Yazar: Dr. | Police Academy, Institute of Forensic Sciences, Dept. of Forensic Psychology
Liberal Düşünce Dergisi, Yıl: 28, Sayı:111, Yaz 2023, ss. 285-289.
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Ralf Havertz, New York, Routledge, 2021, ISBN: 9780367372026
The current political climate appears to create accentuated divisions among various incompatible world views. In a globalized world, faster dissemination of information is much faster via social media and other sources which has never been experienced before. A local incident might rapidly turn into an international crisis. For instance, the civil war in Syria has deeply impacted politics and social structures of many countries around the world. In this social environment tackling with various types of violent extremism and radical populism have become increasingly challenging. These radical worldviews may be manifested at an either end of the political spectrum, namely right or left, based on ethnicity or exploitation of religion. Following the terror attacks of 9/11 security services and public have focused on the threat posed by terrorist groups such as DAESH and Al-Qaeda. However, threats of violence also remain significant in the case of violent extreme right as well as leftist group. Challenges in tackling violent right-wing extremism is a complicated matter as they may not be seen as a significant security threat in the West. For example, despite a number of terror attacks carried by right supremacists in the USA, this group has not been listed as a terror group by the state. Also, the terror suspects are more likely to be described as mentally disturbed and disgruntled people should they be white. In other to counter violent extremism, whether based on ideology, ethnicity, or exploitation of religion, we need to systematically examine the root cause of such violent tendencies. In this regard, rising radical right popularism in the West calls for a comprehensive examination of this social movement.