Page 79 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 5-6: Radicalization, Violent Extremism and Conflicting Diversity, eds. Mitja Sardoč and Tomaž Deželan
P. 79
k. bovan, m. kovačić, m. vučković ■ being mainstream, being radical ...
radicalisation has many different faces and that it can be non-violent, as
some scholars already stated (Bartlett & Miller, 2012; Kundnani, 2012;
Schmid, 2013). Our participants perceive radicalism as something that
is omnipresent in different political spectrums in Croatia. Furthermore,
many questions arise from our research: what are the causes and origins of
radicalism in Croatia, how does the process of radicalisation start, where is
the line between radical ideas and radical actions? Existing literature ded-
icated to radicalisation, published dominantly in the area of security stud-
ies, does not provide sufficient answers to our questions. Therefore, we be-
lieve that further research that will study radicalisation interdisciplinary
in different research areas, in youth studies, cultural studies, media and
communication studies, is not only necessary, but obligatory. Also, most
scholars agree that radicalisation is always context related, hence, we be-
lieve more research should be conducted in different contexts and from
different points of view. For example, a major issue in research on radical-
isation is the relationship between radical ideas and radical action. One
way to think about this is to use the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen,
2002), according to which behaviour is in part a result of an individual’s
perception of social norms. Thus, the key aspect by which individuals turn
their radical ideas into radical behaviour could be their perception of soci-
etal rules, dominant norms, and, of course, who occupies the mainstream
and radical positions in society.
Even though this research demonstrated several important insights
about young people in Croatia and their relation to radicalism, there are
still several caveats to it. Firstly, our sample consisted of 33 young people
from Croatia, so our generalisation scope is limited. However, as our main
goal was to investigate the concepts of mainstream and radical in more
depth, this methodological design was chosen deliberately. Furthermore,
the results of this research are in line with studies conducted on larger
samples using quantitative approach. Even though this paper focused ex-
clusively on Croatia, being a single-case study, it is advisable to replicate
this type of research in different contexts, as well as using a broader sam-
ple within Croatia. Secondly, the focus of this paper was not to study in-
dividuals that would be identified as radicals from the point of view of
society, or from dominant approaches to radicalisation. Thus, we could
not study the radicalisation processes or characteristics of such individ-
uals. However, the idea of this paper was to grasp the conceptualisation,
perception, and notions about radicalism of young people in Croatia,
which is in line with the relativistic and context-dependent approach to
radicalism.
77
radicalisation has many different faces and that it can be non-violent, as
some scholars already stated (Bartlett & Miller, 2012; Kundnani, 2012;
Schmid, 2013). Our participants perceive radicalism as something that
is omnipresent in different political spectrums in Croatia. Furthermore,
many questions arise from our research: what are the causes and origins of
radicalism in Croatia, how does the process of radicalisation start, where is
the line between radical ideas and radical actions? Existing literature ded-
icated to radicalisation, published dominantly in the area of security stud-
ies, does not provide sufficient answers to our questions. Therefore, we be-
lieve that further research that will study radicalisation interdisciplinary
in different research areas, in youth studies, cultural studies, media and
communication studies, is not only necessary, but obligatory. Also, most
scholars agree that radicalisation is always context related, hence, we be-
lieve more research should be conducted in different contexts and from
different points of view. For example, a major issue in research on radical-
isation is the relationship between radical ideas and radical action. One
way to think about this is to use the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen,
2002), according to which behaviour is in part a result of an individual’s
perception of social norms. Thus, the key aspect by which individuals turn
their radical ideas into radical behaviour could be their perception of soci-
etal rules, dominant norms, and, of course, who occupies the mainstream
and radical positions in society.
Even though this research demonstrated several important insights
about young people in Croatia and their relation to radicalism, there are
still several caveats to it. Firstly, our sample consisted of 33 young people
from Croatia, so our generalisation scope is limited. However, as our main
goal was to investigate the concepts of mainstream and radical in more
depth, this methodological design was chosen deliberately. Furthermore,
the results of this research are in line with studies conducted on larger
samples using quantitative approach. Even though this paper focused ex-
clusively on Croatia, being a single-case study, it is advisable to replicate
this type of research in different contexts, as well as using a broader sam-
ple within Croatia. Secondly, the focus of this paper was not to study in-
dividuals that would be identified as radicals from the point of view of
society, or from dominant approaches to radicalisation. Thus, we could
not study the radicalisation processes or characteristics of such individ-
uals. However, the idea of this paper was to grasp the conceptualisation,
perception, and notions about radicalism of young people in Croatia,
which is in line with the relativistic and context-dependent approach to
radicalism.
77
