Identity Threat and Violent Extremism among Muslim Minorities in Contemporary Multicultural European Societies

One characteristic feature that aptly describes the last two decades is the frequency of religious terrorism that threatens world security. Innumerable extremist groups are continuously plotting to cause turbulence and instability worldwide. Although several successful attempts by the intelligence agencies have resulted in capturing and/or killing numerous terrorists and their leaders, there appear to be many individuals that are still willing to take their place (Silver & Matthew, 2008). Thus, the need to understand the religious radicalization of individuals, what motivates people to take to violence, how violent thoughts develop and how these progress from thoughts to action cannot be overemphasized. With structural equation modeling, this cross-sectional study will examine direct and indirect effects of religious identity, religious engagement, symbolic threat and realistic threat on violent attitude and violent behavior in a sample of Norwegian and British Muslims. Furthermore, the study will examine the mediator role of acculturation orientations and acculturation expectations on violent attitude and behavior. Data collection will start in January 2018. The hypotheses state that religious engagement and identity will affect violent attitude and behavior and the mediator variables in each sample in myriad ways. The results in each sample will be culture and context bound.

References

Silver, R. C., & Matthew, R. (2008). Terrorism. In V. N. Parrillo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social problems (Vol. 2, pp. 926 –929). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.