Monster or Hero? Far-right Responses to Anders Behring Breivik and the July 22, 2011 Terrorist Attacks

This study maps and seeks to explain the evolution of far-right responses to the July 22 terrorist attacks in 2011. We identify substantial temporal and spatial variation in how different far-right actors responded between 2011 and 2021. These findings present us with four puzzles: First, why was Breivik rejected by the far right in Western Europe, while receiving substantial support in Russia and eventually also from online subcultures originating in the United States? Second, why did parts of the far right not only reject Breivik, but vehemently condemn him? Third, why did initial support for Breivik in Western Europe come from individuals outside the organized far right? And fourth, why does support for Breivik seem to increase with distance in time and space? We argue that the nature of taboos offers an elegant explanation to these puzzles. We propose that the strength of the macro-cultural taboo against violence provides an overarching explanation, mediated by three taboo-related mechanisms referred to as contagion, rebellion, and decoupling. In regions where the taboo against violence is strong, most future support for right-wing terrorism will probably continue to manifest itself through anonymous online spaces, while the more organized far right will continue distancing itself from taboo violators to avoid becoming (complete) social and political pariahs.publishedVersio

Consequences of affective polarization: Avoidance, intolerance and support for violence in the United Kingdom and Norway

Affective polarization – that is, antipathy towards political opponents – sits high on the academic and political agenda. This is because it is thought to have a multitude of damaging consequences, both for how citizens view and approach each other and for how they relate to the political system. This study investigates some of the most mentioned and worrying potential consequences of affective polarization at the individual level. Zooming in on Europe, it sheds light on the substantive relationship between partisan antipathy and three kinds of norm-breaking escalation in the form of avoidance, intolerance and support for violence against party supporters. Methodologically, it unpacks the affective component of polarization, testing to what extent the traditional feeling thermometer performs as a predictor of these three potential outcomes. It then tests alternative expectations of the antecedents of such escalation derived from the intergroup emotions’ literature and the study of political radicalization. This is done using a broad range of both established and new survey items fielded in nationally representative panels between May and November 2020 in two contexts that score relatively low (Norway) and high (the United Kingdom) on affective polarization. They reveal that avoidance, intolerance and support for political violence can be validly measured, and are manifest, in these two European countries, but that they are only weakly correlated to mere dislike of the outgroup. Instead, more severe forms of norm-breaking escalation depend on the specific nature of the discrete emotions induced beyond dislike (anger, fear or disgust) and are rooted in factors such as relative deprivation, Manicheanism, and dark personality traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism). We discuss the implications for the way polarization is theorized and measured.publishedVersio

The Term ‘Lone Wolf’ and its Alternatives

Prominent cases of terror attacks planned and perpetrated by individuals have generated an ongoing public and academic debate about how to understand this phenomenon. The moniker “lone wolf ” stands at the center of this debate. In this Research Note, we highlight three overarching points of criticism levelled at the use of this term: one conceptual, one normative and one empirical. While the solution to the latter problem primarily lies in being stringent, proposed solutions for the first two problems involved the exchange of the metaphor “lone wolf ” with terms such as “lone actor” and “solo terrorist”. This Research Note focuses on patterns in public, popular cultural and academic use of “lone wolf ” as well as the proposed alternatives “lone actor” and “solo terrorist”. It does so by utilizing data from Google Trends, Google Books Ngram Viewer and Google Scholar for the period 2000 to 2020. Trends in Google searches across the world indicate a moderate increase in public attention whereas using English language literature as a proxy for popular cultural attention shows a steady increase. Finally, academic use of the term “lone wolf ” exploded in the aftermath of the July 22, 2011 terror attacks and has remained at high levels ever since. Among the proposed alternatives to “lone wolf ”, only “lone actor” has truly gained academic prominence. While overcoming some of the issues with the “lone wolf” metaphor, patterns in the data indicate that the neutrality and abstract nature of the term “lone actor” also comes with some drawbacks. To help counteract this, we suggest that researchers avoid using shorthand versions and consistently use the full term “lone actor terrorist”

Monster or Hero? Far-right Responses to Anders Behring Breivik and the July 22, 2011 Terrorist Attacks

This study maps and seeks to explain the evolution of far-right responses to the July 22 terrorist attacks in 2011. We identify substantial temporal and spatial variation in how different far-right actors responded between 2011 and 2021. These findings present us with four puzzles: First, why was Breivik rejected by the far right in Western Europe, while receiving substantial support in Russia and eventually also from online subcultures originating in the United States? Second, why did parts of the far right not only reject Breivik, but vehemently condemn him? Third, why did initial support for Breivik in Western Europe come from individuals outside the organized far right? And fourth, why does support for Breivik seem to increase with distance in time and space? We argue that the nature of taboos offers an elegant explanation to these puzzles. We propose that the strength of the macro-cultural taboo against violence provides an overarching explanation, mediated by three taboo-related mechanisms referred to as contagion, rebellion, and decoupling. In regions where the taboo against violence is strong, most future support for right-wing terrorism will probably continue to manifest itself through anonymous online spaces, while the more organized far right will continue distancing itself from taboo violators to avoid becoming (complete) social and political pariahs

Monster or Hero? Far-right Responses to Anders Behring Breivik and the July 22, 2011 Terrorist Attacks

This study maps and seeks to explain the evolution of far-right responses to the July 22 terrorist attacks in 2011. We identify substantial temporal and spatial variation in how different far-right actors responded between 2011 and 2021. These findings present us with four puzzles: First, why was Breivik rejected by the far right in Western Europe, while receiving substantial support in Russia and eventually also from online subcultures originating in the United States? Second, why did parts of the far right not only reject Breivik, but vehemently condemn him? Third, why did initial support for Breivik in Western Europe come from individuals outside the organized far right? And fourth, why does support for Breivik seem to increase with distance in time and space? We argue that the nature of taboos offers an elegant explanation to these puzzles. We propose that the strength of the macro-cultural taboo against violence provides an overarching explanation, mediated by three taboo-related mechanisms referred to as contagion, rebellion, and decoupling. In regions where the taboo against violence is strong, most future support for right-wing terrorism will probably continue to manifest itself through anonymous online spaces, while the more organized far right will continue distancing itself from taboo violators to avoid becoming (complete) social and political pariahs