Right-wing extremism in much of the Western world looks far different than it did even a decade ago. Extremists are getting younger, and radicalization is an increasingly online process. According...Show moreRight-wing extremism in much of the Western world looks far different than it did even a decade ago. Extremists are getting younger, and radicalization is an increasingly online process. According to most contemporary theories of radicalization, personal and political grievances are critical foundations for this process. Despite this, research into the forms these grievances take, especially in this new cohort of younger, more online extremists is rare. This study seeks to address this research gap by asking the question: What kinds of personal and political grievances are most likely to push young people to get involved with right-wing extremist groups online? It answers by performing a process of content analysis on messages sent between users of six large right-wing extremist group chats on the popular instant messaging platform Discord between early 2017 and early 2020 with the goal of identifying individual grievances and larger common themes in this cohort of extremists. Out of an initial dataset of 308,207 messages, over three hundred discrete examples were identified and further classified into 35 different thematic subcategories. Two clusters of especially prevalent interrelated grievances were also identified which tended to appear together, signaling the possibility that more similar clusters exist and reaffirming existing theories about the role of grievances in right-wing extremist radicalization pathways.Show less
Richard Brothers was a notable early believer and advocate for English-Israelism. He antagonized the government with prophecies of the king of England yielding his throne to him. Prophesying that...Show moreRichard Brothers was a notable early believer and advocate for English-Israelism. He antagonized the government with prophecies of the king of England yielding his throne to him. Prophesying that the hidden Jews of England would return to Israel under his guidance. He was the most prominent late 18thcentury prophet and remains a controversial and misunderstood figure. Despite decade long interest from scholars, Brothers’ role as part of the broader radical culture remains a matter of debate. While his story can be interpreted as that of a lunatic who stumbled into fame, we will discuss what allowed Brothers to blossom into a national phenomenon. The aim is to explore Brothers’ role and impact in the context of the larger radical movement. We will explore why Brothers was prosecuted in a government effort aimed at silencing these radical groups in England, and why his political and religious message were deemed too dangerous to be left unchecked. We will view Brothers through the lens that most of Britain would have seen him through in 1795, the newspapers. A deeply divisive figure, he sparked discourse in all layers of English society. His fame reached even outside Britain. While the exact number of followers and sympathetic individuals has been the subject of some debate, the aim is to find out if there was significant support for the prophet. With material documenting Brothers’ impact on London now readily available in online newspaper archives, the goal of this research is to answer the question: What impact did Richard Brothers have on society and how was he perceived by the government and the public?Show less
In this thesis I have researched how different representations of stadtholder William V of Orange were created, developed and used by British newspapers in the context of the British political...Show moreIn this thesis I have researched how different representations of stadtholder William V of Orange were created, developed and used by British newspapers in the context of the British political-ideological debate between 1780 and 1806. My research revealed that there existed for most of the period distinct and opposite images of William V in Great Britain. I have linked these images to the opposing ideologies of the conservatives and opposition or radicals. All exploited the ambiguity of the personality and position of the prince in their debate with each other, by using a positive or negative image of the prince. The Dutch Patriot Revolution, the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, the French Revolution, the war of the First Alliance, the fall of the Republic and consequent flight of the prince to Great-Britain and the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland form the background to which newspapers wrote about William V. My research sheds light on several historiographical debates, for example the periodisation of the emergence and decline of British radicalism, the rhetorical tactics that were used by the different sides, what caused debate on the stadholder, the emergence and effects of loyalism, as well as giving a systematic and thorough overview of the way the British thought about William V for the first time.Show less
This thesis analyzes song lyrics by Nina Simone, James Brown, and Public Enemy, and questions how they are radical in the context of the diachronic development of black civil rights activism. It...Show moreThis thesis analyzes song lyrics by Nina Simone, James Brown, and Public Enemy, and questions how they are radical in the context of the diachronic development of black civil rights activism. It straddles both very broad context and detailed analysis.Show less
This thesis argues about the impact of premigratory factors, as those were shaped in post civil war Greece, to the migration and integration experience of Greek 'guest' workers'to the Netherlands,...Show moreThis thesis argues about the impact of premigratory factors, as those were shaped in post civil war Greece, to the migration and integration experience of Greek 'guest' workers'to the Netherlands, in the period 1955 to 1981.Moreover, it follows the migrants' organizational trajectories making comparisons between Rotterdam and Utrecht.Show less
