Letter from the Editor

Abstract

Dear Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict Readers: Welcome to Volume 12, Issue 1! We are delighted to introduce our Special Issue on Home-grown Violent Extremism in the Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict: Pathways toward Terrorism and Genocide Journal. The motivation for this Special Issue was threefold. First, why and how do individuals from relatively peaceful, affluent Western societies become inspired by ideologies from distant lands and messengers? While these cases receive much attention in the popular press, there has been less scholarly work on these issues. Second, while the term “Home-grown Violent Extremism” has commonly been used to describe Westerners inspired by Salafi-Jihadist ideologies, a goal of this issue is to bring attention to another type of “Home-grown” extremist: namely, those with Far-Right and Anti-Government ideological goals. These groups and individuals also spent formative years in relatively peaceful Western countries, yet they developed extreme and violent belief systems, powerful group dynamics, and practised tactics and techniques to commit ideologically inspired crimes on a commonly defined enemy. Finally, the inclusion of multiple variants of Home-grown Violent Extremists in this issue affords a comparison between them. Many of the same dynamics operate across the groups, and our hope is that reframing each as comparable types of ideological violence that emerge from relatively developed countries will begin to bridge some gaps in our understanding of the pathways towards each brand of terrorism. We have five exceptional articles to share with you in this issue, ranging from Martin McCleery and Aaron Edward’s micro-situational analysis of four Salafi jihadi-inspired attacks in the United Kingdom to Susan Fahey and Pete Simi’s comparative analysis of Far-Right extremist pathways in the United States. While this issue covers a range of ideological groups, from the far-right to Salafi jihadi-inspired extremism, and relies on several methodological and theoretical frameworks, the commonality across these articles is their focus on individuals who were inspired or directly influenced by extremist views and perpetrated, promoted, or approved of violent acts in pursuit of extremist views in their home country or its territories. In doing so, these articles analyse extremism through a diverse array of individual and group-level dynamics. Moreover, in their own unique way, each article addresses a specific tactic or strategy underlying home-grown violent extremism through different theoretical frameworks. For example, Martin McCleery and Aaron Edwards employ a micro-sociological framework to better understand how individuals involved in extremist attacks partake in such violence. The authors find that most extremists dislike and are not particularly good at violence and must employ the principle of “Attacker Advantage” to commit violent acts, regardless of other factors and motivations. In another article, Lasse Lindekilde, Stefan Malthaner, and Francis O’Connor analyse lone-actor terrorist radicalization from a relational perspective and explore the reasons why some lone-actor terrorists remain peripherally integrated in radical DYNAMICS OF ASYMMETRIC CONFLICT 2019, VOL. 12, NO. 1, 1–3 https://doi.org/10.1080/17467586.2019.1577529