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Leaving Home to Join Extremist Violence - Framing of Swedish far-right & Islamist foreign fighters’ reasons to travel abroad to join violent extremist groups

Axelsson, Yrsa LU (2018) FKVK02 20181
Department of Political Science
Abstract
Why do some individuals travel to foreign land to join violent extremist groups? This thesis aims to fill the research gap on foreign fighters and their reasons to travel abroad, focusing on one of the countries most affected by this phenomenon; Sweden. Additionally, this thesis intends to counter the fixation on Islamist foreign fighters, which tend to make foreign fighters a product of Muslims. By developing a theoretical and methodological framework with two different levels of analysis, this thesis involves a descriptive in-depth comparative analysis of Swedish far-right and Islamist foreign fighters’ framing of their reasons to travel abroad, set in relation to Swedish newspaper’s framing. According to the findings presented in this... (More)
Why do some individuals travel to foreign land to join violent extremist groups? This thesis aims to fill the research gap on foreign fighters and their reasons to travel abroad, focusing on one of the countries most affected by this phenomenon; Sweden. Additionally, this thesis intends to counter the fixation on Islamist foreign fighters, which tend to make foreign fighters a product of Muslims. By developing a theoretical and methodological framework with two different levels of analysis, this thesis involves a descriptive in-depth comparative analysis of Swedish far-right and Islamist foreign fighters’ framing of their reasons to travel abroad, set in relation to Swedish newspaper’s framing. According to the findings presented in this study, Swedish Islamist and far-right foreign fighters frame their reasons to travel within the concepts of “outrage and empathy”, “adherence to ideology” and “search for identity and meaning”, but in somewhat distinct manners. The same applies to Swedish newspapers’ framing; Swedish newspapers’ frame Swedish far-right and Islamist foreign fighters within the above concepts, however, in very distinct manners and with a greater degree of resonance with Islamist than with far-right foreign fighters. (Less)
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author
Axelsson, Yrsa LU
supervisor
organization
course
FKVK02 20181
year
type
M2 - Bachelor Degree
subject
keywords
Swedish foreign fighters, radicalisation, far-right, Islamist, Frame Theory, frame resonance, frame analysis, Syria, Ukraine
language
English
id
8942556
date added to LUP
2018-08-23 15:19:29
date last changed
2018-08-23 15:19:29
@misc{8942556,
  abstract     = {{Why do some individuals travel to foreign land to join violent extremist groups? This thesis aims to fill the research gap on foreign fighters and their reasons to travel abroad, focusing on one of the countries most affected by this phenomenon; Sweden. Additionally, this thesis intends to counter the fixation on Islamist foreign fighters, which tend to make foreign fighters a product of Muslims. By developing a theoretical and methodological framework with two different levels of analysis, this thesis involves a descriptive in-depth comparative analysis of Swedish far-right and Islamist foreign fighters’ framing of their reasons to travel abroad, set in relation to Swedish newspaper’s framing. According to the findings presented in this study, Swedish Islamist and far-right foreign fighters frame their reasons to travel within the concepts of “outrage and empathy”, “adherence to ideology” and “search for identity and meaning”, but in somewhat distinct manners. The same applies to Swedish newspapers’ framing; Swedish newspapers’ frame Swedish far-right and Islamist foreign fighters within the above concepts, however, in very distinct manners and with a greater degree of resonance with Islamist than with far-right foreign fighters.}},
  author       = {{Axelsson, Yrsa}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{Leaving Home to Join Extremist Violence - Framing of Swedish far-right & Islamist foreign fighters’ reasons to travel abroad to join violent extremist groups}},
  year         = {{2018}},
}