Oct |
The Call of Duty: The Making of a ‘Homegrown’ Terrorist
Speaker: Jytte Klausen, Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation, Department of Politics, Brandeis University
When: 4PM ~ 5PM, Tuesday, October 16, 2018
Where: 310, Lory Student Center
Contact: Anura Jayasumana (Anura.Jayasumana@ColoState.edu)
Abstract: “It's actually quite fun. It's really really fun. It's better than that game Call of Duty. It's like that but it's in 3D where everything is happening in front of you." -Abu Sumayyah Al-Britani (2014)
A British foreign fighter with ISIS in Syria and Iraq Klausen will present her research on the social and behavioral dynamics of extremist radicalization and the pathways to terrorism taken by ‘homegrown” American jihadists. She will compare the pathways to extremist violence of the jihadists to those taken by three other groups that have endorsed politically-motivated violence; the anti-federalist Sovereign Citizens and the Army of God, an anti-abortion group, and the Earth Liberation Front.
Bio: Jytte Klausen, Ph.D. (political science), is the Lawrence A. Wien Professor of International Cooperation at Brandeis University and an Affiliate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. In 2016-2017, she was a scholar in residence at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington D.C. She is a senior advisor to the Institute of Strategic Dialogue (London). She is the recipient of a Carnegie Scholars Award. Klausen is a contributor to Foreign Affairs. Her most recent books are The Cartoons That Shook the World (Yale University Press 2009) about the worldwide protests against the Danish cartoons of the Muslim Prophet, and The Islamic Challenge: Politics and Religion in Western Europe (Oxford University Press 2005, pb. 2007 (translated into German and Turkish; Arabic translation in progress).
In 2006, Klausen founded the Western Jihadism Project, a data archive and digital platform for collaborative research using real-world data to chart the demographics and networks of Western violent extremists associated with Al Qaeda and ISIL, and associated organizations. Her research on jihadism in Western states has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the United Kingdom’s Home Office and the National Institute for Justice in Office of Justice Programs in the U.S. Department of Justice, and by The U.S. Army Research Office and The Minerva Initiative, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Defense, and supported by Brandeis University. Klausen has been a subject matter expert for the United Kingdom’s Home Office, National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) in the U.S. Department of Defense, the National Intelligence Council, and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and other government agencies.