J.M. Berger

J.M. Berger is an internationally recognized and widely cited expert on extremism. He is the author of Extremism (MIT Press 2018), the definitive text on the subject, now available in five languages. He holds a PhD in criminology from Swansea University's Hillary Rodham Clinton School of Law.  

As a Senior Research Fellow for the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism (CTEC) at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Berger has most recently published major papers on the concept of lawful extremism, including Lawful Extremism: Extremist Ideology and the Dred Scott Decision (CTEC, 2023) and, with Beth Daviess, Lawful Extremism: The Chinese Exclusion Act (CTEC, 2024) and Lawful Extremism: Florida's Anti-Trans Laws (CTEC, 2024).

Berger's research encompasses extremist and terrorist ideologies and propaganda, including social media and semantic analytical techniques. He is the author of four books, including Optimal (2020), Extremism (2018), ISIS: The State of Terror with Jessica Stern (2015) and Jihad Joe: Americans Who Go to War in the Name of Islam (2011). His next book, The Social Construction of Extremism (forthcoming), is an ambitious exploration of the root causes of extremism that will push back on the conventional wisdom of the field in surprising and original ways, offering a new theory of extremism's origins.  

Berger is a research fellow with the VOX-Pol Network of Excellence and a PhD candidate at Swansea University's School of Law, where he studies extremist ideologies. As a consultant for social media companies and government agencies, Berger is available to conduct research and training on issues and policies related to homegrown terrorism, online extremism, and countering violent extremism (CVE).  

His debut novel, Optimal (2020), is a dystopian tale about a world run by algorithms and social media. Reviewers praised it as "gripping," "absorbing" and "great storytelling." A member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association, Berger is currently working on his second novel, a fantasy epic grounded in his research on extremism. 

LAWFUL EXTREMISM:
THE DRED SCOTT DECISION

Academics usually define extremism as a set of beliefs that fall outside the norms of the society in which they are situated, but entire societies have at times been organized around recognizably extreme beliefs. This paper will examine the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Scott v. Sandford, 60 US 393 (1856), aka the Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Black people, whether enslaved or free, were entitled to no rights under the Constitution.

The paper analyzes the Dred Scott decision to consider whether and how it implements and institutionalizes many widely recognized tropes of extremist ideology. The paper will conclude with a discussion of empirical frameworks that can enable and empower the study of lawful extremism.


LAWFUL EXTREMISM:
THE CHINESE EXCLUSION ACT

Was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 extremist? The first paper in the “Lawful Extremism” series considered whether the 1856 Dred Scott decision that denied Black people citizenship and constitutional rights functioned as an extremist ideological text. This paper uses the same framework to examine the Chinese Exclusion era, covering roughly 1870-1943, and the anti-Chinese movement that traveled from the fringes to the mainstream, becoming the driving force behind the enaction of the Act. 

Focusing on congressional records supporting the enaction of Chinese exclusion, we consider whether they articulate an extremist system of meaning. We then analyze characteristics of the anti-Chinese movement as an extremist ideology in the process of taking power and conclude by considering how the lawful extremism framework can inform analyses of modern anti-immigration movements.

A PALER SHADE OF WHITE 

Discussions of extremist ideologies naturally focus on how in-groups criticize and attack out-groups. But many important extremist ideological texts are disproportionately focused on criticizing their own in-group. A new research report from J.M. Berger uses linkage-based analysis to examine Siege, a White nationalist tract that has played an important role in shaping modern neo-Nazi movements, including such violent organizations as Atomwaffen Division and The Base. While Siege strongly attacks out-groups, including Jewish and Black people, the book is overwhelmingly a critique of how the White people of its in-group fall short of Nazi ideals. Siege’s central proposition—that the White in-group is disappointing, deeply corrupt, and complacent—shapes its argument for an “accelerationist” strategy to hasten the collapse of society in order to build something entirely new. 

Read the RESOLVE Network report 

Related on GNET: The Out-Group in the In-Group