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In the last decade, there have been numerous studies on the rise, characteristics, and consequences of the emergence of populist parties in Western liberal democracies. However, most analyses of European populist parties have focused on the right-wing populist parties. Although some scholars have made valuable efforts to understand left-wing populism in Europe, these studies have paid attention to their ideological-organizational idiosyncrasies or the characteristics of their electoral bases. This paper aims to fill the gap in the economic and political contexts in which Radical Left Populist Parties have achieved significant electoral results putting into practice a fsQCA analysis and examining their uneven electoral performance in Europe. Following some previous work applying QCA techniques, this paper tests the theory on the importance of economic and political factors. Findings indicate that the electoral performance of radical left populism cannot be explained in a univocal way, highlighting the crucial role of equifinality in understanding this political phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article has sought to explain a research process where a senior researcher felt the need to form an alliance with local researchers in order to enable more authentic research with marginalised youngsters. The aim of this paper is to suggest a useful model demonstrating the focal role of the primary investigator in creating an inclusive and participatory setting to produce knowledge challenging epistemic injustices. By cooperating with novice researchers in the countries we study, our methodology recognised and fostered their epistemic agency. As knowledge mediators, they helped us access many self-identified Muslim youth and native youths who are labelled as far-right in Europe. In addition to emphasising the relevance of local setting in knowledge production, the paper will also question the epistemic injustice that these youngsters have been exposed to. Both groups have been clustered in two distinct categories by previous research that has been overwhelmingly engaged in the civilisational discourse that sets these groups apart in two culturally, religiously and civilisationally defined boxes. We believe that our participatory commitment to producing high-quality knowledge will be helpful in the scientific consideration of socio-economically, politically, spatially, and nostalgically deprived youths, who feel pressurised by the perils of modernisation and globalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasing political concern over segregation, extremism, and value conflicts subject Muslim civil society organisations to a great deal of critical attention across Europe, both as problematic and as potential partners for policy interventions. Both national and local authorities seek out organisations that can represent Muslims and other minority groups in policy development and delivery, yet politicians discredit multiculturalism as a political project. This paper uses the implementation of a Norwegian grant scheme as an opportunity to investigate how local implementation of national policy may explain why multiculturalism, while discredited, can continue at different policy levels or under other names, and how local adaptation shapes relations with Muslim civil society organisations. The analysis builds on a review of the grant scheme's historical transformation, a dataset of applications and grant distributions in each municipality, and interviews with all 20 local administrators who implement the scheme today. It shows how municipalities mainly use the grant to promote a convivial multiculturalism of cross-ethnic individual mixing, but also engage in cooperation with Muslim organisations through a pragmatic form of multicultural governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of European radical parties. The main aim of this paper is to examine whether there are common patterns regarding these parties, and to analyse the implications of this phenomenon. In order to achieve the above, the paper proceeds as follows: Firstly, the phenomenon of political radicalisation in contemporary Europe is explored. This leads to mapping the radical political landscape in Europe. Finally, the paper concludes with the analysis of the possible outcomes of radicalisation of European politics including the possible societal effects. By doing so the paper argues that a fresh theoretical approach to comprehend the phenomenon is necessary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental health is a concept that includes all the psycho-sociological aspects of an individual's life so that one manifests itself in a desirable way during its existence. It includes the ability to form and maintain healthy relationships, to study and make decisions about educational, professional, or personal issues. If an individual's mental health is impaired, the abilities above mentioned are severely diminished and have a negative impact at individual and societal level. In the context of mental health problems of individuals displaying signs of radicalization or involved in violent extremism, the issue becomes of interest if we are to consider the emerging number of lone actors experiencing mental health issues across Europe and the significant number of youth and children returnees and refugees that due to the severe trauma exposure are more prone to develop cognitive impairment, post traumatic disorders and mental health issues. Therefore, this paper aims to map the existing knowledge in the literature regarding the link between mental health disorders and the involvement in lone actor terrorism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Across Europe there are growing concerns about Islamophobia and far-right and anti-democratic movements. Until Anders Behring Breivik’s July 2011 attacks in which 77 died, Norway’s vulnerability was not perceived as great as that of other jurisdictions. Breivik declared his abhorrence of multiculturalism but also drew the world’s attention to intolerance and xenophobia in Europe, increasingly directed towards Muslims. In response, Prime Minister Stoltenberg spoke widely of ‘the new Norwegian we’, cautioning against exclusionary discourses and underlining that minorities are an equal part of Norwegian society. This paper examines education policy in the context both of extreme right political activity and national and international debates about nationalism and cosmopolitanism, considering ways in which policy supports an inclusive notion of nationhood, and ways in which it promotes an exclusive model of national identity. Drawing on framing questions from the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement’s 1995 civic education study, relating to national identity and social cohesion, it examines how programmes address social cohesion, human rights, cultural diversity, and conceptualise minorities. It assesses the effectiveness of cross-curricular approaches to contribute to justice and equality and challenge racism in a multicultural society, proposing an inclusive model of education for cosmopolitan citizenship, which incorporates diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper attempts to demonstrate that all of the perpetrators of the grave terrorist attacks in Europe in the recent years have been connected--by one or maximum two links--to the center and leadership of ISIS in Syria, from whom they received ideological, logistical and financial support--thus contradicting the popular theory of lone wolves. The author reaches the conclusion that in many cases addressing potential lone radicals on Jihadist forums before the attacks was nothing else but a special form of Psyop, with the goal of disrupting counterrorism efforts and spreading fear in societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intercultural relations might form the foundation for new developments and can stimulate energy in modern cities, but in some cases, these relations can also become the source of divergence and conflict. In the last decade, several European cities have been confronted with violent incidents related to some form of extremism. Some cities had to cope with violence by Muslim extremists, for instance Amsterdam, which dealt with the murder of Theo van Gogh. Other cities experienced violence from anti-immigrant or extreme-right movements, for instance London, where mosques were attacked. Radicalisation of small groups of immigrants or autochthonous people, who are distressed about intercultural relations, seemed to lie behind these incidents. Pressured by such events, some administrations in Europe developed policies. In this paper, we will discuss a number of examples of such local policies. We will discuss some programmes that we observed in cities that took part in our own fieldwork, the Cities Local Integration Policies (CLIP) project, which took place from 2007 to 2011.. Our results show that both cities that do have de-radicalisation policies and cities that do not actually work on what phase theorists would call the breeding ground for radicalisation and on the final violent stage of terrorist acts. The difference between the two mainly lies in (not) addressing religious conservatism. We conclude the article with some remarks regarding this choice, also reflecting on the impact of the phase model supported at that time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst all the academic and media discussion in recent years of the causes and consequences of the rise in support for Radical Right parties (RRPs) in Europe, a related, but equally significant development, has generated less debate; namely the rise and fall in the European Parliament in 2007 of the trans-national Radical Right political group, Identity, Tradition and Sovereignty (ITS). Drawing on interviews with and a qualitative survey of former ITS members, as well as EP archival evidence, the paper begins by discussing why the notion of trans-national cooperation for Radical-Right political parties has proved difficult, and thus far has been doomed to failure, before analyzing the internal and external dynamics behind the rise and fall of the ITS group. Finally, the paper focuses on current collaboration among Radical Right parties post the June 2009 European elections and on the chances of a new trans-national far-right group emerging in the current parliament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores selected factors influencing the process of radicalisation leading to the use of political violence and terror by the Muslim minorities living in the European Union member states. Internal and external catalysts conditioning this process and methods of their analysis have been presented. The second section examines various counter-radicalisation and de-radicalisation efforts of the EU. The authors analysed the multidimensional European Union policy in the area of counteracting radicalisation for empowering the population and member states in preventing the radicalisation and recruitment to terrorism and emphasising the role of social partners and local authorities. Also, the promotion of good practices for combating radicalisation, developed under the auspices of the multidisciplinary Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explains various strategies of contemporary Islamists extremism in Europe. The author identifies the most important variants of Islamist extremism and deals with their goals and with strategic approaches how to achieve these goals. Quasi-legalist strategies as well as violent forms of interest-empowerment are described. The author uses sources from various Islamist organizations and analyses these materials within the framework of modern insurgency. A comprehensive outlook and threat assessment of Islamist extremist strategies are included in this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the reappearance of the extreme right in Cyprus, with the aim of understanding the wider trends and local structural determinants that favoured its return. The research examines both the structure of opportunity favouring the reappearance of the extreme right—i.e. the current economic crisis and unemployment, the legitimacy crisis of the political and party systems, and the political and institutional context—and the way the extreme-right party (National Popular Front – ELAM) responded to these opportunities, capitalising on its special relationship with the Greek Golden Dawn. This paper will argue that the extreme right is the outgrowth of a systemic (economic and political) crisis, as well as a reflection of how Cypriot political actors regard and react to the extreme right's signatory issues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The London bombings of 7 July 2005 were a major event shaping the relationship between Muslims and non- Muslims in Britain. In this paper we introduce the idea of 'securitized citizens' to analyse the changing relationship between British Muslims and wider British society in response to this and similar events. Through an analysis of qualitative interviews with Muslims and non- Muslims of a variety of ethnic backgrounds in the areas where the London bombers lived in West Yorkshire we examine the popular perceptions of non- Muslims and Muslims' experiences. We show how processes of securitization and racialization have interacted with Islamophobic discourses and identifications, as well as the experiences of Muslims in West Yorkshire after the attacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on Muslim minorities in Europe has focused on Muslim organizations. This is understandable as most organizations are uncomplicated objects of study: they provide members for interviews and locations for participant observation. But many Muslims are not engaged in Muslim organizations. How do we research them? Drawing on the experiences from a study on highly practising, but non-organized Muslims in Aarhus, Denmark, this paper will discuss the usefulness of focus group interviews in studying the world views of non-organized Muslims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few issues are under discussion on contemporary European security - what stands behind the growing number of security challenges, does it depend on the geopolitics and interests of the great powers, how can Europe be more secure and how can the European society be less risky in the globalized world? Risk society refers to conditions where a lot security risks occur, among which the radicalization of certain countries and regions is emphasized, which has roots in cultural conflicts (e.g. religious fundamentalism). The European society currently faces uncertainty and insecurity, which are characterized by unpredictability and hybridity. It is challenged by security risks which have different forms and shapes, roots and causes. The fact is that Europe has reached a high level of development, but it is aggravated by the fear that, simultaneously with its development, the level of risks have increased. Europe is facing a period of huge uncertainty, especially from the rise of economic and political instability. In the aftermath of the Cold War, for the last three decades, the breakup of stable periods in Europe started with the appearance of the following security phenomena: first, ethnic conflicts started in post-communist states; second, terrorism the roots of which can be found in religious fundamentalism and third, radicalisation in certain regions caused by the disputes over territory or identity (e.g. Middle East). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Spatial models of issue voting generally assume that citizens have a single “vote function”. A given voter is expected to evaluate all parties using the same issue criteria. The impact of issues can vary between citizens and contexts, but is normally considered to be constant across parties. This paper reassesses this central assumption, by suggesting that party characteristics influence the salience of issue considerations in voters' evaluations. Voters should rely more strongly on issues which are frequently associated with a given party and for which its issue stances are better known. Our analysis of the 2014 European elections supports these hypotheses by showing that the impact of voter-party issue distances on party evaluations is systematically related to the clarity and extremism of parties' issue positions, as well as to their size and governmental status. These findings imply an important modification of standard proximity models of electoral competition and party preferences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European radical right has influenced the mainstream political agenda on extra-European migration with its election-winning 'fortress Europe' narratives. In parallel, it has shaped political alliances within a 'borderless Europe', with a view to representing a Europe of people opposed to a Europe of elites. The mass media have circulated this European right-wing radicalism, and academic research has been carried out concerning the motives behind this media representation. Nevertheless, this research has rarely taken into consideration whether the media associate the radical right with a key scale of the European construction: cross-border regions. The current article explores this potential phenomenon by analysing how the press in Luxembourg portray the French radical right, as Luxembourg and France share a cross-border region characterised by strong economic interdependencies. The results show that the media can be keen on representing the political destiny of the radical right in the neighbouring state in regional borderlands. However, the portrayed dynamics are not necessarily linked to cross-border regional integration itself. Commercial – and above all political – motives linked to other European scales can lead to the absence of the 'cross-border regional Europe' in the media agenda when the foreign, yet nearby, radical right is portrayed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employing an approach that focuses on three goals of ideology-making (i.e. resolving grievances, seeking status, socialization), this study explores the reflexive boundaries between (1) 68 individual representations of violent 'Jihadi' and 'right-wing' extremism in Europe, and (2) 130 young adult European citizens who pursue religious purity or cultural essence. Having identified the latter as a pool of 'critical radicalism' in the current political context, the study juxtaposes violent and non-violent radicalizations by challenging two interrelated assumptions. The first is the sameness assumption: those who use a similar repertoire are unified by their similarity. The second is the continuum assumption: radicalism will eventually lead to violence, given that 'radicalization' discursively implies a shift towards promoting or carrying out violent behaviour. Drawing on comparisons between interview and media narratives, I argue that violent extremism and critical radicalism part ways while developing reflective methods to evaluate grievances, reclaim agency in response to status losses, and align social bonds with the ideology. The conceptual divergence indicates several fault lines between ideological simplicity and completeness and relates to individuals' self-awareness in (re)making the ideology rather than a given ideology. This concluding remark has implications for the value of reflexive awareness in democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political radicalism has generated a large scholarly interest in recent years, both in Western and in Central Europe. Two series of explanations have been used to account for the success of radical parties in the scientific literature. The first one studies populism or radical politics through an analysis of electoral behaviour and/or radical groups' strategies at the national level of government. The second perspective deals with the European dimension of radical politics and researches critical attitudes regarding European integration under the generic term Euroscepticism. These two approaches to political radicalism have developed simultaneously but in an isolated way from each one other. The case studies presented in this volume aim at bridging this gap by focusing on the links between the Europeanization of political competition on the one hand, and the rise of radical parties on the other hand, in selected member states of the enlarged European Union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the activities of Santeri Nuorteva, a man who gained his reputation on the United States and abroad as a spokesman and representative of Soviet Russia following the defeat of the Finnish revolution and as an official representative of Red Finland in 1918, and his activities during the period between his arrival in the United States in 1912 and his departure for Soviet Russia and Europe in 1920.

Does an increasing divide in ideological orientations influence citizens' political behaviour? This study explores whether mass ideological polarisation stimulates individuals to become politically active in terms of poll attendance and non-electoral participation. In line with relative deprivation theory I argue that in an environment of ideological polarisation, individuals' normative notions are threatened, increasing the probability that they will actively participate in the political decision-making process. Using the European Social Survey (2002–2014) and focusing on subnational regions, I conduct macro-level as well as multi-level analyses. Empirical results show that ideological polarisation indeed mobilises for non-electoral participation, while there is no such effect on voting. In the second step, I examine whether ideological extremism makes individuals more susceptible to environmental ideological polarisation. Findings show that members of the far right are more likely to become politically active when their social environment is divided over political ideology. In contrast, members of the far left are hardly motivated by rising polarisation regarding ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We argue that the growth rate, but not the level of aggregate income, affects the support for extreme political parties. In our model, extreme parties offer short-run benefits to part of the population at the expense of a minority. Growth effects on the support for such parties arise when uncertainty exists over whether the same subset of individuals will receive the same benefits in the future. More people are willing to take political risks if economic growth is slow. Based on a panel of 16 European countries, our empirical analysis shows that slower growth rates are associated with a significant increase in right-wing extremism. We find no significant effect of economic growth on the support for extreme left-wing parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, two phenomena have put Europe's liberal democracies under strain: populism and polarization. The rise of populist parties, the increasing radicalization of publics and political discourse, as well as the expansion of hyperpartisan media have caused concern among observers and citizens alike. While lively academic discussions have revolved around the causes of these phenomena, research regarding their real-world consequences has been sparse. This thematic issue wants to address this gap in the literature and contribute to developing strategies for mitigating potential threats populism and polarization may pose to liberal democracies. To this end, it examines how populism and polarization affect citizens across Europe. It links research on audiences of hyperpartisan media with work on elite-induced polarization, populist conceptions of democracy, election results and support for the democratic system, and policy-making by populist governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the link between radicalization patterns and modes of attack planning and preparation among lone-actor terrorists. Building on theorized patterns of lone-actor radicalization, we discuss and compare their modes of pre-attack behavior, including target and weapon choice, observance of operational security measures, likeliness of engaging in leakage behavior, and the overall amount of time devoted to these activities. This exploratory study builds upon a dataset of thirty-three lone-actor terrorist cases in North-America and Europe between 1986 and 2015. The analysis suggests that specific patterns of radicalization are linked to systematic differences in modes of attack planning and preparation. The results provide insights into the heterogeneity of terrorist involvement and tentatively suggest the potential importance for law-enforcement agencies in using case-specific knowledge on radicalization patterns to inform forecasts of likely pre-attack behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes how the question of democracy divided the post-war European socialist parties. Contrary to conventional historiographical wisdom, it demonstrates that the socialist conversion to the classic liberal model of elections, parliaments and constitutions was hardly a self-evident or uncontested affair. To this end, it focuses on two sets of parties that adopted widely divergent attitudes to parliamentary democracy. On the one side, the Czechoslovak Social Democratic Party and the French Socialist Party considered free and fair elections, sovereign parliaments and constitutional checks and balances sacrosanct. On the other, the Italian Socialist Party and the Polish Socialist Party believed that elected parliaments did not necessarily reflect the popular will, meaning that constitutional boundaries could justifiably be overstepped in the struggle for socialism. With this pan-European approach, the article not only brings to light the many parallels across the two emerging geopolitical blocs but also suggests that socialist attitudes towards the concept of militant democracy were less straightforward than historians have assumed. In fact, it shows that the experience of dictatorship and war had seen the four parties move in opposite directions on the question of 'democratic self-defence' or the use of anti-democratic means against (supposed) enemies of democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Party switching can pose a severe threat to party unity and deepen internal party division. To date, research on party switching has either focused on the individual motivations for changing party or on the effects of macro-level settings. The role of party-level variables, however, has received surprisingly little attention in the literature. In particular the impact of ideology has rarely been assessed. This article tests whether specific aspects related to parties' ideology (i.e. extremism, isolation, authoritarianism, programmatic clarity and stability) are linked to different levels of defection. For this purpose I rely on an original database on party switching in 12 Western European countries from 1999 to 2015, supplemented with variables from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey. The results of multilevel negative binomial analyses show that indeed ideology and its various components have a substantial impact on the scope of switching. For instance, parties promoting authoritarian values suffer from a higher number of defectors. Moreover, parties with more unstable labels seem to be more subject to switching. This article improves our understanding of how party ideology is related to party unity and, more generally, to legislative dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Radical parties, both to the right and to the left, have recently earned victories in a range of European democracies. Previous efforts seeking to understand European radicalism in general are, however, relatively rare. Using a min-max approach, this review article examines existing scholarship on the ideologies of the radical right and radical left party families in contemporary Europe. Its contribution is twofold. First, it synthesizes our knowledge of the core elements of radical right and radical left ideologies. Second, and more importantly, it delineates the main ideological differences and similarities between the two radical families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this article is to analyse what different types of populist communication styles emerged during the 2014 European Parliament election campaign and under which conditions political parties selected specific populist communication styles. To do this, a comparative quantitative content analysis of press releases in the run-up of the latest European Parliament elections has been conducted for parties in France, Germany, Austria and Greece. The article presents a definition of populism based on the contemporary academic discourse, which focuses on the transnational nature of the European political field. It is shown that populist party communication is more pronounced on the fringes of the political spectrum and in countries struggling with severe macroeconomic difficulties. Contrary to intuitive expectations, the perceived populist rhetoric of exclusivity in the context of the European sovereign debt crisis, which is identified as a central feature of right-wing populism, barely takes place within populist party communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article highlights an important source of Chinese political radicalism in interwar Europe in the early nineteen‐twenties. In contrast to current scholarship centred on the emergent Chinese Communist Party in this period, it examines the rise of both leftists and rightists in the community of Chinese work‐study youth in Europe. Besides ideological inspiration, it argues that the different material conditions in which these students found themselves laid a significant foundation for the emergence of different political ideologies, expressed through the founding of the first Chinese communist organization in mid 1922 and the establishment of the Chinese Youth Party in late 1923. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a variety of scholarly perspectives on Johan van der Walt’s article "When One Religious Extremism Unmasks Another." It discusses the views of Malte Dold and Tim Krieger from the article "Ordoliberalism Is Not Responsible for Jihadist Terrorism in Europe: A Reply to Johan Van der Walt. It also discusses Joseph Hien's opinion from his article "The European Sovereign Debt Crisis and the Danger of Ideational Monocultures."

Many experts underscore a firm difference between (US) American and European approaches to combating terrorism. Other scholars contend that, since 11 September 2001, European governments have emulated the USA by “securitising” immigration and trampling on the civil and human rights of immigrants of Muslim heritage. Still other analysts discern within Europe distinct national styles of counterterrorism such as French assimilation and deportation versus British multiculturalism and conciliation. This article finds neither a coherent policy strategy nor an unmistakable political consensus in Europe regarding counterterrorism. Instead, a comparative analysis reveals a jumble of ethically inconsistent and practically contradictory measures. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Since the collapse of communism, political radicalism has been an important part of the political scene in Europe. The 2008 financial crisis furthered this trend, giving rise to new waves of radicalization. Albania appears to be a curious exception to this trend. Unlike most other countries in Eastern Europe, there have been no successful radical parties in Albania since the collapse of communism in 1991. In the same fashion, social protests in Albania in recent years have been fleeting and far less radical than other protest movements in other countries in the region (Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey). This article argues that the relative lack of political radicalization in Albania is due to its traumatic communist past combined with a high level of bipolarization. The bitter experience with national–communism reduced the attractiveness of both far right and far left discourses in Albania. The high levels of political bipolarization, on the other hand, divided the Albanian political sphere into two antagonistic camps. Such a deep division subsumed other possible cleavages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In 1817, the British government reacted to the rise of popular agitation for parliamentary reform by passing the Suspension of Habeas Corpus Act and arresting the leaders of the new working-class radical societies. The imprisonment of these men was a severe blow to the democratic movement. Despite the recent revival of scholarly interest in early nineteenth-century popular politics, historians have treated the events of 1817 as a brief interlude before the better-known Peterloo Massacre of 1819. This article argues that the development of the post-war democratic movement cannot be understood without examining the impact of the imprisonments on the radical leaders and their families. It analyses a previously unstudied series of letters confiscated from the radical prisoners and kept in the Home Office files. The correspondence demonstrates the essential role of letter-writing within radical culture, and how radical thought and self-expression were mediated through the pressures of both government surveillance and financial difficulty. This article secondly offers new evidence about the gender politics of radicalism in this period. It shows how women's experience of separation from their husbands, and male attitudes towards their role in 1817-18 crucially shaped the emergence of female radicalism in public for the first time in 1819. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the public discourse in Austria on issues of (potentially) radicalized Muslims in Europe and associated security perceptions. The main question is how recent terrorist attacks in Paris conducted by radical Islamists and the developments in Syria and Iraq have affected public (media) attitudes towards Muslim citizens and incoming refugees. The current refugee movements not only pose a humanitarian, social and logistical challenge for Europe but - in combination with the territorial power of the Islamic State - are perceived or presented as a security threat by several actors. Integration efforts and policies as well as the willingness to receive an increasing number of refugees and immigrants are contested and deteriorating as the crisis persists. The (perceived) security threats in form of returnees, refugees and radicalized Muslim youth are the main subjects of this article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The attacks on the Charlie Hebdo magazine and Kosher supermarket in Paris in January 2015, as well as the announcement of a ‘Caliphate’ by radical Islamists of the so-called ‘Islamic State in Iraq and Syria’ (ISIS) in 2014, reignited political and academic interest in the possible appeal of radical Islamism among young Muslims living in Western Europe. This analysis expands existing knowledge by adding a large-n, cross-national comparison to the small-nor single-case-study approaches dominating research on European Muslims over the last two decades. Moving beyond examination of the interaction between European governments and groups claiming to represent European Muslims, this analysis takes into account the individualisation of Muslim religious discourses, practices and identities. Binary logistic regression analyses challenge conventional wisdom which emphasises discrimination and rejection of Western foreign policies in the explanation of political radicalism. Instead, religious guidance and socio-economic status emerge as consistent correlates of political and social attitudes among West European Muslims. These findings not only add to a growing body of literature providing empirical evidence for the political impact of religious elites, they also have crucial policy implications for West European governments working to maintain national security and social cohesion. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]