Jessica Sciarone, PhD

Political Scientist | Political Violence, Extremism & Political Culture

I am a political scientist and Lecturer at the University of Washington. My research examines why some extremist ideas move from the political fringe into mainstream political and cultural discourse while others do not. 

My current book project, The Extreme is Mainstream: How Mainstream Culture Legitimates the Far-Right, argues that extremist movements do not simply infiltrate democratic societies from the outside. They are constructed from cultural material that already circulates within them. Mainstream culture is therefore not merely a backdrop against which extremism develops, but one of the principal sources from which it is built. 

The book develops a theory of cultural alignment, tracing how the relationship between mainstream culture and extremist commitment escalates, from talk, to identity, to violence, as individuals move from online discourse toward increasingly consequential forms of political action. 

My broader research examines far-right extremism, radicalization, political violence, gender, conspiracy theories, and political culture, with a focus on how seemingly ordinary cultural narratives can acquire extremist political significance.

[Research]                        [CV]                     [Publications]