Explaining Extreme Belief and Behavior

Rik Peels holds a university research chair in analytic and interdisciplinary philosophy of religion in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. He is also a senior research associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. His research interests are the ethics of belief, ignorance, scientism, replication in the humanities, and the philosophy and theology of fundamentalism and extremism. He leads the Extreme Beliefs research group (www.extremebeliefs.com ) and is one of the principal investigators of the Adapt Academy, which studies how societies can better adapt to crises. Lorne L. Dawson is a distinguished professor emeritus in the Department of Religious Studies and the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at the University of Waterloo (Canada). He has published three books, five edited books, and ninety-seven academic articles and book chapters. He was the co-founder and codirector of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (2012-2023), and his recent research has focused on such topics as foreign fighters, the role of religion in motivating religious terrorism, and aspects of the social ecology of radicalization.

- Introduction: The Project of Explaining Extreme Belief and Behavior - Part I. Theoretical and Contextual Issues and Challenges - 1: Rik Peels: Explaining and Understanding Extremism: The Relation Btween Two Aims in Radicalization Studies - 2: Martha Crenshaw: Explaining Terrorism and Violent Extremism - 3: Naomi Kloosterboer and Jaron Harambam: The Extreme Actor's Perspective, and Why It Matters for Explanation - 4: Karsten R. Stueber: Empathy, Imaginative Resistance, and Fragmentary Understanding: Trying to Make Sense of Extremism - 5: Lorne L. Dawson: Assessing the Constructivist Critique of the Evidential Value of Terrorists' Accounts of Their Actions - Part II. Methodological and Ethical Issues and Challenges - 6: Lorne L. Dawson: The Matrix of Methodological Problems in the Study of Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors: From the Vantage Point of the Study of Violent Extremism - 7: Lianne Vostermans: Integrating Macro-, Meso-, and Microlevel Explanations of Violent Mobilization - 8: Martijn de Koning: Accessing the Field, Defining People, and Exploring Extended Complicity: Reflections on a Framework for Ethnographic Research with Militant Activists - 9: John F. Morrison: Ethical Challenges and Multidisciplinary Norms in Terrorism Studies - 10: Laura Feldt: Narrativity and Emotionality in Explaining Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors - Part III. Empirical Issues and Challenges - 11: Emily Corner: Explaining the Links Between Poor Mental Health and Violent Extremism: From the Determination of Presence to the Delineation of Relevance - 12: Elizabeth Pearson: Radicalization as Gendered: Why We Cannot Explain Extremism Without Taking Gender Seriously - 13: Marc-André Argentino: Explaining QAnon as Lived Religion - 14: Bethan Johnson: In No One We Trust: How Conspiratorial Thinking Turned White Supremacist Groups Anti-American - 15: Ayhan Kaya: Nativist and Islamist Radicalism in Europe: Co-Radicalization of Young European Citizens - 16: Ian McGregor: Psychological Motivation for Reactive Extremism, and How to Quell It