Stern Outlines Research on Strategies to Prevent Political Violence
Jessica Stern, Research Professor at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, published an op-ed in the Boston Globe on her latest research, which offers insights on how to prevent future political violence such as that perpetrated at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In her article, titled “What reformed extremists taught me about preventing another Capitol insurrection,” Stern discusses the motivations of extremist movements – jihadis, white-identity violent extremists, and others – and her research at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health investigating how and why people manage to leave violent movements and reintegrate into mainstream society. Her interviews with former extremists and terrorists found that they “attributed their capacity to disengage from these violent movements more to emotional factors than to intellectual ones.” Stern makes clear that the threat of continuing political violence remains in the U.S. and those who condone or endorse such violence should be held accountable; however, she claims that addressing the emotional factors of extremism – which “are at least as important as intellectual endorsement of theories of racial or religious supremacy” – could help reduce or even prevent violent behavior.
The full op-ed can be read on the Boston Globe‘s website. BU students can access the article via ProQuest.
Professor Jessica Stern is a Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. She is the coauthor with J.M. Berger of ISIS: The State of Terror; and the author of Denial: A Memoir of Terror; Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill; and The Ultimate Terrorists. Learn more about Stern on her faculty profile.