Understanding extremism in Scotland: research findings - summary

Understanding of extremism

Stakeholders, public sector practitioners and members of the public found it difficult to articulate a definition of extremism, and acknowledged that it is challenging to define.

Those who were able to express a definition often depicted extremism as:

• In opposition to societal and cultural norms, values and morals
• Involving the use of violence in pursuit of an ideological aim

However, across the projects, participants had contrasting views regarding whether extremism necessarily involves violence, which was reflected in discussions of definitions from other countries. Some favoured definitions which referenced violence, while others felt that this focus was too narrow.

Among stakeholders and the public there was some support for an approach to defining extremism recently adopted in Canada, New Zealand and Australia, which involves the use of broad categories of types of extremism ('religiously-motivated', 'ideologically-' or 'identity-motivated' and 'politically-motivated'). However, there were concerns that some ideologies may not fit neatly into one of the three categories.

Stakeholders, public sector practitioners and members of the public all felt that extremism, hate crime and terrorism are closely related concepts, with the idea of a spectrum or continuum of views expressed. However, participants in each of the projects were able to draw distinctions between the terms.