A Network Perspective on Radicalisation into Right-Wing Extremism. An Empirically Grounded Typification

Abstract

The presented text develops a heuristic to describe initial moments of the radicalisation process. It describes the role played by networks in the social proximity or more distant social surroundings and the extent of active self-radicalisation. Nine egocentric networks from qualitative interviews with male interviewees serve as the data basis for the typification. We describe the developed types of path dependency, allegiance, self-evident-turns-into-conviction and ideology on the basis of case examples.