Extremism is a term commonly thrown about loosely, often pejoratively, and at times proudly. Yet both public debates and scholarly research typically stop short of precisely defining extremism and identifying thoughts, actions, and individuals that exemplify it. This chapter synthesizes cognitive and motivational frameworks for extremism in order to disentangle the core structure of extremism from its content domains. It discusses extremism-breeding imbalances as differing in degree, thus conceptualizing degrees of extremism along a spectrum from extremism to moderation, rather than viewing these as binary categories. Furthermore, by zooming in on the intersections of extremism and ideology, the chapter addresses what, if anything, is unique about ideological extremism, relative to other kinds of extreme behaviors. The authors suggest that ideological extremism is marked by a unique dogmatism coupled with moralizing narratives that are punitive and coercive toward others as well as oneself.
Publication Information
Zmigrod, Leor, and Arie Kruglanski. 2025. “Extremism and Ideology.” In Conceptualizing Extreme Beliefs and Behaviors: Definitions and Relationships between Phenomena, edited by Rik Peels and John Horgan, pp. 206-223. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.