Mechanisms of Political Radicalization: Pathways Toward Terrorism
2008/07/01 by Clark McCauley, Sophia Moskalenko · 21 citations
Social Sciences · #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence
paper · doi:10.1080/09546550802073367
openalex publication_date 2008/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract
This article conceptualizes political radicalization as a dimension of increasing extremity of beliefs, feelings, and behaviors in support of intergroup conflict and violence. Across individuals, groups, and mass publics, twelve mechanisms of radicalization are distinguished. For ten of these mechanisms, radicalization occurs in a context of group identification and reaction to perceived threat to the ingroup. The variety and strength of reactive mechanisms point to the need to understand radicalization—including the extremes of terrorism—as emerging more from the dynamics of intergroup conflict than from the vicissitudes of individual psychology.
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