Edelstein also refers to identity diffusion as an influencing factor of right-wing extremism. Furthermore, identity diffusion is related to aggression Dammann et al. Identity diffusion is accompanied by deficits in enduring feelings of ambivalence, sadness, or grief; it intensifies impulse actions and ultimately aggression Dammann et al. Part of extremist ideologies is to fight against groups classified as enemies.
For persons in the status of identity diffusion, the promise to us violence against enemies could be a reason to share these positions. Another reason could be the offer of getting easy answers to complex questions, which are part of many extremist ideologies.
Thus, the shift toward extremist ideologies promise a rather easy way of a new identity. In line with these assumptions, the current study empirically analyses the relationship between identity diffusion and extremist attitudes. In the study, not only one form of extremist attitudes are considered.
Instead, the relationship between identity diffusion and extremism is analyzed for right-wing, left-wing, and Islamist extremist attitudes in a sample of adolescents. Therefore, the current study refers to the period of life where the development of one's own identity takes place and young people are most open to the identification with negative identity offerings. Based on the different theoretical considerations Hypothesis 1 is as follows:.
H1: Increasing levels of identity diffusion lead to an increase of right-wing, left-wing, and Islamist extremist attitudes. Usually, extremism is characterized by the fact that it rejects the democratic constitutional state and wants to eliminate or restrict its constitutional separation of powers, protection of fundamental rights and democratic components popular sovereignty, human fundamental equality; Goertz and Goertz-Neumann, , p.
On a very general level, therefore, all forms of extremism have one thing in common: they seek to abolish the democratic order and introduce a different socio-political order in its place. A second common feature is that all extremist ideologies, with regard to the different socio-political order they seek to establish, make a strong distinction between their own group and one or more out-groups; at the same time, these out-groups are declared enemies of the new socio-political order they seek to establish.
The various forms of extremism then differ considerably with regard to the concrete form of the new order and which groups are defined as enemies. The third common feature of all forms of extremism is that in order to achieve their ideological goals they accept the use of violence Baier, One common form of political extremism is right-wing extremism, aiming at introducing a nationalist socio-political order and distinguishing between the national own group and numerous foreign groups.
This strong distinction between different population groups is called Social Darwinism. Consequently, violent acts are directed against these groups as well as against political opponents, namely from the left side of the political spectrum Manzoni et al. A second form of political extremism is left-wing extremism. As a socio-political order it aims at the introduction of communism or anarchism. The enemy images of these orientations are on the one hand capitalism and on the other hand the state and its organs classified as repressive, especially the police.
Although the police are also an enemy in other extremist ideologies, it is true for left-wing extremism that the police are at the very top of the ranking of enemy images Schroeder and Deutz-Schroeder, , p. Out-group members of this form of extremism are capitalists, police officers and right-wing extremists Manzoni et al.
In left-wing extremism, it is therefore permitted or even necessary to use violence against these out-group members. The central ideological goal of the last form of extremism analyzed here, Islamist extremism , is the introduction of a theocracy based on the Quran and the Sharia as a new socio-political order Goertz and Goertz-Neumann, ; the introduction of a theocracy clearly distinguishes this form from other forms of extremism such as right-wing extremism, although there may well be overlaps in other areas e.
Islamist extremism is a form of political and not only religious extremism, which becomes obvious by regarding its political goal, which contain, inter alia, the liberation of Islamic states, expulsion of occupying powers from the west, and particularly the establishment of an Islamic state.
The own group of right-believing Muslims is upgraded; the West in general and non-Muslims as well as non-traditional Muslims in particular are regarded as out-groups. In addition, the inhabitants of the western country in which the Muslims live are classified as an out-group. The willingness to use violence is, on one hand, directed against non-Muslims. On the other hand, terrorist attacks are seen as central means of achieving the goal of Islamist extremism Vidino, ; Manzoni et al.
The number of possible influencing factors of identity diffusion is large, and of extremism, it is even larger. Therefore, it is not possible at this point to provide a comprehensive discussion of all these influencing factors. Instead, we will concentrate mainly on the area of the family and the school.
Referring to Erikson's developmental theory, Edelstein , p. If a form of parental education oriented toward obedience, oppression and punishment can reinforce identity diffusion, then it can be assumed, with regard to the educational style concept of Baumrind , that authoritative parenting in particular should prevent identity diffusion.
This form of parenting is characterized by the fact that parents both monitor their child's behavior and give emotional care.
Various studies have shown that the two educational style dimensions of monitoring and care protect children and adolescents from developing in a problematic manner Leschied et al. If both identity diffusion and extremism are reduced by positive parenting behavior, it can be assumed that the effect of parenting is at least partially mediated by identity diffusion: Because a positive upbringing leads to less identity diffusion, it also has a protective effect on extremism.
In addition to authoritative parenting, the empirical analyses will also consider parental inconsistency. This implies that children are brought up in contradictory ways. As a result, the predictability of parental behavior is low. Jaursch et al. Although there are no findings to date on the relationship between parental inconsistency and extremism, it can be assumed that this educational style also increases extremist attitudes.
It can also be hypothesized that parental inconsistency influences identity diffusion, insofar as children and adolescents are confronted with contradictory information, expectations, norms, etc.
An additional influential factor of both identity diffusion and extremism is the experience of critical life events. Events as the divorce of parents, the death of one parent, a serious illness of one's own, etc. The crisis situation triggers an identity crisis, the search for a new orientation, for meaning.
An identity-related opening for new ideas is taking place Baier, Extremism research has repeatedly examined the influence of such crisis experiences. According to the aforementioned Transformative Learning Theory Wilner and Dubouloz, they can form the basis of radicalization. Sikkens et al. These events may have reduced the level of attention and control over children's development so that parents were unable to respond adequately to problematic biographical changes of the children.
Extra-family factors also have an influence on identity diffusion and extremism. With the exception of one factor, however, they are not considered in the following analyses. One school-related factor is included, namely academic performance. The school context is seen as very important for identity development Lannegrand-Willems and Bosma, A low level of success at school can also be seen as a form of critical life event that can lead to identity diffusion.
Meeus , among others, was able to find support for the relationship between school success and identity development. If the mentioned findings on family and school performance are summarized, Hypothesis 2 can be formulated as follows:. H2: Authoritative parenting reduces identity diffusion and extremism. Parental inconsistency, critical life events and poor academic performance, on the other hand, increase identity diffusion and extremist attitudes.
Identity diffusion partially mediates the influence of these influencing factors on extremist attitudes. In addition, the analyses take into account various control variables that can be assumed to be related to both identity diffusion and extremism.
These include gender e. A sample of young people living in Switzerland is used to test both hypotheses. The aim of the underlying study was to determine the prevalence and influencing factors of three forms of political extremism in Switzerland.
In order to get the sample, the following procedure was used: The survey did not claim to be representative for whole Switzerland, as this would have been very difficult to achieve for a total of 26 cantons.
Instead, the survey was conducted in ten cantons, with urban and more rural as well as German-, French- and Italian-speaking cantons being included. The survey focused on young people aged between 17 and 18 on average.
In the cantons, a random drawing of schools or school classes was then carried out in which surveys were to be conducted. Students were provided with an online questionnaire during one school lesson 45 min ; the surveys were administered by trained interviewers or teachers. During the survey, a class work atmosphere was created, i. Anonymity and confidentiality was guaranteed. The parents of the students were informed with a letter before the survey and could give their veto to their children's participation.
The students could also decide for themselves whether or not they wanted to take part in the survey. Five hundred ninety-five classes with all in all 8, students took part in the survey; schools were originally approached, of which ultimately participated in the survey.
The total response rate of the survey was This is a relatively low rate because many schools refused to take part in the survey. If schools or classes agreed to participate, nine out of ten pupils took part in the survey. However, it can be stated that Only 3. Overall, therefore, a largely age-homogeneous group of young people between 16 and 19 was reached.
Of all respondents, Most students were born in Switzerland, The inventory includes 21 items that capture identity diffusion. According to the study by Igarashi et al. People cannot guess how I'm going to behave. Igarashi et al. This is a disadvantage, although the validity of the selected five items may be given. However, there are no established instruments for assessing identity diffusion, which is why this instrument was used.
In accordance with the definitions of extremism presented above, the three forms of extremist attitudes were measured using multi-item instruments which are based on existing instruments or have been partly newly developed see Kamenowski et al. All items are listed in the Appendix. Right-wing extremism was measured with ten items, with six of them measuring approval of ideological positions, with one item recording approval of the new socio-political order of nationalism and five items measuring the devaluation of out-groups.
In addition, four items were taken into account that contain a positive attitude toward the use of violence against out-groups, whereby on the one hand the out-group of foreigners in general and on the other hand the out-group of left-wing extremists were considered and verbal as well as physical violence.
Left-wing extremism was measured with nine items. A further four items measure approval of the use of violence, which is directed at political opponents right-wing extremists on the one hand and capitalists or state actors police on the other.
Eleven items were used to measure Islamist extremism. Seven items measure the degree of agreement with ideological goals of this extremism two items: new socio-political order of theocracy, five items: revaluation of the self and devaluation of out-groups.
Four items in turn measure the approval of using violence, which can be directed against non-Muslims two items or includes terrorism or the armed struggle of the Islamic state two items. As the means listed in the tables in the Appendix show, all statements are agreed to a rather low level. The items on ideological positions are more strongly agreed than the items on the use of violence.
Moreover, it is shown that items that measure left-wing extremism are more strongly supported than items on right-wing extremism and Islamist extremism. Two different parenting styles are analyzed in the current study. First, parental inconsistency is measured by three items adopted from Krohne and Pulsack How often did this happen in the past? To measure critical life events the experience of five different forms of personal crises have been queried, namely divorce or separation of parents, serious disease of a close person, serious disease of oneself, death of father or mother, and moving with loss of previous social contacts.
All five life events were coded dichotomously 0—not experienced, 1—experienced. The five items were summed up to an index that can have values between 0 no critical life event experienced and 5 all events experienced.
On average, students reported 0. The variables sex 0—male, 1—female , country of birth 0—born in Switzerland, 1—born abroad 4 and socio-economic status are used as control variables in the analyses. Other, more common status variables e. The relationships between the presented variables are subsequently examined by means of structural equation models, whereby the program Mplus 7.
Using structural equation modeling allows to specify measurement models latent variables and structural models relationships between latent variables. In a first step, the different measurement models were analyzed.
After that, the different structural models were estimated. In accordance with the conventions, latent variables are shown as ellipses in the following figures, manifest variables as rectangles.
In accordance with the previous explanations, the latent variables were recorded with three to eleven items. The relationship between identity diffusion and extremist attitudes Hypothesis 1 was tested using three separate structural equation models, one for each form of extremist attitude. The results of the different models including the model-fit values are summarized in Figure 1 standardized coefficients are shown. All models show a sufficient fit Hu and Bentler, ; this means that the theoretical assumptions specified in the models fit well with the empirical observations.
The fact that the Chi 2 statistics is significant indicating a less good fit between theory and data is due to the large sample. Figure 1. Model to explain extremist attitudes by identity diffusion. To model extremist attitudes, a second-order factor model was specified. The first-order factors measure ideological goals and approval of violence; in the case of approval of violence a distinction is made between the different out-groups against which violence may be carried out e.
In the other two models there is no significant error correlation between the two violence-approval-factors, which is why this was not modeled.
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