Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice

Medical, Forum on; Emergencies,

doi:10.17226/24638

Cited by 12 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…Convergence theories, in contrast, would consider the types of people who join these kinds of groups, for such aggregations draw together people with compatible needs, desires, motivations, and emotions. For example, a survey of individuals who reported taking part in radical political groups in the United States indicated that “almost every individual had a sense of community victimization, feeling deeply that they were members of communities being targeted and victimized” (Snair, Nicholson, & Gimmaria, 2017, p. 15).…”

Section: Explaining Unusual Group Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Group-level resistance to health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic: A groupthink approach.

Forsyth

2020

Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice

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Public health interventions, such as mandated vaccinating or quarantining during an epidemic, are necessary to limit the spread of communicable diseases, but in many cases, certain groups resist these initiatives. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020, antiquarantine groups protested the mandate to socially distance and remain at home, claiming these directives violated their right to assemble, travel, and work. The current analysis examined media descriptions of these antiquarantine groups to determine if these groups' divergent responses to a legally and medically warranted health initiative resulted from groupthink: the deterioration of judgment and rationality that sometimes occurs in groups. In support of this possibility, accounts of these groups indicated that (a) the conditions that cause groupthink, including high levels of cohesion and isolation, were present and potent within these groups and that (b) the groups exhibited many of the symptoms of groupthink, including group illusions and pressures to conform. Given the ubiquity of these groups-for centuries, public health interventions have generated opposing antiregulation reactions-no amount of planning may be sufficient to prevent such groups. However, a theory-driven approach based on groupthink suggests that group-level interventions that directly address the processes that cause groupthink, such as isolation, conformity pressure, and cohesion, could reduce the influence of such groups on their members and on society. Highlights and Implications• Groups that protest public health interventions that mandate vaccinating or quarantining during an epidemic may be experiencing groupthink: the deterioration of judgment and rationality that sometimes occurs in highly cohesive groups.• The group-level processes that are associated with groupthink, such as high levels of cohesion and isolation, were in evidence in the antiquarantine groups that protested medical directives during the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. • Group-level interventions that limit groupthink in such groups could reduce the number of individuals who take part in group activities that are inconsistent with legally and medically warranted health initiatives. • Groupthink theory provides a general explanation for decision-making in groups, but additional research is needed to determine the validity of the extension of this theory to groups that engage in unusual actions, such as health protests.

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Section: Explaining Unusual Group Behaviormentioning

confidence: 99%

Group-level resistance to health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic: A groupthink approach.

Forsyth

2020

Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice

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“…In terms of violence prevention, our results suggest that programs designed to inoculate people against extremist recruitment [ 100 ] or to help people disengage from extremist groups must be contextualized and reflect local dynamics, shared socio-cultural experiences, and common grievances. Community-based public health models of violence prevention [ 101 ], which emphasize improving community education and dialogue, supporting the development of pro-social relationships and strong families, and providing support services to address individual risk factors and vulnerabilities, are promising options for achieving these goals. While the use of prevention models in online spaces is an important part of stopping the spread of extremist beliefs and preventing radicalization, these efforts, which have grown in recent years, must be paired with local programs that are better suited to disrupt the formation of co-offending ties among community members.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Extremists of a feather flock together? Community structures, transitivity, and patterns of homophily in the US Islamist co-offending network

Schwarzenbach,

Jensen

2024

PLoS ONE

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Prior research suggests that members of terrorist groups prioritize forming network ties based on trust to improve their organizational and operational security. The homophily principle, which postulates that individuals tend to form relationships based on shared characteristics, can be a key mechanism through which people identify trustworthy associates. Next to homophily, the mechanism of establishing interconnected relationships through transitivity is also well-known to serve this purpose and shape community structures in social networks. We analyze the community structures of the Islamist co-offending network in the United States, which is highly violent, to assess whether homophily and transitivity determine which extremists form co-offending ties. We rely on a new database on the individual attributes and the co-offending relationships of 494 Islamist offenders radicalized in the United States between 1993 and 2020. Using community detection algorithms, we show that the US Islamist co-offending network is highly clustered, modular, and includes many small but only a few large communities. Furthermore, results from exponential random graph modeling show that transitive relationships as well as spatial proximity, ideological affiliation, and shared socio-cultural characteristics drive co-offending among US Islamist extremists. Overall, these findings demonstrate that the processes of homophily and transitivity shape violent social networks.

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Public Health Approach to Countering Violent Extremism and Proposing the Chain of Violent Radicalization

Grissom¹

2020

Handbook of Security Science

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Countering Violent Extremism Through Public Health Practice

Cited by 12 publications

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Group-level resistance to health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic: A groupthink approach.

Group-level resistance to health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic: A groupthink approach.

Extremists of a feather flock together? Community structures, transitivity, and patterns of homophily in the US Islamist co-offending network

Public Health Approach to Countering Violent Extremism and Proposing the Chain of Violent Radicalization

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