How do people move away from their extremist beliefs? When an individual leaves a terrorist organisation do they change their attitudes and beliefs or do they just stop acting on them? How often do individuals leave one extremist organisation and replace those beliefs with other extreme beliefs? Do they hold similar values and just moderate them a bit? If governments around the world address disenfranchisement and bring the extremists "into the tent" does that deradicalise them?
What a fantastically interesting area to pursue for a Phd. My lovely friend Kate has the untold luxury and burden of trying to answer these questions for the next two years. She is already one year in and these days we only have a strict three year time frame for each Phd. She has the privilege of interviewing the fair dinkum extremists who have walked away. She gets to get to know why they no longer belong to the groups that throw the bombs. Did they change, or have they just changed how they do it? fascinating
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