Bio:
Jessica Sciarone is a Political Scientist and Lecturer at the University of Washington, where she received her PhD in Political Science in 2026. She is also associate faculty at Edmonds College. She received her Bachelor of Science in Political Science from the Radboud University in Nijmegen in 2023, her Master of Arts in Intelligence and International Security from King's College London in 2015, her Master of Science in Crisis and Security Management from Leiden University in 2016, and her Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Washington in 2021.
Jessica's dissertation investigated a central question: Why do some extremist ideologies and conspiratorial beliefs gain mainstream traction, while others do not? She argued that mainstreaming occurs when these ideas become legible within broader political and cultural contexts, treating extremist ideologies and conspiracy beliefs as objects of analysis in their own right. Through four case studies, incels, the Great Replacement, 2020 election fraud narratives, and environmental conspiracy theories, she showed how different beliefs gain mainstream traction, while others do not. Her work highlights the role of culture in understanding how extremist ideas move into the mainstream. This dissertation will be the basis of her upcoming book project.
Her other research focuses on the nexus of gender and radicalization, with a special interest in far-right extremism. Her research "When Women Are Right: Radicalization Pathways of Women Towards Far-Right Extremist Networks in the United States" addressed the pathways of far-right extremist radicalization. Here, she found that these women are motivated by, and radicalized through, perceived threats to their status. Such threats need not be real and can be derived from real political and cultural events, or conspiracy theories.
Jessica also has an interest in queer studies, and she is currently working on a research project titled "Comparative Homonationalism and the Far-Right: How Dutch and American Neofascist Ideologies Imagine Queer Citizenships" (with Jana Foxe). This project examines the variation in the degrees of inclusion that far-right political parties have for queer and trans citizens in their home countries, and the varying strategies of co-optation of support and votes from the LGB Community.
She currently serves as a member of the Electoral College for Expatriates for the Kingdom of the Netherlands for the Labor Party (PvdA). In the 2023-2024 academic year, she served as the Graduate Student Chair for the University of Washington International Security Colloquium (UWISC).
From February 2017-September 2018, Jessica worked as a Junior Researcher at the Institute for Security and Global Affairs at Leiden University. In the past, she also worked as an intelligence analyst embedded at Amazon.