Terrorism, Political Violence and Hybrid Threats
This programme analyses security threats, where they come from and how they impact individuals and societies.
Programme Introduction
We analyse threat actors and vectors across contexts. Threats include terrorism, extremism, information manipulation, political and communal violence. Threat actors include violent extremist organisations and networks, militias, state-linked political violence and proxy networks, private military and security companies and more. Our transnational approach ensures we analyse these across threat and conflict types, geographies and the on- and offline domains.
Themes
Gender and Identity
Gender shapes how threat actors radicalise, recruit and mobilise supporters. Extremist groups exploit traditional gender roles and identities to strengthen their appeal, spread their ideologies and deepen divisions within society.
The Digital Landscape
Online spaces play a growing role in spreading extremist ideologies, manipulating information and normalising harmful narratives. We examine how social media, online forums and gaming platforms enable threat actors to reach wider audiences, build support and amplify their influence.
Hybrid and State Threats
State and other hostile actors use a range of tactics below the threshold of war to destabilise societies, undermine political freedoms and weaken social cohesion. These include information manipulation, cognitive warfare, lawfare and the use of private military and security companies.
We investigate how these activities influence political, social and legal outcomes, manipulate information and affect local populations. We also examine how hostile activity can fuel polarisation, harm communities and contribute to radicalisation.
Far-Right Extremism and Terrorism
We investigate far-right extremism and terrorism across local and international contexts, tracing connections between groups through shared narratives, online and offline networks, and cross-border financing. We also examine how violence rooted in racism, misogyny, xenophobia and anti-LGBTQI+ attitudes can be overlooked when classified solely as hate crime.
Our research distinguishes between the radical right, which seeks political influence through democratic processes while publicly rejecting violence, and the extreme right, which rejects democratic values and may endorse violence in pursuit of authoritarian or exclusionary goals.
We work with policymakers, law enforcement, technology companies and civil society to strengthen responses to far-right networks and the threats they pose.
Transnational Jihadist Terrorism
We analyse transnational jihadist threats across regions including Europe and Africa, examining how Islamist violent extremist organisations shape patterns of political violence. Their growth is closely linked to wider conflict dynamics, including governance failures, repression and instability.
Our research explores the ideologies that underpin jihadist movements, including the dominance and evolving internal divisions of Salafi-jihadism. We examine how these ideologies interact with local grievances and political conditions, and why different movements do not always share the same aims or approaches.
We also investigate how jihadist organisations adapt and establish forms of governance in areas where state authority is weak, contested or absent. This helps explain their persistence and the challenges facing counterterrorism and violence-prevention efforts.
Publications
View the latest outputs from this research programme.
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