Description: In recent years subcultural theoretical explanations of violent extremism have gained traction in police and intelligence services. While attractive intuitively, criminologists have been quite critical about the explanatory value of subculture theory. In line with these critiques, we offer Sykes and Matza’s neutralization theory (1957) as a more suitable theoretical framework for studying violent extremism.
Studying violent extremism through the lens of neutralisation theory can offer us more insight into why offenders engage in extremist violence and what factors influenced this process. Neutralisation theory recognizes that offenders cannot be reduced to rare, pathological cases at the fringe of society, but rather acknowledges that society and societal factors also play a part in influencing behaviour. Sykes and Matza thus recognise that crime cannot be understood apart from society. By analysing extremist manifestos – which are essentially written-down versions of the justificatory thought process preceding deviant behaviour – using neutralisation theory, we can gain both a better understanding of the thought process of the offender (seeing as we analyse justifications as phrased by the offender themselves) as well as insight into the societal context within which this process took place.
Our preliminary findings support our suggestion that there is merit in studying violent extremism through the lens of neutralisation theory. By way of narrative analysis, we determined the presence of techniques of neutralization in the extremist manifesto of Brenton Tarrant. Additionally, we found that conspiracy theories, specifically the great replacement theory, play an important role in his manifesto. Based on our findings, we propose that conspiracy theories act as narratives that neutralise social control in ways that result in ‘a process of “de-pluralisation” of political concepts and values’ which will ultimately lead to the belief that violence is a valid course of action (Koehler, 2017, p.6). This hypothesis drives our current research
Promotors: Prof. dr. Kristof Verfaillie, dr. Christophe Busch
Researchers: Katrien Vanlerberghe
Duration: November 2022- September 2026