Acts of violence by non-state actors prompt questions of motive and their institutional classification. As such occurrences become public, they turn into matters of societal concern, taken up by the media and political actors. On the one hand, the classification of motives is often shaped by political worldviews, group identities, and prevailing narratives. Ideological motives tend to be more contested when concerning White offenders (Kauff, 2024; Kunst et al., 2018). Cases involving minoritized offenders often provide support for repercussions that extend beyond the individual to people who are perceived to share identity features, such as demands for changing migration policies (Matthes et al., 2019). This illustrates the blurred line between objective assessment and subjective attribution, raising critical questions about how politically motivated harm is perceived and responded to. Against this backdrop, the rigidity and opaque operationalization of institutional classification systems employed by states and security agencies become particularly problematic. These limitations highlight the need for more adaptable frameworks, greater involvement of independent bodies, and systematic consideration of the experiences of affected individuals and communities.

Interpreting Motives: Between Ideology and Pathology

Recognizing political violence is not merely an administrative task. It is a reflection of how societies define justice, threat, and belonging. A key challenge lies in distinguishing ideological from non-ideological motivations. Political interpretations of acts of violence are often influenced by the perceived identity of the perpetrator. Research shows that when perpetrators are minoritized, ideological explanations like terrorism tend to be applied more readily. In contrast, White perpetrators are more likely to be framed as suffering from psychological distress or individual deviance (Kunst et al., 2018). 

This framing influences not only media narratives but also judicial outcomes and public perception. The case of Anders Behring Breivik in Norway remains a prominent example: even after publishing a manifesto detailing his ideological motives, public debate focused heavily on whether he acted from ideological conviction or psychological disturbance (ibid.). Reports from the German Federal Criminal Office also discuss terrorism almost exclusively in the context of Islamist extremism, despite mounting evidence of far-right and conspiracy-motivated attacks (Bundesministerium des Innern & Bundeskriminalamt, 2025).

The implications of such framing are significant. Cases involving minoritized perpetrators are more commonly linked to broader collective blame, affecting not only the perpetrators but also entire communities associated with them (Kauff, 2024; Noor et al., 2019). Implications range from supporting citizenship withdrawal to stricter immigration policies. Similar acts committed by non-minoritized individuals, on the other hand, are often treated as isolated cases. These asymmetries ultimately play a role in how violence is understood and addressed (Kauff, 2024; Matthes et al., 2019).

Categorizing and Targeting Political Motives

In the European context, both definitions of political violence and the institutional processes governing classification vary. In some countries, like Norway, independent researchers play a role in providing typologies and frameworks of political motives, whereas in others, such decisions lie primarily with police authorities. The criteria used to distinguish between hate crimes, politically motivated violence, and terrorism differ widely. For instance, in the UK, hate crimes are treated separately from terrorism (Home Office United Kingdom, 2024), while in Germany, the annual report on politically motivated crime includes both categories. Under a unified typology of politically motivated crime, hate crime incidents and ideological motivations are reported (Bundesministerium des Innern & Bundeskriminalamt, 2025). These differences make cross-country comparisons difficult and contribute to confusion around overall trends.

Although many countries have revised their classification procedures in recent years, their application remains largely fragmented, opaque, and susceptible to bias. In Germany, for instance, the gap between state-reported data and documentation by civil society organizations has long been a point of contention. While government sources report a growing number of right-wing crimes, they still significantly undercount incidents, particularly when it comes to far-right, racist, and antisemitic violence (Kleffner, 2018). This discrepancy highlights the difficulty of recognizing political violence especially with new hybrid ideologies emerging. Thus, classification systems and procedures need to become more transparent, operationalized with clear criteria, yet adaptable to new forms of violence. Besides, they should be anchored in victims’ perspectives and informed by independent actors to increase the reliability of assessments.

Finally, targeting violence cannot rely on prosecution alone but requires the sustained involvement of civil society actors. While state responses stress prosecution and security (Sivenbring & Andersson Malmros, 2019), civil society plays a significant role not only by working with offenders but also with those affected by political violence. Although a rise in incidents may suggest a deficiency of prevention, the link is more complex (Greuel & Milbradt, 2024). Political violence is also shaped by broader sociopolitical dynamics and events. Moreover, increasing surveillance and punitive measures may have counterproductive effects, potentially escalating rather than preventing future acts of violence (Schädler & Schwarz, 2025). Thus, the role of civil society actors and their relational approach play a crucial role in preventing extremist offenses.  

Conclusion

Acts of political violence challenge not only public safety but also the ways institutions interpret, categorize, and respond to harm. Existing classification systems often struggle to account for the complexity of motivations and the broader societal implications of such acts. To avoid reproducing stereotypes or overlooking certain forms of violence, it is essential to develop frameworks that are transparent, revisable, and grounded in the lived experiences of those affected. Beyond classification, institutional responses to politically motivated crime must avoid reinforcing the very dynamics that give rise to political violence. Like stereotypes, excessive surveillance and collective punitive measures can fuel resentment and increase the risk of radicalization. Addressing political violence, therefore, requires not only effective legal responses but also the sustained involvement of civil society actors, whose work is vital to prevention and disengagement.

Bibliography

Bundesministerium des Innern, & Bundeskriminalamt. (2025). Bundesweite Fallzahlen 2024 Politisch motivierte  Kriminalität.

Greuel, F., & Milbradt, B. (2024). Die Evaluation von Programmen in den Handlungsfeldern Extremismus­prävention, Demokratie­förderung, Vielfalt­gestaltung und politische Bildung – Heraus­forderungen und Umgangs­strategien. https://preval.hsfk.de/fileadmin/PrEval/PrEval_Expertise_4_2024.pdf

Home Office United Kingdom. (2024, October 10). Hate crime, England and Wales, year ending March 2024. GOV.UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024/hate-crime-england-and-wales-year-ending-march-2024

Kauff, M. (2024). Muslim = Terrorist? Attribution of violent crimes to terrorism or mental health problems depend on perpetrators’ religious background. The Journal of Social Psychology, 164(4), 447–455. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224545.2022.2095968

Kleffner, H. (2018). „NUR DORT, WO DIE BETROFFENEN UND IHRE EINSCHÄTZUNGEN ZUR TATMOTIVATION ANGEMESSEN BERÜCKSICHTIGT WERDEN, IST EINE EFFEKTIVE STRAFVERFOLGUNG MÖGLICH.“.

Kunst, J. R., Myhren, L. S., & Onyeador, I. N. (2018). Simply Insane? Attributing Terrorism to Mental Illness (Versus Ideology) Affects Mental Representations of Race. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 45(12), 1888–1902. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854818794742

Matthes, J., Schmuck, D., & von Sikorski, C. (2019). Terror, Terror Everywhere? How Terrorism News Shape Support for Anti-Muslim Policies as a Function of Perceived Threat Severity and Controllability. Political Psychology, 40(5), 935–951. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12576

Noor, M., Kteily, N., Siem, B., & Mazziotta, A. (2019). “Terrorist” or “Mentally Ill”: Motivated Biases Rooted in Partisanship Shape Attributions About Violent Actors. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(4), 485–493. https://doi.org/10.1177/1948550618764808

Schädler, S., & Schwarz, M. (2025). Welche Bürger:innen erträgt das Land? Entzug der Staatsbürgerschaft bei extremistischen und/oder radikalisierten Straftäter:innen am Beispiel der Schweiz. ZepRa. Zeitschrift Für Praxisorientierte (De-)Radikalisierungsforschung, 4(1).

Sivenbring, J., & Andersson Malmros, R. (2019). Mixing Logics: Multiagency Approaches for Countering Violent Extremism. Gothenburg: the Segerstedt Institute.

This blog post consists in the transcription of a talk that Heidi presented at the “Objects, Technique, Meaning” seminar series, which took place at the semiotics research group from the University of Turin.

Right at the beginning of his article “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?” (on page 2), Latour talks about “matters of fact” and “matters of concern”. Throughout the paper, he comes back to other concepts he has developed in his previous works, such as “artifacts”, “objects”, and “things”. I thought it would be interesting to start this seminar by expanding a bit on these notions, providing the text under discussion today with a bit of a background.

As we already know, Bruno Latour was extremely influential to the philosophy of science, and his body of work changed the way we see things on fundamental levels. His 2004 paper Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern characterize a paramount shift in his line of thought, and it’s one of my favourite texts. To understand the importance of this paper, I will briefly describe the place where Latour was coming from when he wrote it, starting with his 1979 book Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts (co-written with Steve Woolgar).

Laboratory Life investigates the processes involved in experimental science, attending to how such processes diverge from what is understood as ‘the scientific method’ (Latour; Woolgar 1979). For Latour and Woolgar, laboratorial science largely involves taking subjective decisions on whether to acknowledge what are mostly inconclusive data. The authors conclude that experimental science is a process of, not uncovering facts, but constructing them. Latour, then, goes on to develop what became known as Actor-Network Theory (Latour 2005), which states that discovery is contingent on the actors involved in its process (scientists, samples, equipment, institutions… and their interactions). The central thesis advanced until now, thus, regards how science produces in the laboratory new objects – which he calls artifacts; socially constructed facts – instead of discovering pre-existing ones from nature.

The view held by Latour regarding constructivism and criticism changed as he realized that the notions which he helped shape (mainly how ‘facts’ are only ideas stemming from ideological bias rather than incontrovertible truths) had been hijacked, in his words, by “dangerous extremists” who were using them to support conspiracy theories and dismiss hard-won solid evidence “that could save our lives” (Latour 2004, p. 227) – he calls this ‘instant revisionism’, saying that “the smoke of the event has not yet finished settling before dozens of conspiracy theories begin revising the official account” (ibid., 228). Latour states that, “of course conspiracy theories are an absurd deformation of our own arguments, but, like weapons smuggled through a fuzzy border to the wrong party, these are our weapons nonetheless”. So, how do we fight conspiracy theorists armed with “the neutron bombs of deconstruction” and “the missiles of discourse analysis”? (ibid., 230), Latour asks us.

His new proposal for science studies “is to be found in the cultivation of a stubbornly realist attitude” (ibid., 231), centred around the development of ideas instead of their debunking. On the paper, Latour suggests that science should occupy itself not with facts, but with matters of concern. The reason for that is because “matters of fact are a poor proxy of experience” (ibid, 245), as well as an “archaic representation of our real state of affairs” (Latour 2008, p. 39), or even “a confusing bundle of polemics, of epistemology, of modernist politics that can in no way claim to represent what is requested by a realist attitude” (Latour 2004, p. 245). As such, Latour suggests a new realist critical attitude which he calls ‘second empiricism’, arguing that his intent “was never to get away from facts but closer to them, not fighting empiricism but, on the contrary, renewing empiricism” (Latour 2004, p. 231).

Latour proposes that we move past this ‘first wave’ of empiricism (characterized by these ‘uninterpreted’ facts) towards a‘second wave’, founded on the plurality of modes of existence and respectful of the multiple interpretative keys, that is, the ways in which something can ontologically be understood as ‘true’ or ‘false’ (Latour 2013).

According to the author (Latour 2008, p. 34), when science limits itself to only dealing with matters of fact (being “objective”, decided by evidence, logic, statistics, etc.), scientific objects become highly artificial, a-historical, far-from-reality “pieces of dead material”. For Latour, there is no “harsh world made of indisputable matters of fact”, real and material, on the one hand, and “on the other, a rich mental world of human symbols, imaginations and values” (Latour 2008, p. 38). Such division does not exist in reality, so why should it exist in science? To achieve the end of such division (between real-material/symbols-values), Latour suggests that scientists should abandon matters of fact in detriment of matters of concern.

In a straightforward manner, a matter of concern is the amplification and contextualization of a matter of fact. While matters of fact are “distorted by the totally implausible necessity of being pure” and often “of no interest whatsoever” to society (Latour 2008, p. 47), matters of concern “overflow their boundaries” and “have to be liked, appreciated, tasted, experimented upon, mounted, prepared, put to the test” (ibid., 39). Most importantly, “matters of concern have to matter” (ibid., 47).

Borrowing the concept from Heidegger, Latour states that one word may designate matters of fact and matters of concern, and that word is thing. Latour, however, takes a very different approach towards the concept of ‘thing’ than its original author. Heidegger (1967) gives us an example, stating that a handmade jug can be a thing, while an industrial can of Coke is but an object. Latour writes: “while the latter is abandoned to the empty mastery of science and technology, only the former, cradled in the respectful idiom of art, craftsmanship, and poetry, could deploy and gather its rich set of connections” (Latour 2004, p. 233). Nevertheless, to Latour the object of science and technology has the same richness and complicated qualities of a Thing. To him, “all objects are born things, all matters of fact require, in order to exist, a bewildering variety of matters of concern” (ibid., 247).

While, from the point of view of constructivism, there is no such a thing as hard-facts (since all knowledge is socially constructed), concerning oneself purely with this narrow notion of objectivism and matters of fact is constricting. Existence is not divided between an external material and meaningless reality and a world of “psychic additions projected by the human mind” (2008, p. 36), and treating it as such is misguiding.

But then, a problem rises to our attention: “If a thing is a gathering [of connections], as Heidegger says, how striking to see how it can suddenly disband.” (Latour 2004, p. 235). As examples, Latour cites a couple of “former objects that have become things again” such as Climate Change, the hormonal treatment of menopause (ibid., 236), and other scientific matters under public contestation. The problem is that:

And here is where we return to the problem of how criticism has been deformed and how it’s affecting the world today, generating a ‘deconstructive hermeneutics’ (Leone 2017, 228), which responsible for the de-normalization of scientific expertise that we have been witnessing in online social media, and that generated a society “that does not provide itself with inter-subjective, rational patterns for the consolidation of interpretive habits” (Leone 2017, 228) – since this type of thinking takes any habit (or mainstream belief) as being an imposition of power (authority) that, in turn, needs to be dismantled. The consequence of this “is inevitably a chaotic society” where “conflicts constantly arise and are never recomposed” (Leone 2017, 228). So, how do we fix this?

Latour (2004, p. 248) asks: “What would critique do if it could be associated with more, not with less, with multiplication, not subtraction”. To achieve this, all entities need to cease being “objects defined simply by their inputs and outputs and become again things, mediating, assembling, gathering” more connections. He states: “If this were possible then we could let the critics”, or the deconstructivists, “come ever closer to the matters of concern we cherish, and then at last we could tell them: ‘Yes, please, touch them, explain them, deploy them’.”

References

Heidegger, M. (1967). What is a Thing? translated by WB Barton and Vera Deutsch. South Bend, IN: Gateway Editions.

Latour, B., & Woolgar, S. (1979). Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton University Press.

Latour, B. (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical inquiry, 30(2), 225-248.

Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oup Oxford.

Latour, B. (2008). What is the style of matters of concern. Two Lectures in Empirical Philosophy. Assen, the Netherlands: Koninklijke Van Gorcum.

Latour, B. (2013). An inquiry into modes of existence. Harvard University Press.

Leone, M. (2017). Fundamentalism, Anomie, Conspiracy: Umberto Eco’s Semiotics Against Interpretive Irrationality. In: Umberto Eco in his Own Words, edited by T. Thellefsen, and B. Sørensen, 221–229. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

The question of whether interventions that are supposed to prevent and counter violent extremism (P/CVE) are actually effective is as pressing as it is often difficult to answer. Evaluating P/CVE interventions is a challenging task, compounded by complex causal chains, dynamic contexts and what is often called the ‘attribution problem’: How, among the many factors that influence an individual’s turn to or away from violent extremist ideas and actions should one isolate the effect of a single P/CVE intervention? (Koehler 2017, 95; Khalil and Zeuthen 2016, 31–32; Vadher 2025, 14). 

An evaluation method that is already gaining traction in other complex fields, such as peacebuilding and development cooperation (Beardmore et al. 2023; Tomei et al. 2024; Carbone et al. 2025) is outcome harvesting. However, in recent years, this method has been discussed as a valuable tool within the P/CVE community, too. The USAID CVE Reference Guide implicitly suggests the method’s utility for the P/CVE field by including a detailed briefing on the method from the Ford Foundation’s MENA office (Wilson-Grau and Britt 2013). Moreover the toolkit for P/CVE evaluations by Holdaway and Simpson (2018, 99) explicitly recommends outcome harvesting as an evaluation tool and in an international survey on evaluation in P/CVE, one respondent from the Côte d’Ivoire pointed to outcome harvesting as a particularly innovative evaluation method (Bressan et al. 2024, 33). This blog post picks up on these pointers by describing the method briefly and discussing its application to the P/CVE field.     

Why evaluating P/CVE is so challenging

Evaluation works best when the evaluated intervention has a clear linear causal logic: A certain input leads to an activity, which produces a predictable outcome. Such a sequence in combination with only few other factors that could produce the outcome other than the intervention lends itself easily to an assessment of whether the intervention was ‘effective’. An evaluative method of choice in this ideal scenario may be a randomised control trial, where the effect of the intervention on one group is compared against the effect of the intervention on a control group. However, the realities of P/CVE are quite different. Since radicalisation is a highly individualised process, interventions need to be tailored and their effects often combine with other key life events, producing complex causality. Moreover, the effects may manifest far beyond the intermediate project scope. All this, in combination with the ethical challenges involved in withholding a P/CVE intervention for a control group, rules out the use of randomised control trials, which are the ‘gold standard’ in evaluation methods. It is beyond the scope to describe these challenges in detail and address each of them with potential solutions (see also the Vortex blogpost ‘On the challenges of evaluating efforts to prevent a causally complex phenomenon such as violent extremism’). Instead, this blog post concentrates on one method as a potential way forward, namely outcome harvesting. After all, what Wilson-Gau and Britt (2013, 2-3) describe here as the setting that makes this method attractive sounds very much like the challenges faced by evaluations of P/CVE interventions: ‘In complex environments (…) objectives and the paths to achieve them are largely unpredictable and predefined objectives and theories of change must be modified over time to respond to changes in the context’. 

What is outcome harvesting?

Outcome harvesting is a participatory evaluation approach where instead of assessing whether activities lead to specified outcomes by pre-established indicators, an upside down logic is at play: The method starts by asking ‘What has changed?’ and only then poses the question: ‘How did the programme contribute to this change?’. Wilson-Gau and Britt (2013, 1) who were also involved in developing this method, define it as follows:

Unlike some evaluation methods, Outcome Harvesting does not measure progress towards predetermined outcomes or objectives, but rather collects evidence of what has been achieved, and works backward to determine whether and how the project or intervention contributed to the change.

Hence, it requires agreement on what the relevant outcome of interest of the specific P/CVE intervention is followed by a collection of evidence on how the intervention contributed to the identified outcome. According to Wilson-Gau and Britt (2013, 1) such evidence can be reported observations, direct critical observation, or direct or simple induced inference (ibid., 7). After such evidence has been collected, outcome harvesting involves a winnowing process where information is ‘validated or substantiate by comparing it to information collected from knowledgeable, independent sources’ (ibid., 1) that are ‘knowledgeable about the outcome(s) and how they were achieved’ (ibid., 5). Finally, this information can be interpreted and a nuanced and reliable statement about effectiveness be made – one that focuses on contribution rather than attribution.

The value of outcome harvesting for evaluating P/CVE interventions

Outcome harvesting does not solve every challenge for evaluating P/CVE yet offers significant advantages over traditional evaluation methods in complex P/CVE contexts. The challenge that P/CVE interventions aim at prevention and thus involve non-events as outcomes is met by shifting the focus to observable proxy outcomes, such as positive behavioural changes. While this is not new and something that is recommended for P/CVE evaluations in general (Holdaway and Simpson 2018, 70; Helmus et al. 2017, 59), outcome harvesting particularly offers a way to deal with the non-linear causality underlying P/CVE interventions. By working backwards from outcomes to activities, it forces the evaluator to map the causal pathway post-hoc, rather than assuming a linear path defined in advance. This also allows to identify emergent and unintended outcomes, which is particularly important in delicate P/CVE interventions. 

Since outcome harvesting by design allows for highly individualised outcomes there is no need for agreement on a common set of indicators for success, ‘making it a good tool to address the cloudiness typically associated with P/CVE evaluative exercises’ (Ris and Ernstorfer 2017, 21–22). While this acknowledges that ‘what indicates success for one might (…) not be the same for another’ (Raets 2022), it also makes comparison more difficult and requires more resources. In general, it is a notable limitation of outcome harvesting that it requires extensive and time-consuming verification – something that is potentially unattractive in a field faced by frequent resource constraints. Lastly, the ‘attribution problem’, the difficulty of proving the P/CVE intervention caused a certain outcome is addressed by focusing on credible contribution instead. Outcome harvesting systematically asks for and verifies the plausibility of the intervention’s contribution, moving from absolute attribution to verifiable contribution. This verification, however, requires, multiple credible sources both in the evidence-collection and in the winnowing process that corroborate both the outcome and that validate the interventions’ contribution. This can be a particular weakness of the method, since there might not be enough stakeholders to include without the risk of selection bias. 

Finally, combining outcome harvesting with a theory of change can be fruitful, since such a theory tells the harvesters what kind of changes are relevant to look at. After outcome harvesting has identified what did happen, these outcomes can be compared to the assumptions stated in the initial theory of change, highlighting successes, surprises and flawed assumptions. However, vice-versa using the reversed logic of outcome harvesting can also help in building a theory of change: ‘By asking what needs to happen for these effects to occur and what resources are necessary to achieve them, the focus shifts to the effects themselves, while at the same time achieving flexibility in terms of measures and resources’ (Klemm and Strobl 2024, 8–9; cite Strobl and Lobermeier 2021, 72). 

In conclusion, while outcome harvesting is not a silver bullet for evaluating P/CVE, it better aligns with the realities of this field than many traditional evaluation approaches. By reversing the usual evaluation logic, it helps evaluators identify credible contributions in complex causal chains to outcomes. Its participatory nature and focus on observable change make it particularly suited to contexts where success is often clouded. However, it demands time and knowledgeable stakeholders that provide evidence and corroborate causal connections, which might not be feasible in every intervention context. Working alongside a theory of change can focus the evaluation exercise but outcome harvesting can also be used to produce one or correct an existing one. Hence, for evaluators seeking to capture the subtle effects of P/CVE interventions, outcome harvesting may not answer every question, but it certainly does stand out as an innovative tool. 

Sources

Beardmore, Amy, Matthew Jones, and Joanne Seal. 2023. ‘Outcome Harvesting as a Methodology for the Retrospective Evaluation of Small-Scale Community Development Interventions’. Evaluation and Program Planning 97 (April): 102235. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2023.102235.

Bressan, Sarah, Sophie Ebbecke, and Lotta Rahlf. 2024. How Do We Know What Works in Preventing Violent Extremism? Evidence and Trends in Evaluation from 14 Countries. With Angela Herz and Anna Heckhausen. GPPi; PrEval (PRIF). https://gppi.net/assets/BressanEbbeckeRahlf_How-Do-We-Know-What-Works-in-Preventing-Violent-Extremism_2024_final.pdf.

Carbone, Nicole B., Nathalie Alberto, Kate Henderson, et al. 2025. ‘Use of Outcome Harvesting to Understand the Outcomes of a COVID-19 Pandemic Leadership and Management Program in Six Countries’. Evaluation and Program Planning 111 (August): 102619. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2025.102619.

Helmus, Todd C., Miriam Matthews, Rajeev Ramchand, et al. 2017. RAND Program Evaluation Toolkit for Countering Violent Extremism. RAND Corporation. https://www.cvereferenceguide.org/sites/default/files/resources/RAND_CVE%20EVAL%20toolkit.pdf.

Holdaway, Lucy, and Ruth Simpson. 2018. Improving the Impact of Preventing Violent Extremism Programming: A Toolkit for Design, Monitoring and Evaluation. United Nations Development Programme. https://reliefweb.int/report/world/improving-impact-preventing-violent-extremism-programming?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIyOHv38uE_wIVg9Z3Ch1f2AD8EAAYASAAEgJlu_D_BwE.

Khalil, James, and Martine Zeuthen. 2016. Countering Violent Extremism and Risk Reduction: A Guide to Programme Design and Evaluation. Whitehall Report 2-16. Royal United Services Institute. https://static.rusi.org/20160608_cve_and_rr.combined.online4.pdf.

Klemm, Jana, and Rainer Strobl. 2024. Wirkungsmodelle Und Ihr Potenzial Für Evaluation Und Qualitätssicherung in Der Demokratieförderung. PrEval Expertise. PrEval Consortium. https://preval.hsfk.de/fileadmin/PrEval/PrEval_Expertise_01_2024.pdf.

Koehler, Daniel. 2017. ‘Preventing Violent Radicalisation: Programme Design and Evaluation’. In Resilient Cities. Countering Violent Extremism at Local Level, edited by Diego Muro. Barcelona Centre for International Affairs. https://www.cidob.org/en/articulos/monografias/resilient_cities/preventing_violent_radicalisation_programme_design_and_evaluation.

Raets, Sigrid. 2022. ‘Trial and Terror. Countering Violent Extremism and Promoting Disengagement in Belgium’. Journal for Deradicalization Spring 2022 (30): 223–61.

Ris, Lillie, and Anita Ernstorfer. 2017. Borrowing a Wheel: Applying Existing Design, Monitoring and Evaluation Strategies to Emerging Programming Approaches to Prevent and Counter Violent Extremism. Peacebuilding Evaluation Consortium. https://www.cvereferenceguide.org/sites/default/files/resources/Applying-Existing-DME-Strategies-to-Emerging-PCVE-Approaches.pdf.

Strobl, Rainer, and Olaf Lobermeier. 2021. ‘Wirkungen Im Zentrum’. In Evaluation von Programmen Und Projekten Der Demokratieförderung, Vielfaltgestaltung Und Extremismusprävention, edited by Björn Milbradt, Frank Greuel, Stefanie Reiter, and Eva Zimmermann. Beltz Juventa.

Tomei, Gabriele, Linda Terenzi, and Enrico Testi. 2024. ‘Using Outcome Harvesting to Evaluate Socio-Economic Development and Social Innovation Generated by Social Enterprises in Complex Areas. The Case of BADAEL Project in Lebanon’. Evaluation and Program Planning 106 (October): 102475. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2024.102475.

Vadher, Kiren. 2025. Evaluating in Complex Policy Environments: A Practitioner’s Perspective. Crest Security Review. Crest (Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats).

Wilson-Grau, Ricardo, and Heather Britt. 2013. Outcome Harvesting. Ford Foundation MENA Office. https://www.cvereferenceguide.org/sites/default/files/resources/wilsongrau_en_Outome%20Harvesting%20Brief_revised%20Nov%202013.pdf.

Understanding the “Performative Male” Phenomenon

Over the past year, a new archetype has emerged on social media — the “performative male.” While the “incel” (involuntary celibate) movement has been widely discussed, the performative male points to a different but related dynamic: men who adopt outwardly progressive, feminist-coded behaviors, not necessarily out of conviction, but in order to prove they aren’t a “threat” — often in the hopes of appealing to women. They tote reusable bags, order matcha lattes, read feminist authors, and curate their public appearance to signal allyship. Yet critics argue that this isn’t genuine political engagement. Instead, it’s a performance: a way to date or win approval, rather than deeply internalize feminist values.

At its core, the accusation is that these men are “too much”: too feminist, too sensitive, too socially aware — and that their performativity makes them suspicious. This raises a profound question: does adopting progressive behaviors really demonstrate a rejection of patriarchy, or is it simply a strategy to maintain traditional gender power dynamics under a new guise?

Patriarchy, Performance, and the Gender Divide

This discourse touches on much deeper issues: how men and women perceive patriarchy differently, and how gender identities are renegotiated in contemporary society.

Some women see these “performative males” as inauthentic — as if it’s unthinkable that a man could genuinely believe patriarchy harms everyone, not just women. Why would he read Bell Hooks, or carry a tote bag? Public displays of feminism are sometimes dismissed as romantic or performative rather than principled.

On the other hand, if we take the critique at face value, it points to an exhausting level of labor: how much effort would someone need to expend to “act” like a perfect ally? If the goal is just to date, how sincere can the political alignment be? And if all that work is successful, what prevents the ideas themselves from influencing him? How stable is that performativity when it’s grounded in attraction rather than conviction?

What Science Says: Performative Masculinity Through an Academic Lens

From a social-scientific perspective, the concept of performative masculinity is well established. Susan L. Pitt and Christopher A. Fox argue that masculinity is not a fixed trait but a performance shaped by social interactions and structures, drawing on Bourdieu’s notion of habitus (the ingrained habits and dispositions shaped by one’s social context), West and Zimmerman’s “doing gender,” and Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity. 

Chris Brickell offers a sociological reappraisal of performativity, cautioning that Butler’s original framing can obscure issues of agency and social change — in other words, while gender is performed, that doesn’t mean individuals are powerless or purely scripted by norms. 

Empirical studies also support how men internalize and negotiate this performance in real-world settings. For instance, a meta-ethnography of male nurses (a profession stereotypically associated with femininity) found that men adopt “soft masculinity” at work — a form of masculinity that embraces caregiving and emotional labor while still negotiating traditional masculine ideals like strength or authority. 

Moreover, rigid, traditional masculinity norms have been shown to negatively affect men’s mental health: a recent systematic review concluded that such norms discourage help-seeking, making men more vulnerable to issues like depression or emotional isolation. 

These academic frameworks suggest that what might look like “just a trend” (performative male behaviors) is actually grounded in deeply embedded social structures. The performance is not superficial alone — it both reflects and reinforces broader norms about what it means to be a “good man” in a changing world.

A Risk to Social Cohesion — or an Opportunity?

While it’s tempting to dismiss the “performative male” trend as a meme or a niche cultural joke, it may also be symptomatic of a deeper gender and political rift. In many societies, younger men are gravitating toward far-right politics, while younger women are increasingly aligning with progressive movements. This ideological polarization isn’t only about dating — it may reflect a broader disconnection between genders.

In extreme cases — such as with the incel community — some men feel alienated and misunderstood. Rather than seeing patriarchy as something that hurts men too (through rigid emotional norms, social isolation, mental health crises, or violence), they may react with aggression or withdrawal. In contrast, “performative males” might represent another response: rather than rebelling outwardly, they try to soften into a new social persona, perhaps hoping to be accepted or loved.

The tension here is political, relational, and deeply cultural. If we dismiss “performative males” as insincere, we risk shutting down dialogue. But if we uncritically celebrate them, we may ignore how much of their behavior might be strategic rather than transformational.

Why This Conversation Matters

1. Reframing Patriarchy: Feminist discourse has long argued that patriarchy isn’t just a women’s issue — it also harms men. From emotional repression to higher suicide rates, men suffer under rigid gender norms. But the conversation often excludes those who perform but don’t necessarily transform.
2. Authenticity vs. Strategy: The “performative male” raises a key question: how do we distinguish between genuine allyship and tactical signaling? And does that distinction matter if the behavior helps challenge traditional norms?
3. Social Cohesion & Future Alliances: If men feel alienated from feminist discourse — or if feminist discourse is perceived as virtue signaling — then potential alliances for social change weaken. Bridging that gap might require more than performative gestures; it demands real conversations about power, vulnerability, and shared futures.

Final Thoughts

The “performative male” may at first glance seem like a joke or a meme, but it’s part of a deeper story about how men are navigating, rejecting, or reshaping patriarchy. Whether this behavior is strategic, sincere, or somewhere in between, it reveals a generational grappling with gender, power, and belonging. If we want a more equal society, we need to ask ourselves: Can we turn performance into genuine transformation? Can we give men space not just to act as ally, but to be allies — fully, imperfectly, and authentically?

Bibliography

Brickell, Chris. Masculinities, Performativity, and Subversion: A Sociological Reappraisal. Men and Masculinities, 8(1), 24-43. 

Butler, Judith. (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.

Liu, H.-Y., Han, H.-M., Chao, C.-Y., Chen, H.-F., & Wu, S.-M. (2022). Performative Masculinity: A META-Ethnography of Experiences of Men in Academic and Clinical Nursing. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(22), 14813. 

Pitt, Susan L., & Fox, Christopher A. (2012). Performative Masculinity: A New Theory on Masculinity. In Masculinity/Femininity: Re-framing a Fragmented Debate (pp. 37–46). Brill. 

West, Candace, Zimmerman, Don H. (1987). Doing Gender. Gender & Society, 1(2), 125–151. 

Remembering the Attacks for their 10th Anniversary Commemoration

On the evening of November 13, 2015, a series of coordinated terrorist attacks struck Paris: suicide bombings near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, shootings on several café terraces, and a mass killing inside the Bataclan concert hall. The attacks left 132 dead and hundreds injured, marking one of the darkest nights in contemporary French history. They profoundly shaped France’s collective memory, national identity, and approach to internal security.

The commemorative day, on November 13, 2025, followed a carefully structured itinerary blending local acts of remembrance with a national ceremony. In the morning, officials gathered near the Stade de France to honor the first victims of the evening. The presidential delegation then visited, one by one, the sites of the terrace attacks — Le Carillon, Le Petit Cambodge, La Belle Équipe, and others — allowing families, survivors, and residents to lay flowers, candles, and written messages. Commemorative plaques were cleaned or newly adorned, as each stop revived the tragic geography of that night.

In the afternoon, the Bataclan remembrance brought together survivors, families, officials, and members of the public. This particular moment, historically the most emotionally charged, was marked by silence, music, and the reading of names.

The central event of the day took place in the early evening with the inauguration of the new Memorial Garden at Place Saint-Gervais, opposite the Hôtel de Ville. Designed as a permanent space of contemplation, the garden mirrors the locations of the attacks through its layout: stone blocks, landscaped areas, and markers symbolizing each site. During the ceremony, the names and faces of the victims were projected on the façade of Saint-Gervais Church, reinforcing the collective and visual dimension of remembrance.

The ceremony alternated official speeches, musical interludes, and moments of silence. Artists and survivors participated, and the reading of the 132 names constituted the emotional center of the commemoration. Public lighting elements, including the Eiffel Tower illuminated in national colors, extended the symbolic reach of the event throughout the city.

During his speech, President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to the victims and reaffirmed the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens, insisting that the “insensate, unjust pain” felt by families is carried by the entire nation. Representatives of victims’ associations echoed this message, insisting on the need for truth, justice, and long-term memory.

Symbols and Their Meaning — A Memory Intertwined With the Securitization of the Nation

Beyond remembrance, the ceremony conveyed a deeper symbolic layer linked to a broader process of securitization — the way a society constructs certain threats as existential and justifies extraordinary measures to counter them. In that way, the 10th anniversary made visible how memory and security narratives now reinforce one another in France.

Firstly, the new memorial garden is not only a site of tribute; it is a spatialization of national vulnerability. Its permanent architecture — stone, structured pathways, sober vegetal design — embodies the idea that the country must remember the threat as much as the loss.

By transforming memory into an officially sanctioned, carefully designed public space, the state anchors the attacks into the physical and symbolic landscape, constituting a form of securitization through space: the memorial reminds citizens that internal security is fragile and must be continually defended.

Secondly, the presence of the President, the Mayor of Paris, police representatives, local officials, and victims’ associations underscores a national community gathered around an existential issue. Ceremonial gestures — reading names, military or civic honors, national songs — reaffirm the idea that the state is the primary guardian of collective safety.

This choreography is not neutral: it legitimizes the state’s exceptional measures, including strengthened counterterrorism capacities, long-term vigilance, and security reforms initiated since 2015. The ceremony thus sustains a narrative in which memorial duty and national protection are inseparable.

Thirdly, the projections of faces, the lighting of façades, and musical tributes humanize the tragedy while also universalizing vulnerability. By placing victims’ images in the public sphere, the ceremony conveys a subtle but powerful message: these were ordinary people, and the threat could target anyone.

This emotional framing does not only commemorate; it cultivates a shared sense of vigilance, a key element of securitization in democratic societies where consent to enhanced security relies on public understanding of danger.

Lastly, symbols of life — candles, flowers, gatherings, songs — are often viewed as expressions of resilience. Yet they also act as affirmations of what must be protected. The ability to gather, to live freely, to rebuild, becomes itself a justification for security measures.

Resilience thus functions as a moral counterpart to vigilance, shaping a story in which protecting daily life becomes a matter of national security.

Conclusion

A decade after the attacks, the 10th-anniversary commemoration sought to balance the intimacy of personal loss with the public responsibilities of the state. Through architecture, ritual, music, and light, the ceremony honored the victims while embedding the memory of November 13 into a broader narrative of protection and collective vigilance.

The names read aloud, the faces projected onto city walls, and the new memorial garden will continue to act as emotional and political touchstones — reminders not only of what was lost, but of what a nation commits to safeguard.

Editor note: This article was originally published on the PRIF Blog and co-authored with Isabelle Stephanblome.

Following the violent incidents in Aschaffenburg (2025), Mannheim (2025), and Magdeburg (2024), public debate increasingly revolved around the unclear motives and the mental health of the perpetrators. In all three cases, investigators from the security authorities found no clear motive, but did determine the presence of mental illness. In response, several political advances were made calling for the registration of individuals undergoing psychiatric treatment by security agencies and for an expansion of the “dangerous person”^[i] (Gefährder) categories. Within research, diffuse motives for extremist violence and the role of mental health have been discussed for several years. However, the recent conflation of mental health and threat falls short of the complexity of the issue.

In the past three years, there has been a noticeable increase in public acts of violence in Germany. Whether they were driven by extremist motives has not always been clear. While some acts, such as the 2023 attack on a city festival in Solingen, could be assigned to a specific phenomenon area (in that case: Islamist terrorism), others, such as the Magdeburg attack of 2024, were more difficult to fit into established patterns. Moreover, it remained unclear what role the perpetrators’ mental health had played.

Unclear Motives, Mental Health, and the Role of Security Authorities

Political responses varied, but many linked motive and mental health, calling for more repressive security measures. For instance, following the attack on the Magdeburg Christmas market, members of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group demanded that violent offenders with mental illnesses be recorded by security authorities and that a new “dangerous person” category be introduced. The Conference of the German Ministers of the Interior also called for an “integrated risk management system for people with mental illnesses”. The Hessian state government recently came under pressure after introducing a controversial draft law to the state parliament that would amend the state’s Mental Health Support Act (Psychisch-Kranken-Hilfe-Gesetz, PsychKHG) by adding a clause requiring psychiatric institutions to share patient data with security authorities. The government defended the measure as a necessary contribution to the “protection of the affected individuals and the community”. Criticism of such initiatives came both from the general public and from professional associations. The German Chamber of Psychotherapists warned that such measures would “stigmatize people with mental illnesses and reduce the likelihood that individuals seek effective treatment.” During the hearing of the Health and Family Affairs Committee in the Hessian parliament, the planned reporting obligation was also met with widespread criticism.

From a scholarly perspective, these developments are noteworthy in that they mirror ongoing yet initially separate debates within extremism research. Central questions include how to classify motives and “dangerous persons,” how to account for mental health factors, and where to draw the boundaries and assign responsibilities for (preventive) measures. Two aspects are of particular importance here: the connection between psychiatric care and public security measures, and the expansion of the already ambiguous term “dangerous person” (Gefährder).

On the One Hand: Mental Health, Violence, and the Logic of Security Agencies

In the wake of attacks, public discourse often focuses not only on ideology and the attributed background of perpetrators but also on their mental health. Aspects of mental health also play a role for law enforcement when investigating motives and assessing criminal responsibility—which can, in turn, complicate categorization. Research broadly agrees that politically motivated violence cannot be explained by a single factor. Pathways into violence are complex and multifaceted; mental health may be one of many contributing components. Public acts of violence in particular highlight how closely society, politics, worldviews, and the psyche are intertwined.

This complexity, however, plays only a secondary role in the work of security authorities. Their task is to classify acts within established legal and phenomenological categories, with the primary aim of protecting public safety and order through risk prevention and law enforcement. This approach differs distinctly from that of psychological care, which centers on building a trusting therapeutic relationship grounded in respect and confidentiality. Psychotherapists and psychiatrists are bound primarily to the well-being of their patients and are subject to professional secrecy (§ 203 StGB, § 11(1) BO-H). Confidentiality, however, is limited when the safety of the patient or others is at risk. Therapists and psychiatrists are therefore legally required to disclose planned crimes or other threats to significant legal interests (§ 138 ff. StGB, § 11(2) BO-H). This safety mechanism is already well established in psychosocial practice.

Assigning psychiatrists a role in repressive threat prevention or granting security authorities access to patient data risks undermining the very principles of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic work. International research shows that the “securitization” of mental health can hinder the establishment of trust and deter individuals from seeking therapy. In addition, many places in Germany already lack the resources and capacity to provide comprehensive psychotherapeutic care. Instead of expanding psychosocial and psychiatric support systems for prevention and intervention, the political proposals discussed above would prioritize security logic and broaden the scope of state control.

On the Other Hand: Unclear Motives, “Potential Threats,” and New Categories

The second key aspect emerging from these debates concerns the categorization of attacks by security authorities. In the Magdeburg case, investigators reported no clear motive that would allow classification within the established spectrum of political violence. Although extremist and conspiratorial elements appeared in the perpetrator’s statements, investigators found no coherent ideological framework. The Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office therefore did not classify the attack as terrorism. Some scholars, however, have attributed a right-wing extremist ideology to the perpetrator.

Worldwide, an increasing number of politically motivated violent acts no longer fit the traditional typologies of extremism. The German Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) recently reported that over a quarter of politically motivated crimes fall under the category “other classification.” The rigid categories of right-wing, left-wing, and religiously motivated violence have long been criticized. Moreover, there is a growing “hybridization” of ideological elements: perpetrators and their worldviews often combine disparate ideological fragments and resist clear classification. There is not yet a uniform term for these phenomena, given their diversity. While some scholars refer to “salad-bar extremism,” others emphasize recurring elements such as anti-feminist or antisemitic narratives and anti-governmentalism. Still others highlight the role of conspiracy theories and online subcultures of hate. These developments pose new challenges for intelligence and security services worldwide. In the UK, for instance, the national counterterrorism strategy has introduced the category “mixed, unclear, unstable,” and in Germany, the domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz) has added the classification “delegitimization of the state relevant to constitutional protection.” Such categorization efforts, however, remain diffuse while simultaneously expanding state intervention powers—leading to recurring criticism.

A similar issue arises with the term “dangerous person”, which featured prominently in post-Magdeburg debates. Since the early 2000s, it has gained increasing prominence in counterterrorism discourse and security practice in Germany, though it remains legally undefined. This ambiguity, combined with the far-reaching powers associated with such classification, has made the term controversial among scholars. The working definition used by security agencies in Germany refers to a persons for whom “specific facts justify the assumption that they will commit politically motivated crimes of considerable significance.” In contrast to convicted offenders, there has been no criminal offence committed yet), rather, it is a prognosis of future wrongdoing. However, in political discourse, the term has often been used as if it denoted certainty, particularly in connection with Islamist terrorism. Introducing a new “dangerous person” category based not on extremist affiliations but on an individual’s mental health would stretch the concept even further and make it prone to political exploitation.

The Need for Differentiation and Far-Sighted Responses

In the aftermath of recent attacks, political debates in Germany have blurred separate aspects: the hybridization of extremist phenomena and the role of mental health in violent acts. Conflating these aspects leads to a problematic simplification of causal relationships and overlooks the complexity of both radicalization processes and mental illness. The introduction of new, imprecise categories risks further eroding the boundaries between psychosocial care and repressive security measures. Public pressure on politicians after violent attacks is high, and the desire for public safety is understandable—but expanding security measures is not a panacea. Hasty demands for widened state competencies disregard the multifaceted causes of political violence and risk stigmatizing those with mental illness. In order to close security gaps, it is rather necessary to improve the psychosocial care and strengthen psychotherapeutic prevention approaches.   

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^[i] All German quotations have been translated by the authors.

Depolarisation is a hot topic right now. From policymakers to practitioners, academics to civil society actors, there seems to be a growing consensus that societal and political polarisation poses a growing threat to social cohesion, free debate and, indeed, our liberal democracy itself. In the face of this, we’ve seen a numerous panels, thinkpieces and policy interventions that signal an urgent need for depolarisation. The alternative? An increasingly divided society characterised by radicalisation, extremism and the death of democratic deliberation.

I’ve had an uneasy feeling about this discourse for a while now, but haven’t been able to put my finger on why. After giving it some more thought, I’ve come up with three major qualms I have about depolarisation discourse. 

1. It flattens power imbalances. 

This week, on a panel on depolarisation I was attending, one of the speakers brought up Israel and Palestine. He lamented the polarisation surrounding this topic; especially the ways in which we have two strongly opposing camps and ‘those in the middle just speaking facts are seen as the bad guys’. Putting aside the frankly insulting implication that those of us campaigning for Palestinian liberation are somehow driven by irrational ideology rather than facts, his intervention highlighted an important issue. The idea that Israel/Palestine is a ‘polarised’ topic completely flattens the stark power imbalances that characterise it. These are so obvious as to not require much elaboration but, in short, we have a nation-state with one of the most powerful militaries in the world, funded to the tune of billions by the USA and Germany up against a people enduring occupation, apartheid and a plausible genocide. To paint this as a ‘polarised’ issue makes invisible this power imbalance. It also allows those in the middle ‘speaking facts’ to occupy an undeserved moral highground.  

2. It creates false equivalences. 

Back when climate change was making its way into the newsroom at snailspace, the BBC used to like pitting environmental activists against climate change deniers on panel debates. This was all done in the name of the Beeb’s famous impartiality policy. The result? We were all lumped watching fringe nutjobs long after the scientific consensus was that, yes, climate change is happening and, yes, it is happening very quickly. Depolarisation discourse, in its admittedly well-intentioned normative commitment to hearing all sides, often creates equivalences where there aren’t any. Not every issue has two sides, or rather, not every issue has two sides worth telling. The result of this is that, often, public discourse remains mired in debating the basic terms of the issue: Is climate change real? Does racism exist? And we don’t get even close to coming up with solutions. 

3. It entrenches the status quo.

Depolarisation is the ultimate centrist Dad. Again, he’s well-intentioned but in practice the ideas he finds polarising are the radical ones – the ones that seek to shake things up. Don’t get me wrong, a significant proportion of the radical ideas in our society are terrible ones – I do research white supremacism afterall. But the logical endpoint of depolarisation efforts is to pull all those at the extremes of political thought into the centre and build consensus around a broken status quo. Radical ideas are divisive because they call into question a state of affairs that suits a lot of powerful people. To cite some oft-mentioned examples, the suffragettes were polarising and the civil rights movement was polarising. Many of the rights and protections we take for granted today were won by polarising figures. 

So it’s time we moved beyond depolarisation. We have better vocabularies and tools that more accurately diagnose and respond to the problems of contemporary societies: emancipation, justice, resistance, liberation. Social change requires struggle against, not compromise with, those that seek to erase us. 

Contemporary attacks bring renewed attention to the factors that drive individuals toward violence. While many media representations condense and dramatize these dynamics, the film Mit der Faust in die Welt schlagen (engl. Punching the World) resists such narrative intensification. Instead, the storyline relies on episodic observations of daily life. Constanze Klaue’s film is a poignant portrayal of two brothers, Philipp and Tobi, growing up in Eastern Germany in the early 2000s. Set in a post-socialist region still adjusting to a new economic and political order, the story captures the lingering effects of systemic transition on everyday life. Many facets have been undergoing visible change – abandoned factory buildings, new teaching approaches and ways of living among others. The Zschornack family, too, tries to build a new home, leaving behind their old apartment block. The construction work on the house becomes a symbol for a promise of progress that slowly collapses. The parents grow increasingly absent, both physically and emotionally exhausted by long working hours or defeated by unemployment. Growing up in this collapsing family structure, Philipp and Tobi find their attempts to stabilize the situation at home futile. With few outlets for support or distraction, the appeal of a local neo-Nazi group begins to fill the void. Although the brothers share the same environment, they follow different paths of radicalization. On closer examination, the divergent trajectories of Tobi and Philipp can be attributed to their distinct developmental stages and the role of social bonds.

Following an incident of right-wing vandalism at school, Philipp connects with a school mate linked to the neo-Nazi group, promising adventures. At first this includes late nights out, drinking, roaming the streets and smashing things – “punching the world”. Philipp experiences a newfound sense of purpose and belonging. However, once the violence is directed toward living beings, his hesitation grows. A pivotal moment occurs when he must kill a dog injured by their car—an act that contrasts with his caring, protective role as an older brother. As Philipp becomes more involved in the group, he spends less time with his younger brother. Meanwhile, Tobi loses other bonds that were important to him: the death of his grandfather, the breakdown of a childhood friendship, and the mysterious disappearance of the beloved neighbor’s dog. The parents are unable to support him in overcoming these ruptures. His father distances himself through alcoholism and an affair and his mother is increasingly overstrained by the burden of work and care. Left alone in his grief, Tobi’s pain transforms into anger. It is right then when his chance for escape appears. The group’s leader invites Tobi to join their forays. He eagerly accepts, not only for a sense of adventure, but in hope of reconnecting with his brother. However, Philipp finds his way out just when Tobi is getting involved. 

Taking a developmental psychological perspective, it is likely that the neo-Nazi group serves different functions for the brothers possibly explaining the different radicalization pathways. While Philipp is in the midst of adolescence, he is in a process of distancing himself from the family not only due to their internal difficulties but also due to his developmental stage (Hazen et al., 2008). Tobi, however, is still a child whose need for secure attachments is unmet and searched for in that extremist group. Particularly the absence of strong social bonds has been identified as a contributing factor in processes of radicalization and the turn to violent extremism (Jasko et al., 2017). Besides, in becoming involved early in right-wing extremist and violent activities, his involvement is more likely to be life-time persistent (Moffitt, 2010). Philipp on the other hand, is able to improve his living conditions, move to a bigger city, own a motorcycle that allows for sporadic visits home and quickly carries him through the vast landscapes of the region. Tobi on the other hand is still stuck in old structures, as he does his training under poor conditions, with little prospect for change. His involvement culminates in the final scenes of the film when he together with the extremist group set their former school on fire that is supposed to become a home for refugees. What becomes evident are their differences likely grounding in developmental discrepancies to rely on the family bonds when the neo-Nazi group appears in their lives. 

In the broader neo-Nazi group, too, the young men share common frustrations: fathers or relatives unable to find work, feelings of abandonment, and rising resentment toward migrants. Their stories show that radicalization is not just about beliefs or actions—it also has a powerful affective dimension not only toward ‘the other’, but also toward the group (Haq et al., 2020). Besides the interplay of the cognitive, behavioral and affective dimensions to radicalization, the movie accomplishes to underscore that radicalization is not linear but rather a dynamic and multifactorial process (McCauley & Moskalenko, 2017). Certain radicalization pathways — such as radicalization without violence, into violence, or within violence — are the result of a complex combination of different dynamics (Jensen et al., 2020; Knight et al., 2017). This involves not only considering factors such as strong social bonds but also recognizing how these interact with developmental processes across the lifespan. Doing so allows for a more nuanced understanding of radicalization processes during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

In sum, Punching the World is the story of two brothers exposed to the same conditions but diverging in their response to loss, stagnation, and emotional neglect. It is also a story about growing up in post-socialist Germany, where adapting to individualist norms, rising competition, and neoliberal ideals clashes with the erosion of previous forms of solidarity. The children witness their parents’ decline under mounting pressures, while faced with their own developmental challenges. Radicalization in each case fills a vacuum. While for Philipp it goes hand in hand with the adolescent urge for adventure and distance from the family, Tobi seeks stable attachments and ways to process his rage and disorientation thereby becoming more deeply and persistently involved. 

Bibliography 

Haq, H., Shaheed, S., & Stephan, A. (2020). Radicalization Through the Lens of Situated Affectivity. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 205. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00205

Hazen, E., Schlozman, S., & Beresin, E. (2008). Adolescent Psychological Development. Pediatrics In Review, 29(5), 161–168. https://doi.org/10.1542/pir.29.5.161

Jasko, K., LaFree, G., & Kruglanski, A. (2017). Quest for Significance and Violent Extremism: The Case of Domestic Radicalization. Political Psychology, 38(5), 815–831. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12376

Jensen, M. A., Atwell Seate, A., & James, P. A. (2020). Radicalization to Violence: A Pathway Approach to Studying Extremism. Terrorism and Political Violence, 32(5), 1067–1090. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2018.1442330

Knight, S., Woodward, K., & Lancaster, G. L. J. (2017). Violent versus nonviolent actors: An empirical study of different types of extremism. Journal of Threat Assessment and Management, 4(4), 230–248. https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000086

McCauley, C., & Moskalenko, S. (2017). Understanding political radicalization: The two-pyramids model. American Psychologist, 72(3), 205–216. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0000062

Moffitt, T. E. (2010). Adolescence-Limited and Life-Course-Persistent Antisocial Behavior: A Developmental Taxonomy. In Biosocial Theories of Crime. Routledge.

The recent workshop held by doctoral candidates Camilla Gissel, Heidi Campana-Piva and Violette Mens at the STS-CH conference in Zurich entitled “Holding things together? Change, continuity, critique” (from the 10^th to 12^th of September) began with a provocation: a deepfake video of Kamala Harris circulating online. The clip, shared on Elon Musk’s platform X, had garnered nearly a million likes and tens of thousands of comments. What seemed at first like obvious parody—her voice and image altered to mock her campaign messaging—was, for many viewers, indistinguishable from reality.

This set the stage for a lively discussion not just about deepfakes themselves, but about how technology interacts with political radicalization in an era where truth is increasingly fragile.

When a Joke Stops Being a Joke

One participant raised the question: is a parody video like this really a deepfake, or just satire in digital form? After all, political cartoons have long exaggerated politicians’ flaws for comic effect. Yet others pushed back. Unlike cartoons, which signal their artifice, deepfakes thrive in ambiguity. Some lines in the Harris video were things she had actually said, others were fabrications. That blurring—between critique, parody, and falsehood—creates a puzzle for viewers.

Even when it is “obvious” to some, not everyone has the same interpretive tools. As one participant noted, people already committed to conspiracy thinking (e.g. flat-) can believe almost anything if it confirms their worldview. Deepfakes exploit that cognitive vulnerability.

The Politics of Doubt

The group then shifted to a related danger: once deepfakes exist, politicians can weaponize them to dismiss inconvenient truths. One example shared was of Trump brushing off journalists’ questions about suspicious activity at the White House by declaring “It’s AI. It’s fake.” Whether or not it was fake became irrelevant—what mattered was the ability to cast doubt.

This erosion of shared reality is not accidental. Participants pointed to Trump’s thousands of documented lies in office and the way constant confusion about truth can destabilize citizens. Destabilization breeds fear, and fear drives people to seek stability—often in the arms of authoritarian leaders who promise certainty. In this way, deepfakes are not just tools of deception; they are accelerants in the cycle of radicalization.

Radicalization: More Than a Label

The conversation broadened to the term “radicalization” itself. Too often, the word functions as a blunt political instrument. Governments use it to stigmatize dissent, lumping together jihadists, eco-activists, and radical feminists under the same umbrella. By labeling groups “radicalized,” states can justify surveillance, repression, or even violence.

Several participants argued that radicalization is relational: it doesn’t happen in isolation but through interaction between groups and the state. In France, for example, jihadist violence has fueled harsher policing, which in turn produces resentment and further radicalization. This feedback loop shows radicalization as a dynamic process, not simply a personal pathology.

Others raised the Overton Window: the shifting boundary of what society considers politically acceptable. As mainstream politics drift rightward, advocating for basic human rights can suddenly be branded “radical left.” The term becomes a moving target, often manipulated to discredit opponents rather than to explain genuine extremism.

Beyond Extremes: Who Gets to Define Radical?

An especially striking thread was the comparison between the far right and far left. Media often presents them as mirror images—two extremes equally dangerous. Yet, as some participants noted, the comparison is misleading. The far right frequently undermines democratic norms, while much of the “radical left” remains engaged in democratic processes, calling for rights and reforms rather than authoritarian control.

Academics, too, have tended to study far-right and Islamist extremism while neglecting other forms of radical politics. This selective focus reveals how research agendas themselves are shaped by political pressures, such as the aftermath of terror attacks.

Why This Matters

Deepfakes may seem like a technological novelty, but as the workshop discussion made clear, they are deeply entwined with broader political struggles. They blur the line between fact and fiction, fuel cycles of distrust, and give political actors new tools to label, demonize, and radicalize.

But they also force us to ask hard questions about the words we use. If “radicalization” is applied too broadly, it loses analytical value and becomes little more than a weapon of discourse. And if truth itself becomes negotiable, then the fight is not just about politics, but about the very possibility of shared reality.

The workshop’s starting point—a fake Kamala Harris video—was more than just a gimmick. It was a reminder that in our current moment, what matters is not simply whether something is “true” or “false,” but how technologies of persuasion and doubt are reshaping the terrain of democracy itself.

INTRODUCTION

Most authors agree that the Eurabia conspiracy theory started with the publication of the book entitled Eurabia – The Euro-Arab Axis, in 2005, by a French author named Giséle Littman, but published under the pseudonym Bat Ye’or. The text states that “ever since the early 1970s, the European Union was secretly conspiring with the Arab League to bring about a ‘Eurabia’ on the continent” (Bergmann 2021: 39). In 2011, another French author called Renaud Camus published a book entitled The Great Replacement, that “argued that European civilisation and identity was at risk of being subsumed by mass migration, especially from Muslim countries” (Ibid, 37). These books introduced the “fear of cultural subversion” that is characteristic of this conspiracy theory.

Eurabia also presuppose three states: First, a paradisical past when Europe was only populated by Caucasians (at least in the interpretations of these conspiracy theorists). Then, a present danger which configures a fall from paradise; white people are disappearing due to immigration and low birth rates of ‘native’ Europeans. And lastly, redemption, the envisioning of a better future; plans for making Europe return to its supposed cultural, ethnic, and religious roots.

My research aims to semiotically analyse the messages from a white supremacist Telegram group, with the help of digital humanities methodologies, seeking language patterns that can potentially assist in the codification of cultural meanings and in the formation of these anti-Muslim ideological clusters on Telegram. The main contributions of my work to the filed of Semiotics is the incorporation of computational tools in the analysis of text in large-scale (allowing for both data size and data depth), and the contribution to Digital Humanities is to go beyond only the detection of conspiracy theories in online content but towards structural analysis without sacrificing context, which is a big problem in the field of computational tools applied to humanities and social sciences research nowadays.

MATERIALS & METHODS

Unfortunately, even though the Telegram channel itself is public, I am unable to share its name as it is sensitive information protected by the GDPR. The data that I obtained from the channel was the textual non-pictorial content of messages sent from its administrators to the channel’s subscribers (which amount to more than 22 thousand accounts). The messages were collected from January 1^st, 2023, to December 31^st, 2024, totalling more than 4 thousand messages, varying in length.

The method of analysis is still being developed. We are applying what is called Semantic Annotation with Linguistic Inquiry Word Count using the layout of FrameNet (a lexical database being developed at the International Computer Science Institute in Berkeley since 1997).

Simply put, text annotation is adding a tag to a text excerpt. Basically, we are teaching the computer to understand which terms and expressions have similar semantics and share common contexts so that they can be represented in space close to each other or have the same representation. This way, meaning is approximated so that words can be represented in a lower dimensional space.

The first step in the annotation process was the entity selection – that is, choosing specific instances (people and organizations) that are interesting subjects of discourse. Basically, I was looking for specific texts that potentially discuss certain topics that are of interest for analysis.

The next step was the definition of the taxonomy, focusing on the core-elements of a conspiracy theory. Basically this means deciding on the specific categories to annotate the texts with. Initially, we accessed the FrameNet database and found that they do not have an annotated dataset for “conspiracy” – which is excellent, since this is what we are trying to make. Instead, they give the “closest” results which are: Collaboration and Offense. Using these 2 as examples, I developed the Frame Index for Conspiracy Theory. After making a list of interesting entities and having the well-defined taxonomy, we generated random samples for annotation.

A scheme of the developed Fame Index can be found on the image below:

Obviously, each text will, most of the time, present only a few of these categories, which is fine. If the software can learn to flag the excerpts that have 2 or 3 of these tags, they can go into the “to be analysed by a human” box. This could be a way to use computation to make human analysis more efficient. By separating the “useful” extracts for analysis and displaying them with the pre-identified tags, then, a deeper discourse analysis can be carried out by the semiotician.

We are still in the annotation process which means I do not have the results from the computational analysis yet. But so far, I’m confident that this is a good way to help scholars to quickly gain insights from these huge datasets. This white supremacist channel does not only disseminate Eurabia conspiracy theories, but by teaching the computer to understand and summarize what are the out-groups, in-groups, evil plans, for each text, one can easily paint the picture of the main structure of a conspiracy theory narrative, allowing scholars to not just identify their presence in a dataset, but also understand their main elements and how they are related, without having to go through the whole textual content, which would be quite time-consuming, not to mention emotionally exhausting due to the pernicious character of these messages’ content. Since we’re still developing this, I cannot say with 100% certainty that it will work, but I believe in the relevance of trying.

DISCUSSION

Now, to close up, I would like to discuss the Religion problem, since this is the European Academy of Religion congress. The last time I presented this case study at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt, I had interesting feedback. People were asking me “Why are you treating this conspiracy theory as a religious one? It’s not religious, it’s political”. So, I thought that this conference would be a good opportunity to present my take and see what do other scholars from religious studies think of this issue.

According to the literature, in Eurabia and Great Replacement discourses, ‘Islam’ is associated with “evil, crime and barbarism”, as well as other “harmful characteristics and ideological markers that enhance polarised, emotional and simplifying visions of social reality” (Gualda 2021: 57). It is “typically represented as backwards, fanatic and violent”, as well as a totalitarian political doctrine (Dyrendal 2020: 374), while Muslims themselves “are generally portrayed as a homogeneous group of violent and authoritative religious fundamentalists” (Bergmann 2021: 42). Muslim individuals are seen as “mere executors of a religiously based, collective will” and, consequently, since Islam is itself seen as fundamentalist in nature, “every believer will be made to follow its radical version” (Dyrendal 2020:  374). In this sense, the idea of ‘Islam’ is seen as being a uniting factor for all Muslims, that unites them “in a common plan for domination” (Ibid).

In this sense, the “Eurabia conspiracy theory has often become entangled in a more general opposition to immigration” (Bergmann 2021: 40), connected to political statements of failed integration (Ekman 2022: 1128) – which are based around the notion that Western societies are homogeneous, and that Muslims and other migrants are unable to integrate into them (Gualda 2021; Ekman 2022) – or to the notion that “incorporation of diversity, multiculturalism or other elements of Islam or the Muslim world into [Western] culture” will mean the total collapse of society, which will become a colony of Islam (Gualda 2021: 61-62). In other words, the arrival of “new norms, habits and customs brought by the foreign population […] could influence the disappearance of one’s own culture” (Ibid), turning immigration into an ‘invasion’ that threatens people’s identity.

So, what we have here, is first of all, a very problematic conflation between Arab world and Muslim world. The attribute of religious identity based on ethnic and geopolitic identity is a problem in itself. But let us take a quick step back.

Asbjørn Dyrendal (2020) describes these three kinds of dynamics that can be used to express the relationships between conspiracy theories and religion. The first one, conspiracy theories in religion, relate mostly to authority and power, since they are usually employed to delegitimize those that are seen as enemies of a certain religious group. The second one, conspiracy theory as religion, regards the idea that conspiracy theories are replacing religion by exerting its functions in a now more secularized society. This notion can be questioned, since it is first of all not possible to state that we have more conspiracy theories today than during a time when religious adherence was supposedly stronger, and also because “religion is usually not negatively correlated with conspiracy beliefs”, suggesting the two go hand-in-hand, rather than one replacing the other (Dyrendal 2020: 373). Instead of thinking of conspiracy theory as a substitute of religion, we may think of the ways in which conspiracy theory can be seen as a form of religion, given the status of both religion and conspiracy theories as alternative or counter-knowledge, as well as how they both organise collective identities on the basis of in-group and out-group.

But I want to focus on the last one, conspiracy theories about religion, or how conspiracy theories are formed regarding certain religious groups. Eurabia is an ethno-religious myth. As a researcher, I am aware of the complexities in these narratives and I obviously don’t buy this conflation between Arab and Muslim, but it is a matter of how the analysed discourse is constructed – the Emic point of view. To the endorsers of Eurabia discourse, there is no distinction, they don’t fear Christian Arabs. I would argue most of them don’t even know there is such a thing as Christian Arabs. They fear what they think Islam is (since they are also ignorant of the complexities of Islam itself). And of course there is another dimension to this issue which is the fact that conspiracy theories are not completely misaligned with the contexts that favour certain representations. These notions about the Arab world, Islam, and Muslims are not constructed in a vacuum. Media representations of Islam contribute to the construction of stereotypes in conspiracy theories as well. 

FINAL REMARKS

So, in conclusion, the Eurabia conspiracy theory was brought firmly into the political mainstream by the financial crisis of 2008 and later the refugee crisis of 2015 (Bergmann 2021: 48-49). Nowadays, it is common to find political leaders who propagate Great Replacement and Eurabia conspiracy theories in the mainstream media (Ekman 2022: 1127). As we see such Islamophobic racist discourses become more popular, we also see them become normalized, especially across new media platforms such as Telegram. This means research needs to adapt to these new contexts, and digital humanities tools become invaluable for these efforts.

REFERENCES

Bergmann, E. (2021). The Eurabia conspiracy theory. In: Önnerfors, A., & Krouwel, A. (Eds.), Europe: Continent of Conspiracies: Conspiracy Theories in and about Europe. Routledge, 36-53.

Dyrendal, A. (2020). Conspiracy Theory and Religion. In: Butter, M., Knight, P. (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories. Routledge, 304-316.

Ekman, M. (2022). The great replacement: Strategic mainstreaming of far-right conspiracy claims. Convergence, 28(4), 1127-1143.

Gualda, E. (2021). Metaphors of Invasion, Imagining Europe as Endangered by Islamisation. In: Önnerfors, A., & Krouwel, A. (Eds.), Europe: Continent of Conspiracies: Conspiracy Theories in and about Europe. Routledge, 54-75.