The Atomwaffen division: the myth of evidence-based policy on the threat of far-right extremism

Fulgoni, S. and Menis, Susanna (2024) The Atomwaffen division: the myth of evidence-based policy on the threat of far-right extremism. In: Silva, T. and Kordaczuk, M. (eds.) Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE) and De-radicalisation: Handbook of Evidence-Based Practice. Bristol, UK: Bristol University Press, pp. 1-24. ISBN 9781447370925. (In Press)

Abstract

The threat posed by Far-Right groups continues to be espoused by Government, law enforcement agencies, and the media. However, most citizens will have no personal experience of the type of physical or mental harm these groups have the potential to inflict. Indeed, the public’s perception of the risk is derived from their engagement with published government reports and mass media coverage. Drawing on the National Socialist Order ((NSO), previously known as the Atomwaffen Division, as a case study, this study argues that the academic and policy literature regarding the NSO tends to inflate and sensationalize the actual threat posed. Significantly, prevention and countering actions by this group seem to lack an evidence-based approach. For example, whilst it appears that the NSO may promote a future violent race war and celebrate individual acts of extremist violence, the group shows a reluctance to embrace the role of a fully-fledged terrorist organization. This chapter addresses a gap in the literature on the NSO by engaging critically with the group’s own literature and that of individuals who influence its activities, highlighting key indicators that potentially evidence a reluctance for terrorist violence. The growing body of research conducted on the publication Siege by James Mason and the propaganda produced by the NSO, highlighs how it propels neo-Nazis towards violent action; however, little evaluation has been conducted foregrounding the indications within both which steer the NSO’s membership away from committing violent action. Consequently, this raises the potential for the misinterpretation of the group’s short and long-term goals and an amplified representation of the threat to public safety. Drawing on Beck’s Risk Society and Busher et al.’s Internal Breaks this study illustrates the tension between inflated perceptions of risk and actual threat; it intendes to offer the reader a revisionist approach to the definition the problem and underlining assumptions of extremism and terrorism.

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