The Collective Nature of Lone Wolf Terrorism: Anders Behring Breivik and the Anti-Islamic Social Movement

Right-wing, so-called lone wolf terrorism, can be understood using Lévi-Strauss’ concept of cultural bricolage and the narrative criminology framework. Professor Sveinung Sandberg builds this argument using the 2011 case of terrorist attacks by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway. Breivik was inspired by anti-Islamic ideology, other streams of political terrorism, and non-ideological crimes such as youths’ school shootings. Detailed narrative analysis of Breivik’s 1,500-page manifesto reveals an array of discursive modes and associated subjectivities, including technical language, religious figuration and rationales, pragmatic conservative political discourse and the linguistic style of new social media.  The technological innovations of late modernity have helped to nurture such ideological fragmentation with consequences for how we study, detect, and try to prevent terrorism.