EXPERT: Professor Sandy Schumman
Assistant Professor in Security and Crime Science at University College London. Her research examines risk factors of radicalisation and extreme political attitudes in increasingly diverse and digital societies.
Professor Sandy Schumann describes radicalisation as the development of a willingness to use violence to gain political goals. She explains the difference between the radical right and the extreme right. She describes how far right actors make use of information technology, and how they create a resilient online ecosystem. She talks about the far-right’s connections to cryptocurrency, and the subterranean networks of far-right online forums. She describes a complex social infrastructure across all far-right movements. She also explains how right-wing ideology stems from a sense of threat, as shown in the response to the so-called migrant crisis. She explains the appeal of conspiracy theories in providing concrete scapegoats and easy answers to complex political situations, and why this makes them resilient to change.