When Extremisms Converge: The New Frontier of Youth Radicalisation Between Jihadism, Neo-Nazism and White Supremacism

From the search for belonging to the fascination with the elite, from transgression to violence: why the ideological boundaries of contemporary extremism are becoming increasingly permeable

Abstract: Contemporary youth radicalisation is increasingly developing within digital ecosystems in which different ideologies—such as jihadism, neo-Nazism, white supremacism and accelerationism—may come into contact without necessarily merging at the doctrinal level. Some young people appear to be attracted less by ideological coherence than by shared elements such as belonging, identity, elitism, transgression and a fascination with violence. Movement across different extremist environments may therefore preserve the same underlying identity structure, based on the perception of belonging to a chosen minority, the construction of an absolute enemy, the dehumanisation of the other and the progressive legitimisation of violence. Understanding these dynamics of subcultural cross-fertilisation is essential to developing preventive strategies capable of intervening before radicalisation translates into violence.

Keywords: #Radicalisation #Jihadism #NeoNazism #WhiteSupremacism #ViolentExtremism #YouthRadicalisation #DigitalRadicalisation #HybridRadicalisation #Prevention #Intelligence #ElhemBeddouda #EthicaSocietas #EthicaSocietasReview #ScientificJournal #Humanities #SocialSciences #EthicaSocietasUPLI

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Introduction

To understand the emerging forms of youth radicalisation, it is necessary to move, at least in part, beyond the assumption that every extremist must necessarily belong to a precise, recognisable and stable ideological category. For a long time, radicalisation was imagined as a relatively linear process: an individual encounters an ideology, assimilates its principles, possibly enters an organised network and, in the most extreme cases, progresses towards violence. This model undoubtedly continues to describe some trajectories, but it appears increasingly insufficient to interpret what takes place within the digital environments inhabited by adolescents and young adults.

The contemporary challenge also lies in the emergence of genuine extremist ecosystems in which different forms of content can coexist, be consumed by the same individual and generate forms of cross-fertilisation that would have been difficult to imagine among previous generations. A young person may enter an online community through apparently provocative content, memes, video games, transgressive humour or discussions about society and gradually encounter misogynistic, conspiratorial, supremacist, accelerationist or jihadist material.

This does not mean that every such trajectory leads to terrorism, and it would be methodologically incorrect to establish an automatic causal relationship between these phenomena. It does mean, however, that digital radicalisation can develop through non-linear pathways in which individuals move across different environments before they have even acquired a clearly defined ideological identity.

It is precisely this transformation that makes the concept of hybrid radicalisation relevant. The term should not be understood as implying the emergence of a new ideology produced by a fusion of jihadism and neo-Nazism, since such an interpretation would be both simplistic and historically inaccurate. Jihadism and neo-Nazism remain profoundly different ideological constructions. What may converge instead is the subcultural dimension: language, aesthetics, group practices, representations of strength, the cult of transgression and, above all, a particular conception of the relationship between a supposedly chosen group and an external world perceived as corrupt, decadent or hostile.

It is at this level that the phenomenon becomes particularly significant.

When ideology is not the starting point

One of the most significant characteristics of contemporary radicalisation is that ideology may not constitute the starting point. In at least some cases, it may instead represent the outcome of an earlier search for identity.

A young person does not necessarily approach a movement because they initially share its political or religious doctrine. They may be drawn to it because the community allows them to feel important, provides a language through which to interpret their frustration, offers a group in which they can gain recognition, creates a hierarchy within which they can occupy a defined position and, above all, supplies a narrative through which their distress acquires meaning.

This dimension is fundamental to understanding the function of belonging. During adolescence and early adulthood, identity formation is a particularly delicate process: the need for recognition by peers, the desire to distinguish oneself from the majority and the search for a community in which one feels accepted can become extremely powerful. Extremist environments can exploit this vulnerability by offering what appears to be an extraordinary form of belonging—not simply membership of a community, but membership of a community of the “chosen”.

The implicit message becomes: you are not excluded, you are different; you are not marginal, you belong to a minority that has understood the truth; you are not weak, you are one of the few willing to fight.

This psychological transformation is more significant than the propagandistic content alone because it alters the way in which young people interpret themselves and the world around them. Radicalisation thus also becomes a process of identification.

The fascination with transgression

Transgression performs a particular function within this process. Young people may be attracted to extremism precisely because the extremist appears to reject the boundaries imposed by ordinary society. Insults, provocation, violent language and even overt expressions of hatred can become instruments through which individuals demonstrate that they no longer belong to the majority.

The phenomenon is particularly evident in digital environments because the internet makes it possible to transform transgression into spectacle and to reward its author with visibility. What would be difficult to express openly in everyday life can be published, shared, transformed into a meme and repeated until it becomes normal within a particular community.

The problem, therefore, does not necessarily lie in a single piece of extremist content. It lies in the progressive alteration of the threshold of acceptability. What initially appears shocking may become ironic; what becomes ironic may be shared; what is shared may become normalised; and what has become normalised may eventually be defended.

At that point, the user is no longer merely a spectator of the content but has become part of the community that produces and legitimises it. Digital radicalisation can therefore also be understood as a process of progressive normalisation.

Why neo-Nazism can become a subcultural model

It is at this point that the most sensitive issue emerges: the possible fascination that neo-Nazi and white supremacist environments may exercise over some young people who are also attracted to jihadism.

At first sight, this appears to be an irreconcilable contradiction. White supremacism constructs its identity around the supposed superiority of a racial group, while extremist jihadism constructs its identity around a radicalised and totalising conception of religious belonging. The two worldviews may be mutually hostile and should not be represented as a single ideology.

The perspective changes, however, when we move from the doctrinal to the subcultural level. What may prove attractive is not necessarily the racial theory of white supremacism, but the image of an intensely cohesive, disciplined, aggressive and transgressive community convinced that it belongs to a minority superior to the surrounding society. It is the aesthetics of the elite, strength and rebellion that may become appealing.

This distinction is important. A young person can imitate a form of belonging without embracing the entire ideology represented by that form of belonging. They may perceive neo-Nazism as a model of radicalism and subsequently transfer the same identity structure into another ideological universe.

In other words, the content may change while the form remains.

The elite as a response to marginality

This is where the role of elitism becomes apparent. Many extremist environments construct a sharp distinction between those who belong to the group and those who remain outside it. Membership is represented as something rare and valuable. Not everyone is capable of understanding the truth; not everyone has the courage to rebel; not everyone is prepared to make sacrifices. The masses are consequently contrasted with the elite.

In white supremacism, this elite may be defined through race; in neo-Nazism, through a hierarchical and totalitarian conception of society; and in extremist jihadism, through the opposition between supposed “true believers” and those labelled unbelievers, apostates or deviants.

The ideological differences are substantial and must be preserved analytically. At the level of the psychology of belonging, however, a recurrent structure may emerge: we are the authentic ones; they are the others.

A young person who feels insignificant within society may find powerful identity compensation in this representation because marginality is transformed into superiority. The underlying message becomes: I am not excluded, I am chosen; I am not alone, I belong to a minority; I am not powerless, I am part of something strong.

It is precisely this transformation that can make extremism particularly seductive for some young people vulnerable to radicalisation.

From racial superiority to extremist religious superiority

Great caution is nevertheless required when comparing white supremacism and jihadism. There is no equivalence between the two ideological systems, and it would be incorrect to transform the concept of Muslim religious belonging into a form of supremacism. Islam, in all its theological and historical complexity, cannot be identified with contemporary jihadism.

What requires analysis is instead the ideological construction produced by extremist jihadism. A jihadist group may represent itself as the custodian of authentic religion, defining itself in opposition not only to non-Muslims but also to Muslims whom it regards as insufficiently orthodox, deviant or apostate.

The distinction between “us” and “them” can consequently be radicalised until it becomes an absolute moral division. Religion is transformed into a criterion of identity selection.

It is this claim to absolute authenticity that may perform, at the level of collective identity construction, a function analogous to that performed by the myth of racial superiority within supremacist environments. This is not because the two ideologies are equivalent, but because both can construct communities in which belonging is represented as conferring superiority over those outside the group.

The specificity of jihadism: projection beyond death

Extremist jihadism also contains a component that makes the phenomenon particularly complex: its eschatological dimension. Identity construction is not confined to the present life. The fighter may be represented as belonging to a community destined for victory, while personal sacrifice may be associated with the promise of an otherworldly reward. This introduces an element that goes beyond the pursuit of social prestige.

Sacrifice can become a form of fulfilment.

Death can be reinterpreted as victory.

Earthly existence can be subordinated to a mission perceived as eternal.

It is important to emphasise once again that this representation belongs to extremist jihadist ideology and propaganda and not to Islam as a whole. Jihadism selectively and radically politicises religious concepts in order to construct a narrative of conflict and legitimise violence.

Yet precisely this projection beyond death can make its identity structure particularly powerful: young people are not simply invited to perceive themselves as different from others, but may be persuaded that they belong to a minority destined for a superior fate extending beyond death itself.

The same grammar, different ideologies

It is perhaps here that the most meaningful point of contact between these phenomena can be identified. It is incorrect to claim that neo-Nazism and jihadism are the same phenomenon; it is equally incorrect to suggest that young jihadists automatically become white supremacists or that a new and stable political alliance exists between these ideological environments.

What is more useful is to observe that different extremist ideologies may employ a similar grammar of identity: a grammar composed of belonging, elitism, enemies, purity, transgression, sacrifice and violence.

This grammar can survive a change of ideology. A young person may move across different extremist environments while retaining the same need to perceive themselves as part of a special community. The symbol changes, the enemy changes and the narrative changes, but the need to become “someone” remains.

It is this possibility that makes the concept of metamorphic radicalisation useful. Young people do not necessarily follow a linear trajectory towards a single ideology; they may move through different extremist environments, absorbing elements from each that contribute to the construction of their identity.

The role of accelerationism

Accelerationism also assumes particular relevance within this landscape. Some accelerationist currents maintain, in different forms, that the existing social order should be accelerated towards a crisis or collapse severe enough to make a new reality possible.

When this conception is combined with a fascination with violence, the consequences can be particularly dangerous: destruction is no longer perceived as an undesirable consequence but as an instrument of transformation.

Here, too, elements shared with other extremist subcultures may emerge: rejection of the existing social order, contempt for moderation, glorification of action and the conviction that crisis is necessary.

This does not mean that accelerationism, neo-Nazism and jihadism constitute a single phenomenon. It means that digital environments allow concepts originating in different ideological traditions to circulate within the same space and to be consumed by the same individual.

It is precisely this permeability that makes hybrid radicalisation a significant challenge for both security and prevention.

The young extremist of the future may not have a single ideology

The most important consequence of this transformation concerns the way in which the radicalised subject is defined. The young extremist of the future may not be easily classified as a “jihadist”, “neo-Nazi” or “white supremacist”. They may have moved through all these environments without fully adhering to any of them.

They may have taken the aesthetics of strength from neo-Nazism, the idea of superiority from supremacism, the desire for destruction from accelerationism and the concepts of mission and sacrifice from jihadism.

The result would not necessarily be a new and coherent ideology. It could be something more unstable and, for precisely this reason, more difficult to predict: an extremist identity constructed through ideological assemblage.

This is one of the reasons why contemporary radicalisation needs to be studied as a process rather than merely as a form of ideological affiliation.

From propaganda to trajectory

The implications for prevention are fundamental. If attention is directed exclusively towards explicitly jihadist content, part of the trajectory leading towards radicalisation may be overlooked. The process may begin much earlier, through the search for belonging, fascination with hatred, the progressive dehumanisation of others, the glorification of violence and the conviction of being fundamentally different from the majority.

The problem is not necessarily a single meme, a single video or even a single symbol. It is the progressive combination of behaviours, narratives and forms of belonging.

Prevention must therefore learn to examine trajectories. When an adolescent moves from simple interest to active participation, when provocation becomes hatred, when hatred becomes dehumanisation and when dehumanisation begins to make violence conceivable, the phenomenon has already moved beyond simple transgression.

It is within this intermediate space that radicalisation prevention should seek to intervene.

A new challenge for intelligence

This transformation also raises important questions for intelligence analysis. The question can no longer simply be: “Which organisation does this individual belong to?”

Other questions become equally relevant: Which ecosystems do they inhabit? Which communities do they regard as authoritative? What content do they share? Which figures do they regard as role models? How do they represent the “enemy”? To what extent has violence become normalised in their worldview? Are they searching for a doctrine, or are they searching for an identity?

These are different questions, but they may prove decisive.

The analysis of contemporary extremism therefore requires increasingly close cooperation between security studies, psychology, sociology, education and the analysis of digital dynamics. Radicalisation does not occur solely within the individual mind; it also takes place within relationships, communities and communicative environments that contribute to defining what is perceived as normal, desirable and legitimate.

Prevention must precede ideology

The real challenge, therefore, is to intervene before a young person has necessarily adopted a fully developed terrorist ideology. This does not mean criminalising distress, indiscriminately monitoring adolescents or confusing provocation with radicalisation. It means recognising when a constellation of indicators begins to converge towards a transformation of identity.

Soft radicalisation represents precisely this intermediate territory: a phase in which a young person may not yet be a violent extremist but has begun to construct the cultural and identity conditions through which extremism becomes progressively more acceptable.

It is a space in which prevention can still be educational, relational and social before becoming primarily a matter of security.

Beyond labels

The emerging forms of youth radicalisation therefore require us to move beyond excessively rigid categories. Jihadism, neo-Nazism, white supremacism and accelerationism are not the same phenomenon: they have different origins, ideologies, objectives and enemies. Conflating them would impoverish the analysis and risk producing inappropriate forms of stigmatisation. Yet it would be equally reductive to ignore the cross-fertilisation that can occur within digital environments.

The genuine point of convergence may lie not in ideology itself, but in the underlying structure of identity.

Extremism can offer young people what they may be searching for: a strong identity, exclusive belonging, an elite of which they can perceive themselves as members, an enemy against whom they can define themselves and a mission capable of transforming their existence into something they experience as extraordinary.

Neo-Nazism may offer an imaginary of racial superiority and rebellion; white supremacism, the idea of belonging to a supposedly chosen race; accelerationism, the destruction of the existing order; and extremist jihadism, the idea of a religious mission, absolute struggle and, within its propaganda, an otherworldly reward.

These narratives are different, but they may respond to the same psychological need: to cease being one among many and become part of something perceived as superior.

This may be the most important point to understand. At the beginning of the radicalisation process, a young person is not necessarily searching for a theory; they may be searching for a community. They are not necessarily searching for a war; they may be searching for an identity. They are not necessarily searching for death; they may be searching for meaning.

Extremism can offer an answer to all three.

This is precisely why prevention cannot wait until violence emerges. It must intervene much earlier, when the search for belonging, fascination with the elite, transgression, dehumanisation and the normalisation of violence begin to crystallise into a worldview.

The challenge posed by contemporary radicalisation may therefore no longer consist solely in identifying which ideology a young person has chosen, but in understanding why they feel the need for an ideology capable of telling them that they are among the chosen and that someone else deserves to be excluded, fought or destroyed. It is precisely within this transformation of identity that prevention must learn to intervene.

Essential bibliography

Europol. European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report (TE-SAT). European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation.

Europol. European Union Terrorism Situation and Trend Report 2025. Publications Office of the European Union, 2025.

European Commission. Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN). Publications and resources on the prevention of radicalisation and violent extremism.

United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT). Resources on the prevention of violent extremism and youth radicalisation.

Berger, J. M. Extremism. MIT Press, 2018.

Horgan, John. The Psychology of Terrorism. Routledge, 2014.

McCauley, Clark, and Sophia Moskalenko. Friction: How Radicalization Happens to Them and Us. Oxford University Press, 2011.

Neumann, Peter R. Radicalized: New Jihadists and the Threat to the West. I.B. Tauris, 2016.

Schmid, Alex P., ed. The Routledge Handbook of Terrorism Research. Routledge, 2011.