HOW EXTREMISTS CONQUERED THE CENTRE

Tessa Szyszkowitz in conversation with Julia Ebner

HOW EXTREMISTS CONQUERED THE CENTRE
Since the coronavirus pandemic and the storming of the US Capitol, radicalisation has become a mass phenomenon.

In her new book “Mass Radicalisation”, extremism researcher Julia Ebner examines why so many people are susceptible to ideas that used to be considered fringe phenomena. The escalation has been affecting circles of friends, families and the working environment for several years now. Mass movements, recruited from the centre of society, are emerging - lateral thinkers, QAnon, anti-vaccination activists - radical and highly dangerous. Julia Ebner not only wants to understand the structures and mechanisms behind them. She also asks: What should be done in the fight for justice and democracy?

Julia Ebner researches extremism at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue in London and at the Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion at the University of Oxford. As an expert, she works with government organisations and police forces and advises the UN, NATO and the World Bank on extremism issues. She is known to the public through her appearances on Markus Lanz, Tagesthemen and heute-journal. Her book Radicalisation machines was named »Science Book of the Year« in 2020, was a SPIEGEL bestseller and was on the non-fiction bestseller list. It was awarded the Dr Caspar Einem Prize 2022, Science Book of the Year 2020 and the Bruno Kreisky Prize for the Political Book 2018.

Tessa Szyszkowitz is a journalist and author, based in London since 2010. Before that, she was a correspondent in Moscow, Brussels and Jerusalem. She writes regularly for Falter, profil & Cicero, is curator of the Philoxenia series at the Kreiskyforum and a Distinguished Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

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