Foreign Fighters and Radical Influencers

The work seeks to understand if and in what ways these wars influenced the consolidation of radical milieus and whether they impacted the recruitment of foreign fighters. In doing so, the book traces the path of more than 400 individuals that either traveled to Syria or were involved in recruitment locally. Employing a qualitative methodological approach, the book argues that radical influencers are likely to be more evident in postwar societies due to state and societal fragility, which create more power for social actors and constrain efforts to counter extremism. Through the activism of social actors emerging from wars, preceding conflicts resonate through society across different locations and particular postwar radical milieus do not need to be only in the place where war atrocities happened. Thus, radical milieus can spread to various locations including countries hosting postwar diaspora communities.
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