralization techniques have been very important for the field of narrative criminology and have proved to be promising for the field of extremism too. It was concluded that both perpetrators used the denial of the victim, condemnation of the condemners and appeal to higher loyalties neutralization techniques, to create a narrative in which extremist violence is not only acceptable, but also necessary for the betterment of the greater good. These findings are in line with previous research which incorporated the neutralization techniques in extremism research.Show less
