ABSTRACT
The previous chapters have raised factors that can lead to extremism and terrorism, discussed what extremist groups are seen as risks to society, how to try to prevent the development of extremism and extremist activities and how best to police these groups and their actions. Extremism may take many forms from lone wolf discontents, to extremist groups, to social movements and may be driven by thrill seeking, reactionary protectionism or by those with a mission. The extremist needs support from within the community (see Chapter 6) but that may be from relatively few members of that society and may not reflect the general membership of that community. Furthermore, it is difficult to identify extremists within society as they do not necessarily possess any different characteristics from other moderate and mainstream members of their community. One exception is the recent development of support for the far right movement which is more likely to be from younger, working-class white males (Bartlett et al. 2011, see Chapter 6). The need to create a sense of belonging and acceptance of self-defined positive norms rather than allowing difference, disassociation and dissonance to breed new extremists has featured in several chapters of this book. However, creating a strong sense and agreed norm of ‘Britishness’ if taken too far, may be counterproductive and produce these effects, resulting in ‘othering’ and new forms of extremism.
