RADICALISM AND EXTREMISM: ESSENCE, SIMILARITIES, AND DIFFERENCES

Abstract

Radicalism and extremism are among the most frequently invoked yet least precisely defined concepts in contemporary political discourse, where they are routinely treated as synonyms. This conceptual conflation has significant analytical, legal, and policy consequences, particularly for programmes of countering violent extremism and de-radicalisation. This article undertakes a conceptual and comparative analysis of the two notions, clarifying their essence and systematically examining their similarities and differences. Drawing on terminology and extremism research, political philosophy, and the sociology of social movements, the study employs conceptual analysis, etymological and historical reconstruction, and comparative method. It argues that radicalism and extremism, though overlapping and often empirically entangled, are analytically distinct: radicalism denotes a root-and-branch opposition to the prevailing order that is historically tied to the Enlightenment and may be emancipatory, egalitarian, and compatible with democracy, whereas extremism denotes an anti-pluralist, anti-constitutional disposition organised around the conviction that an in-group’s survival requires hostile action against an out-group. The two are best understood as related but separable points on a spectrum, with radicalism situated at the edge of the democratic order and extremism beyond it. Conflating them risks both misdirecting prevention and delegitimising legitimate dissent.