In focusing on “Political Extremism and Social Movements,” this chapter from the “Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements,” focuses on the difficulties inherent in defining extremism and examines a number of current issues related to the study of extremism.
Since extremism has had a relatively small, but significant, space in social movement research, this chapter discusses extremist radicalization processes, networks, and internet activism. This chapter also describes the contexts in which extremism emerges, extremist strategies and tactics, the effects of policing and repression, and extremist organization. The chapter concludes by posing several questions about extremism and social movements that should be addressed by researchers in the future. 124 references