D.Rad Symposium: Trends of Radicalization in Europe and Beyond

The Symposium will present the findings of 17 countries on trends of radicalization in Europe and the Middle East. The reports analyze specific moments – or “hotspots” – of radicalization in historical, social, and cultural context and are part of the D.Rad research project, a Horizon-2020 comparative study of radicalization and polarization funded by the European Research Council. The project aims to identify the actors, networks, and broader social contexts driving radicalization, particularly among young people in urban and peri-urban areas.

The presenters will discuss four major themes that emerged in the analysis of hotspots: 1) the temporal and agentive distinction between radical ideology and radical violent action; 2) understanding impact through different indicators such as the numbers of victims or attacks and the relative physical or material harm caused by attacks as opposed to their symbolic power; 3) the usefulness of the category “religious violence” from a radicalization perspective; 4) how an approach through “hotspots” reconsiders the relationship between civil society actors or stakeholders and state action or programs.

The discussants will include Stephen W. Sawyer, Roman Zinigrad, and other D.Rad researchers, from Glasgow Caledonian University (Scotland), Ben-Gurion University (Israel), Freie Universität Berlin (Germany), Brunel University London (UK), The University of Helsinki (Finland), Istanbul Bilgi University (Turkey), Jan Dlugosz University in Czestochowa (Poland), The Kosovar Centre for Security Studies, The Austrian Academy of Sciences, The Hammurabi Human Rights Organization (Iraq), Zavod APIS (Slovenia), the Georgian Institute of Politics (Georgia), Eurac Research (Italy), The Center for Comparative Conflict Studies (Serbia), PRONI Center for Youth Development (Bosnia and Herzegovina), and the University of Florence (Italy).