A comparison of individual needs and support of violence among radicals, extremists and fundamentalists in Western Europe

Marc Helbling, Sebastian Jungkunz () and Nina Osenbrügge
Additional contact information
Marc Helbling: University of Mannheim, Chair of Sociology, Migration and Integration
Sebastian Jungkunz: Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Institute of Sociology
Nina Osenbrügge: University of Mannheim, Chair of Sociology, Migration and Integration

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 2025, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract In the light of increasing extremist attacks in Western Europe, we take a step back and provide the first large-scale, systematic, and cross-national investigation of commonalities and differences between people who hold left- or right-wing radical, political extremist, or religious fundamentalist attitudes. Using survey data from Germany, Great Britain, and the Netherlands, we investigate to what extent these attitudes can be explained by similar or different factors at the individual level and how much support these individuals show for political violence. Using a unique survey with newly developed and validated measures, we find several commonalities (and some differences) in the socio-demographic and socio-psychological backgrounds of radicals, extremists, and fundamentalists. However, our research shows that these groups differ strongly in their support to justify political violence.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-025-06295-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palcom:v:12:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-025-06295-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/palcomms/about

DOI: 10.1057/s41599-025-06295-5

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().