RECAP: NCITE Speaker Series with Cynthia Miller-Idriss

On April 19, NCITE Director Gina Ligon, Ph.D., spoke with American University's Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Ph.D., about the public health approach to preventing violent extremism.

Key Takeaways

• The public health approach to preventing violent extremism, as defined by Miller-Idriss, means, “you have to root interventions in (a) community’s needs. You have to provide rigorous tested evidence of their effectiveness or not. You have to focus on structural solutions and not just on individual solutions.”
• Violent ideologies targeting gender and sexuality are a rising concern, but this form of extremism is officially categorized by the U.S. government under “all other extremisms.” Miller-Idriss called this categorization a kind of “othering” at a time when the country is seeing spikes in anti-LGBTQ+ and misogynist violence.
• Young people, particularly 11-14-year-olds, in the United States are exposed to hateful content and unrelenting violence online which creates a fertile ground for potential radicalization to violence. Many young people are reporting they have no one to talk to about this exposure.
• Gender-based violence is tied to several forms of ideological extremism, including violent white supremacy.
• There has been a quickly rising tide of political violence – an issue which has itself become politicized. To address this, we need to emphasize the nonpartisan nature of keeping communities safe. People on the ground want to feel safer and protect their families – that’s not a partisan issue. It’s important for people who sit outside the government to call out hate-fueled violence and openly and continually critique it.

Discussion Recap

• Miller-Idriss started in this field while working in Germany where she was trying to understand how working-class boys manage the transition into adulthood in working-class trade schools. While there, she observed a high percentage of students who displayed markers affiliating with white supremacist, neo-Nazi extremism. She studied the government’s efforts to counter it through civic education.
• Miller-Idriss stressed the importance of embracing a holistic, whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach to violence prevention.
  • “As I often say I don’t think anyone wants our best measure of success on the prevention side to be how good we’ve become at barricading the doors,” she said.
• Miller-Idriss is the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books, including Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right.
  • “I found myself irritated with the kinds of questions I was being asked ... It turns out that annoyance is a bit of a motivator for me to write a book,” she said.
  • She is writing a new book that will focus on the gendered roots of violent extremism and will look at misogyny and intimate partner violence as a predictor.

• Miller-Idriss said she works to ensure her research doesn’t have an ideological bias and isn’t perceived as aligning with a single political party. She does this by focusing on violence prevention. She described her own studies working with parents on a parent and caregivers guide:
  • “Republicans and Democratic parents are equally concerned about the online harms that their kids are exposed to.”
  • “This is not a partisan issue. This is about providing tools and resources to communities who are desperate for help with what their loved ones are encountering and how harmful it is.”

Guest Bio

Cynthia Miller-Idriss, Ph.D., is a professor in the School of Public Affairs and in the School of Education at American University in Washington, D.C., where she is also the founding director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL). She is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur and recently served as the inaugural creative lead for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s residency program on social cohesion in Berlin, Germany. Miller-Idriss regularly testifies before the U.S. Congress and briefs policy, security, education, and intelligence agencies in the U.S., the United Nations, and other countries on trends in domestic violent extremism and strategies for prevention and disengagement. She is the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books, including her most recent book, Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right  (Princeton University Press, 2022). She is currently at work on a new book about the gendered dimensions of violent extremism. Miller-Idriss writes frequently for mainstream audiences as an opinion columnist for MSNBC . She has also had bylines in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, Politico, USA Today, The Boston Globe, and more.