S09E05: Julia Ebn­er on How Extrem­ism Threat­ens Democ­ra­cy (Part 1)

This episode explores the social worlds of var­i­ous extrem­ist groups and the cor­ro­sive effects of rad­i­cal­iza­tion on con­tem­po­rary democ­ra­cy. Why is it nec­es­sary to observe extrem­ist orga­ni­za­tions up close? And how are gen­der and reli­gion instru­men­tal­ly deployed? Lis­ten to hear about the unex­pect­ed sim­i­lar­i­ties between var­i­ous extrem­ist groups and how the neg­a­tive effects on democ­ra­cy can be countered.

Guest fea­tured in this episode:

Julia Ebn­er, a social anthro­pol­o­gist by train­ing, is a lead­ing expert on rad­i­cal­iza­tion, extrem­ism and ter­ror­ism pre­ven­tion. Her work address­es the threats to democ­ra­cy, to wom­en’s and minor­i­ty rights from a vari­ety of extrem­ist groups. She is the inter­na­tion­al­ly best­selling author of three book: The Rage (2017), Going Dark (2019), and mGo­ing Main­stream (2023). Julia Ebn­er is a senior research fel­low at the Insti­tute for Strate­gic Dia­logue in Lon­don and the leader of the Vio­lent Extrem­ism Lab at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oxford’s Cen­tre for the Study of Social Cohesion.

Based on her aca­d­e­m­ic research, as well as her under­cov­er inves­ti­ga­tions among far-right extrem­ists, misog­y­nist groups, as well as jihadist groups, Julia Ebn­er also pro­vides advice to gov­ern­ments and intel­li­gence agen­cies, to tech firms and transna­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions. She pre­vi­ous­ly act­ed as spe­cial advi­sor on counter ter­ror­ism for the Unit­ed Nations, and reg­u­lar­ly writes for news­pa­pers such as The Guardian and The Wash­ing­ton Post. Ear­li­er this year Julia Ebn­er received the Open Soci­ety Prize award­ed by the Cen­tral Euro­pean University.