Explaining Extreme Belief and Behavior Theoretical, Methodological, and Ethical Challenges

by Peels, Rik; Dawson, Lorne L.

• ISBN13: 9780197768884
• ISBN10: 0197768881
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780197768907
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2026-03-24
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• More Book Details

Summary

Written by global, multidisciplinary experts, Explaining Extreme Belief and Behavior moves beyond definitions of the phenomena of conspiracy theorizing, extremism, fanaticism, fundamentalism, and terrorism and shifts into how we can explain these extreme beliefs and behaviors. The first part of the book examines various fundamental theoretical and contextual issues such as the relationship between understanding and explaining extremism, challenges in explaining extreme beliefs, and pitfalls of current approaches. The second part delves into related methodological issues, including the desiderata for viable explanations--qualitative and quantitative data, macro-, meso-, and microlevels of analysis, first- and third-person accounts, attitudes and behaviors, or beliefs and actions. The third part explores related empirical issues and challenges--how we conceive and integrate insights into such related phenomena as the turn to extremism in particular contexts, the rise of extremist movements, and radicalization. This volume builds upon the first two in the Extreme Belief and Behavior Series by studying the very project of explaining extreme belief and behavior.

Author Biography

Rik Peels is 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, fundamentalism, and extremism. He leads the Extreme Beliefs research group (www.extremebeliefs.comhttp://www.extrembeliefs.com). He is a member of the Adapt Academy, which studies how societies 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. Well known for his research on new religious movements, he turned, mid-career, to the study of violent extremism. He was the co-founder and director 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.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
List of Figures
List of Tables
Contributors

Introduction: The Project of Explaining Extreme Belief and Behavior
Rik Peels and Lorne L. Dawson

Part I: Theoretical and Contextual Issues and Challenges

Chapter 1: Explaining and Understanding Extremism: The Relation Between Two Aims in Radicalization Studies
Rik Peels

Chapter 2: Explaining Terrorism and Violent Extremism
Martha Crenshaw

Chapter 3: The Extreme Actor's Perspective, and Why It Matters for Explanation
Naomi Kloosterboer and Jaron Harambam

Chapter 4: Empathy, Imaginative Resistance, and Fragmentary Understanding: Trying to Make Sense of Extremism
Karsten R. Stueber

Chapter 5: Assessing the Constructivist Critique of the Evidential Value of Terrorists' Accounts of Their Actions
Lorne L. Dawson

Part II: Methodological and Ethical Issues and Challenges

Chapter 6: The Matrix of Methodological Problems in the Study of Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors: From the Vantage Point of the Study of Violent Extremism
Lorne L. Dawson

Chapter 7: Integrating Macro-, Meso-, and Microlevel Explanations of Violent Mobilization
Lianne Vostermans

Chapter 8: Accessing the Field, Defining People, and Exploring Extended Complicity: Reflections on a Framework for Ethnographic Research with Militant Activists
Martijn de Koning

Chapter 9: Ethical Challenges and Multidisciplinary Norms in Terrorism Studies
John F. Morrison

Chapter 10: Narrativity and Emotionality in Explaining Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors
Laura Feldt

Part III: Empirical Issues and Challenges

Chapter 11: Explaining the Links Between Poor Mental Health and Violent Extremism: From the Determination of Presence to the Delineation of Relevance
Emily Corner

Chapter 12: Radicalization as Gendered: Why We Cannot Explain Extremism Without Taking Gender Seriously
Elizabeth Pearson

Chapter 13: Explaining QAnon as Lived Religion
Marc-André Argentino

Chapter 14: In No One We Trust: How Conspiratorial Thinking Turned White Supremacist Groups Anti-American
Bethan Johnson

Chapter 15: Nativist and Islamist Radicalism in Europe: Co-Radicalization of Young European Citizens
Ayhan Kaya

Chapter 16: Psychological Motivation for Reactive Extremism, and How to Quell It
Ian McGregor

Index