My research asks how mainstream political and cultural environments shape the development and escalation of far-right extremism.
My central research agenda challenges a common assumption in research on extremist mainstreaming: that extremism originates at the political fringe and subsequently moves inward toward the democratic mainstream. I instead examine how mainstream culture itself provides the cultural material through which extremist identities and movements are constructed.
Book Project: The Extreme is Mainstream: How Mainstream Culture Legitimates the Far-Right
How does mainstream culture help construct extremist movements?
My book develops a theory of cultural alignment to explain how far-right extremism is constructed from cultural material that already circulates widely within democratic societies.
Rather than treating extremism as an external contaminant that enters an otherwise healthy political culture, the book argues that mainstream culture is one of the principal resources from which extremist movements are built. Familiar narratives, symbols, grievances, and identities can acquire increasingly radical political meanings as individuals align them with extremist interpretations of politics and society.
The book restructures my dissertation's case material around an escalation logic, from talk, to identity, to violence. This framework traces how cultural alignment operates with increasing stakes as extremist commitment deepens, following the movement from online discourse and cultural identification toward real-world political violence.
The project draws on cases including incel ideology and the Great Replacement conspiracy theory. Comparative material extends this beyond the United States, demonstrating that the mechanisms of cultural alignment travel across contexts even as the symbols and narratives through which it operates remain locally specific.
The book therefore makes three central contributions:
Reversing the direction of mainstreaming: Extremism is not simply something that moves into mainstream culture. Mainstream culture can provide the material from which extremist politics is constructed.
Explaining escalation: Cultural alignment can intensify from participation in extremist discourse, to the development of extremist identity, to increasingly consequential forms of political action and violence.
Connecting culture and political violence: The project places culture at the center of explanations of radicalization and political violence, showing how ordinary cultural material can acquire extremist significance.
Book proposal anticipated mid-September 2026.
Gender, Radicalization & the Far Right
My second research agenda examines how gender and perceived status threat shape pathways into far-right radicalization. This work asks how gendered political and cultural grievances become connected to extremist identities and how women and men experience and participate in far-right movements differently.
Comparative Far-Right Politics
My collaborative research examines how far-right movements adapt their political narratives to different national and cultural contexts, including comparative work on Dutch and American far-right political parties, and their understandings of queer citizenship.
Together, these projects form a broader research program on how mainstream political and cultural environments shape the emergence, legitimation, and escalation of extremist politics.
Ongoing Work
Legitimizing Mass Violence: Symbolism, Myths, and Nostalgia in Great Replacement Manifestos (Manuscript submitted to Terrorism and Political Violence)
This project examines how mainstream American cultural narratives legitimize extremist ideology. Rather than treating the Great Replacement theory as an idea that spreads from the margins outward, the paper reverses the direction: extremist narratives draw on cultural symbols already circulating in mainstream discourse. In this paper, I use the concept of cultural alignment, the process through which extremist actors activate shared myths, symbols, and nostalgic narratives to make violence emotionally and politically legible. Through qualitative analysis of four American lone-actor manifestos (2015-2022), I identify three mechanisms of alignment: appropriation of national symbols, embeddedness in foundational myths, and nostalgic appeals to an idealized White past. The findings suggest that Great Replacement ideology resonates not through ideological novelty, but through cultural parasitism.
Memes, Misogyny, and Mainstreaming: How Meme Culture Blurs the Boundary Between Mainstream and Extremist Misogyny (Manuscript under development)
This project analyzes how meme culture reveals, rather than causes, the continuum between everyday misogyny and extremist misogynistic violence. Using a purposive sample of memes across mainstream platforms, manosphere communities, and incel spaces, the paper traces how humor, repetition, and community-building normalize misogynistic ideas. Meme culture provides deniability ("it is just a joke"), normalizes extreme content through repetition, and creates identity-based communities where misogynistic narratives become meaningful. Rather than treating far-right misogynist memes as a radicalization mechanism, this paper argues they function as an x-ray of cultural misogyny already present in mainstream discourse.
Shades of Supporters: Soccer Fans, Club Politics, and Their Impact on Democratic Politics (Manuscript under development, co-authored with Sebastian Mayer)
This project examines how European soccer supporters shape democratic engagement, identifying both the positive and negative political effects of sports fandom. On one hand, participating in club politics, such as voting for leadership, mobilizing around club policies, and engaging in collective decision-making, can foster political efficacy, representation, and civic identity. These forms of engagement may socialize supporters into broader democratic participation beyond the stadium. On the other hand, strong group identity and belonging can also amplify extremist narratives, creating pathways toward far-right radicalization within certain supporter cultures. Drawing on cases from the Netherlands, Germany, and England, the paper argues that soccer fandom is largely a positive force for democratic politics, while emphasizing the need for caution regarding the minority of supporters where identity formation can facilitate extremist mobilization.