Joel Busher

Interpreting “Cumulative Extremism”: Six Proposals for Enhancing Conceptual Clarity

The concept of “cumulative extremism”—described in 2006 by Roger Eatwell as “the way in which one form of extremism can feed off and magnify other forms [of extremism],” has recently gained considerable traction in academic, policy, and practitioner discourses about extremism. Yet in spite of the growing usage of the term, particularly in analyses of the dynamic between extreme Islamist and extreme Right-Wing or anti-Muslim protest groups, there has to date been scant interrogation of the concept itself or of its application. In this article, we make a series of six proposals as to how we might enhance the conceptual clarity of these conversations about “cumulative extremism.” Our aim in doing so is to increase the likelihood that the concept might become a useful addition to the debates on extremism rather than becoming, to borrow a term from John Horgan—something of an “explanatory fiction”—an idea that appears to enable us to explain a great deal, but whose explanatory value is largely lost because there is insufficient scrutiny of the claims that it is used to make and whose liberal application becomes increasingly conducive to poor science.

The missing spirals of violence: four waves of movement–countermovement contest in post-war Britain

Since the Second World War, Great Britain has witnessed a recurring escalation and de-escalation of confrontations between extreme right-wing or anti-minority protest groups on the one hand and, on the other, militant anti-fascist or anti-racist groups, and latterly also a number of extreme Islamist groups. In this article, we trace the outline of four waves of these movement–countermovement contests in order to engage critically with ideas of what some academics have called “cumulative extremism (CE)”. Contrary to the tenor of much of the public, policy and academic debate around such contests, we draw attention to what we describe as the missing spirals of violence. In order to better explain and accommodate these empirical findings, we argue that it is important to resist the temptation to reduce “CE” to a process of “tit-for-tat” violence. We outline four factors that have been particularly important in shaping patterns of interactive escalation, de-escalation and non-escalation in the case studies described: the broader strategic aims of activist groups; dynamics of intra-movement control and leadership; the actions of and activists interactions with state actors; and emergent movement cultures and identities.

Hopes and Fears: Community cohesion and the ‘White working class’ in one of the ‘failed spaces’ of multiculturalism

Since 2001, community cohesion has been an English policy concern, with accompanying media discourse portraying a supposed failure by Muslims to integrate. Latterly, academia has foregrounded White majority attitudes towards ethnic diversity, particularly those of the ‘White working class’. While questioning this categorisation, we present data on attitudes towards diversity from low income, mainly White areas within Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, a town portrayed in media discourse as one of the ‘failed spaces’ of multiculturalism. Drawing on mixed methods research, we present and discuss data that provide a complex message, seemingly confirming pessimistic analyses around ethnic diversity and predominantly White neighbourhoods but also highlighting an appetite within the same communities for greater and more productive inter-ethnic contact. Furthermore, anxieties about diversity and integration have largely failed to coalesce into broad support for organised anti-minority politics manifest in groups such as the English Defence League.

Why Even Misleading Identity Claims Matter: The Evolution of the English Defence League:

When activists in radical, far or extreme right groups claim identities that set them apart from such analytical categories, they are usually given short shrift by commentators and academics, a function of the presumed strategic nature of such claims and the evidential inaccuracies that scrutiny of such claims often reveals. Such responses help ensure critical readings of these groups. However, they also risk overlooking the fact that even where such identifications appear misleading, they may still be causally significant, shaping the groups’ evolution in important ways. I develop this argument using the case of the English Defence League, a group whose activists have tended to claim they are a ‘single-issue group’ protesting only about the supposed threats of ‘Islamification’. I demonstrate how their enactment of this identity, while uneven and erratic, shaped the emergent movement culture, tactical repertoires, intra-movement relations and, ultimately, the ebb and flow of movement viability.

Chicken suits and other aspects of situated credibility contests: explaining local trajectories of anti-minority activism

ABSTRACT Why do some towns become focal points for anti-minority activism at particular moments in time, when other towns with similar socio-economic conditions do not? While policy practitioners charged with responding to such activity frequently ask this question, it has received less academic attention. Consequently, an adequate response falls between different strands of the academic literature on anti-minority politics. We explore this question through a comparative analysis of how and why Luton, a Bedfordshire town, became a focal point for the latest wave of organised anti-minority activism in the UK, centred around the English Defence League (EDL), while Blackburn with Darwen, a local authority in Lancashire with a history of extreme right political ‘successes’, did not. We develop the concept of situated credibility contests to help us articulate the contingent relationships between potential explanatory variables and political outcomes, and describe how ‘demand-side’ and ‘supply-side’ variables interact through the strategic actions of anti-minority activists and their opponents.

MICRO-MORAL WORLDS OF CONTENTIOUS POLITICS: A RECONCEPTUALIZATION OF RADICAL GROUPS AND THEIR INTERSECTIONS WITH ONE ANOTHER AND THE MAINSTREAM*

The emergence, or resurgence, of radical political groups invariably provokes a struggle between activists, academics, commentators and policymakers over the particular configuration of nouns and adjectives that best correspond to the group in question. While such debates are an integral part of political practice, scrutiny of the claims made within these debates reveals significant limitations in standard strategies of description – most notably their inability to satisfactorily render either the essential cultural messiness and dynamism of contentious politics or the intersections between the so-called extreme and mainstream. We propose an alternative, albeit not mutually exclusive, strategy of description. This entails decentering the group per se and focusing instead on mapping the micro moral worlds of contentious politics – the patchwork of intersubjective contexts of belief and behavior through which activism takes place. We illustrate this with two empirical cases: The English Defence League in Britain, and Republican Sinn Fein in Ireland.

Introduction: The Emotional Dynamics of Backlash Politics beyond Anger, Hate, Fear, Pride, and Loss

The activists from March for England, a group that had worked closely, although not always seen eye to eye, with the English Defence League, for some years the UK’s most prominent anti-Muslim protest movement, gathered outside Brighton station. It was an excellent day for a St. George’s day parade: warm spring sunshine, just a light breeze. The activists, many wearing, wrapped in or carrying England flags, greeted one another, and shared a joke and a drink as their talk turned to the day ahead. The marchers enacted and expressed a range of emotions. There was evident excitement and anxiety as they discussed parade logistics. They expected a degree of opposition from anti-fascist groups: There always was in Brighton. For some, this was part of the attraction. Yet March for England had only managed to muster a small group today—150 or so—including a number of families and some marchers with limited mobility. There were also, as might be expected, expressions of national pride, felt most intensely during lustily sung renditions of “God Save the Queen” and “England ‘til I die.” National pride mixed with personal pride, appreciation of and respect for their fellow marchers: for being the people who had made the effort to be there and were willing to march despite the anticipated opposition. These feelings were however infused with and accentuated through other emotions and affects of loss, disappointment, embarrassment, and shame even, that in England today so few

What do ‘middle class’ terrorists tell us about the link between poverty and terrorism?

Introduced in 2006, the Prevent workstream of the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy (CONTEST) has provided a focus for often heated debates about what drives people to support or take part in violent extremism and terrorism in the UK. Six months after the new Conservative – Liberal Democrat coalition government announced an extensive review of Prevent, David Cameron used his speech to the Munich Security Conference 2011 [1]to set out his position in relation to these debates. He distanced himself from what he referred to as the ‘hard right’ and the ‘soft left’.

When promoting pills is easier than pushing the ABC: a case study from Kavango, Namibia.

Abstract One of the challenges faced by AIDS service organisations seeking to engage with traditional leaders and community elders in Kavango, north-east Namibia, has been the popular view that the messages of the fight against HIV/AIDS contradict local cultural values. However, there are indications that this has been changing. Staff and volunteers working with AIDS service organisations reported that growing numbers of traditional leaders were becoming involved in HIV/AIDS programmes, in particular supporting efforts to promote HIV testing and encourage more people to take up antiretroviral therapy (ART), which has been available in state hospitals in the region since 2005. This paper explores one of the factors that appear to be facilitating this broadening of participation in the fight against HIV/AIDS. The case is made that increasing familiarity with and confidence in ART has contributed to the emergence of an alternative set of signs around HIV/AIDS that is more culturally permissive and is not so conducive to social representations of a moral disjuncture between HIV/AIDS programmes and Kavango culture. This has created opportunities for traditional leaders and elders to more easily resolve the tensions between the recognised need to respond to “this disease of today”, and whilst still performing their role as guardians of local culture. This paper is based on ethnographic research conducted in Kavango over a period of 18 months during 2007–2008.