Keywords

2.1 Introduction

Europe is at a crossroads, affected by a severe political, economic and social crisis. Several analysts question the future of the European Union (EU). Two phenomena have arisen during 2015 and 2016 as major challenges for Europe. On the one hand, there is the jihadist terrorism, which has particularly hit France, Belgium and the United Kingdom (UK). On the other hand, there is the refugee crisis, a massive outflow of citizens from countries at war, who seek to reach Europe in search of a better life. In a recent report of the Congressional Research Service, Archick (2016) states that the European Union is a history of success, but faces many political and social pressures, the Greek debt crisis (the most prominent among the others taking place in Europe), the so-called “Brexit” (the referendum in which British citizens decided to leave the EU), a resurgent Russia, a heightened terrorism threat and the previously mentioned refugee crisis. Archick also points out the lack of strong leadership and strategic vision.

Europe must address the effects of a polarisation that is being caused by the economic crisis; the refugee crisis; the terrorist attacks in Europe; the lack of confidence at institutions and political parties; the lack of engagement between the EU, as an international organisation, and the citizens belonging to the member states; the lack of leadership in Europe; inequalities and unemployment; and the growing power of right-wing parties, populist parties and nationalist ideologies. Several of these causes are, at the same time, effects of this polarised climate. But Europe also needs to deal with the effects of its own laws exacerbating the problem. These factors and actors that are most often depicted in a negative portrayal contribute to create anti-EU and “Eurosceptic” sentiments. Millions of voters are dissatisfied with classical parties and are giving opportunities to those that propose more radical points of view. Part of this analysis could be also applied to the case of the United States.

These impacts are affecting other associated phenomena with less media attention. Countries such as France, Germany, Spain and the UK—particularly after the Brexit and terrorist attacks—have experienced a sharp increase in the rates of hate crimes. Social media, but also traditional media channels, are being used as amplifiers of hate speech against minorities and communities, due to its ease of use and a degree of anonymity. Political parties have used this crisis to disseminate an anti-immigration rhetoric and far-right positions have advanced in many countries. The available information has lost its ability to inform. This chapter aims to discuss the current European climate, which has arisen from a number of indicators that have had an influential role in facilitating a polarised societal structure. It then aims to apply this knowledge to understanding polarisation dissemination into the political, social, economic and technological spheres through explanatory examples. From this analysis the chapter will discuss how these social imbalances caused by the polarised climate have had consequential effects on the stability of Europe, leading to a number of by-products such as hate crime and radicalisation, and incorporate this knowledge into a “social polarisation cycle”. The knowledge gained through critical literature reviews, case study analysis and the development of the cycle will be incorporated into a number of recommendations that aim to help improve the security and structure of Europe as contemporary threats emerge.

2.2 Ways in Which Polarisation Takes Place

2.2.1 Political Polarisation

Populist parties (in the sense of those political parties that seek to represent the interests of ordinary people), from one or another ideology, have become a new player able to deal with the most traditional political structures of the EU. Today, on the date this chapter is being written, these new parties already hold 1329 seats in 25 countries. The support that political polarisation has is fed from the news, shared grievances and fears, drawing on the need for change. In this context, we forget that the construction of collective identities arises from the passions but also from the most irrational fears. Populisms are nourished by the total absence of political debate in our societies. The evolution of democracy and possible alternatives are a taboo issue from one to the other side of the continent. This political stagnation is being exploited by populist formations to gather more support, visible from the extreme left to the extreme right, which state that their intention is to return “power to the people”. These populist demands can be observed in a high percentage of the protests that have shaken the international scene in recent years whose main complaints have been about corruption, injustice and lack of democracy (Youngs 2017). A clear example of political action that generates polarisation is the current management of the influx of refugees to the European continent, the largest exodus since the Second World War. Within this humanitarian crisis, many voices are rising, evoking the risk of having a high percentage of foreign population within national borders, warning about the possible infiltration of terrorists into these human floods and with growing complaints after recent attacks in Germany and France. The problem increases when this view is projected by authorities of one level or another, when politicians have the ability to implement policies that are born without a clear objective, aiming to contribute to a rhetorical discourse or simply to provide arguments of doubtful validity to the most reactionary sectors of society or social masses who have no prior information of the phenomenon.

The US 11th of September 2001 attack (four coordinated attacks by al-Qaeda) showed the biases that a terrorist act can have on social consciousness and their treatment to refugees. Governments of both sides of the Atlantic altered the international protection regime in their antiterrorist career. As mentioned by Ruud Lubbers, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (quoted in Refugees 2011: 30): “as emotions run high and while Americans and the rest of the word grieve, we should refrain from pointing fingers and inciting hatred against innocent groups such as refugees”. In this sense many EU countries have already raised the equivalent of 1200 km of fences or “anti-immigrant” walls. Initiative is followed even by countries like Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, where, according to Eurostat data , the immigrant population does not exceed four and a half percent. Thus, it is not trivial that the cardinal narrative of these populist parties is centred on immigration, identity or cultural issues, but also on security sphere, promising certainty in times of enormous uncertainty like the present and promoting the “us and them” narrative. Hence it is not difficult to identify same security agendas between political parties of different ideologies. These movements appeal to the need to return to traditional values, the use of symbols and flags and other collective references that had already given way to a more homogeneous continent. This has led to a fortified, fragmented and fearful Europe, of which society is facing a political pulse that is setting the Europe of the future. Nationalism, traditionally on the rise in periods of economic crises (Piketty 2014), is another cause of social inequality and therefore of polarisation, especially when it is observed that in its narrative the position of some communities over others is exalted. While the political and institutional causes that explain the growing nationalisms are many, and each territory is very different, the disaffection with the ruling political class stands as a common variable in its uprising (Heller 2017; Lopez 2013).

2.2.2 Social Polarisation

Polarisation can also be born from the social sphere fuelled by behaviour, actions and omissions, voluntarily and involuntarily, which tend to position some social sectors against others (Oxford dictionary of Human Geography 2013). It is very complex to identify social polarisation and separate it from the rest of polarisations as an independent phenomenon; moreover the intensification of these directly affects the population. However, there are very clear current examples that can be mentioned. One clear example comes from the current activity of the extreme right in Europe. Closely related to the political and social climate affecting the region, the far-right maintains high reactivity, being able to mobilise supporters taking advantage of any event, news or traumatic event, with a narrative and messages based on hate or intolerance. The economic crisis and especially the jihadist attacks offer arguments for this hate speech, strengthening national identities against third parties and foreigners (Blanco and Cohen 2015).

Terrorist attacks, as it happens with major disasters, wars or crisis, also shape the social psyche. Every one of these changes affects the inner image (mental picture) about other societies and communities, particularly of those that are at the origin of terrorism, configuring negative and hostile beliefs and attitudes towards them (Cohen 2015; Bar-Tal and Labin 2001). Providing a face to a shared threat strengthens the identity of individuals in the community that encircles them, but also produces a self-generation cycle of mistrust that helps to maintain unjustified levels of unconscious fear, which in itself generates inter-group hatred and intra-group loyalties. In such contexts easily arises the phenomenon of “group think”, a process in which a group of initially rational people ends up making irrational decisions. The rise of disparity identities is greater during processes enhanced in contexts of social inequality .

2.2.3 Economic Polarisation

Any of the contexts explained so far is linked to an economic recession or an increasing arrival of immigrants or minorities, creating a splendid breeding ground for populism. While the existence of the middle class and its growth represents steps towards greater equality and less polarisation, the economic crisis is deepening inequality. According to Credit Suisse in its report Global Wealth Databook (2015), the financial crisis has had a clear impact on the size of the middle class, where in the period of 1 year, between 2007 and 2008 in the first year of the crisis, its worldwide size declined by more than 102 million. Since then, mainly in Europe, middle-class rates have continued to fall until today due to a powerful inequality which, as reflected in the report, is increasing poverty.

The globalisation of the economy has also boosted inequality because it has been necessary to adapt a multitude of diverse territories to the neoliberal economic model of a few states. This situation with clear effects in the labour market is also enhancing social polarisation. There is a growing divergence between the jobs for which a high qualification is required and those where only intermediate training is required. This disparity is leading directly to a reduction of the middle class, in both developed and developing countries. This situation has led in the specific sectors, such as the consumer sector, to an increasing polarisation by two extreme target audiences: either low cost or high luxury. Multiple studies are published each year, as the one published by Oxfam Intermon (2016) or Capegemini (2017), which revealed that the world’s wealth is going to be in fewer and fewer hands. In this scenario it is very difficult to justify the adoption of austerity policies against which there is a growing rejection.

From the socioeconomic perspective it is also necessary to mention the spatial polarisation. There are cities where there are developing increasingly wealthy economic sectors . The problem arises when only a few citizens participate in them and therefore cannot afford to live in the centre. In this situation there are increasingly extreme cities like London, Tokyo, New York, Lagos or Cape Town. An unequal distribution, in terms of space and wealth, means that a small number of people are growing richer and the poor are getting poorer.

2.2.4 Technological and Information Polarisation

Technology , in terms of access, use and possession, is another variable that generates social inequality and therefore polarisation. It is not only influenced by factors such as literacy, the level of resources or the ability to use new technologies but also by the skills of some users compared to the rest, which helps to access higher value knowledge. According to the report, all European countries except Albania enjoy a status of technology development above the average, a situation that is favoured by their greater economic development and GDP per capita.

Social networks must also be analysed despite an unquestioned work of the dissemination of information and opinion that is built bottom-up within society, which allows citizens to give information at the same level as it is produced by the media or political authorities, among others. But it also serves as a catalyst for social polarisation. Wael Ghonim, a computer engineer of Google, was a key player in the mobilisation of thousands of citizens in the so-called Egyptian “Arab Spring”, in early 2011. Under the slogan “a revolution against corruption, injustice and dictatorship”, he created a Facebook event with the intention of taking people to the streets in protest. In just 10 days the call reached more than one million people and 100,000 agreed to attend. The problem arose when the claims turned into a “with me or against me” scenario. Social networks quickly became broadcast channels with highly polarised political opinions, contributing to the spread of conflicting opinions providing rumours and false information without any barriers and promoting hate speech. As it was revealed by a Pew Research on demographic trends, that influences US policy (June 2014) when our awareness line shifts up, so does our ideological consistency.

Wael has highlighted five characteristics of the media that contribute to greater social polarisation. We have added to these variables notes provided by the professor of Harvard University, Cass Sustain (2015), on how groups think and act in the new social dynamics:

  1. 1.

    The existence and rapid spread of rumours, especially when these are able to confirm the prejudices of some social sectors.

  2. 2.

    The echo effect powered by our habit to communicate only with people with whom we agree. We hear the same thoughts repeatedly.

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    The ease with which confrontation is generated: Online discussions have to acquire high hostility in short periods of time, leaving aside that after the vast majority of the profiles there are people.

  4. 4.

    The difficulty to change the mind. The increasing speed of communication incites the generation of conclusions instead of debates. Conclusions also are exposed simplistically if you look at the extent of post as permitted in Twitter and whose withdrawal becomes complex, even before with new evidence against the previous information.

  5. 5.

    Dissemination objective: Social media facilitates comments through multiple methods, provides an opinion and makes a perception. To communicate is not relevant; we try to communicate with others, not to others.

  6. 6.

    Group thinking: Phenomenon that makes slightly extremist individuals entrench their beliefs and radicalise even more.

Addressing these effects is very complex when, as users, we are not open to thoughtful and argued messages. Our experience in social networks is orchestrated around the headlines. Our identity is shaped in proportion to the degree of controversy that contains the information, a controversy that generates confrontation and that becomes a facilitator of polarisation. In short, variables such as the previous strength that each person holds about their beliefs; the nature, extent and context of the attack; or the dimension that acquires its dissemination by the media will determine the possible change of social public opinion. In this regard, it is interesting to note the impact after the attacks of the 11th of September (2001) in the United States and the 11th of March attacks in Madrid (four train bombings coordinated by Basque and al-Qaeda), where political management was essential to structure elements in the subsequent public opinion in both countries. “Post-truth” was chosen as the word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries in 2016. It means the “deliberate distortion of a reality, which manipulates beliefs and emotions in order to influence public opinion and social attitudes. The demagogues are masters of the post-truth” (tech2, 2017: 1). Ultimately, with post-truth we refer to the invocation of emotions over facts with the aim of influencing or manipulating. The generalisation of the use of new information technologies, the development of the Internet and social networks and the proliferation of alternative media have turned out to be the great facilitators for its dissemination. Marwick and Lewis (2016) point out that media manipulation always has the desire to increase the audience on the message to be broadcast. The different actors that act in this environment may have very different objectives, but they can be classified simply as ideological, economic and desire for attention and ego.

But post-truth can claim objectives that are not entirely ideological or economic (Blanco and Cohen 2018):

  1. 1.

    Polarise a society, and generate instability and disruption. Situations that weaken democratic systems and that can affect the social and economic environment. It generates distrust, affecting the social and democratic values of a state.

  2. 2.

    Influence in any way in the decision-making, individual or collective. The electoral contexts are a classic paradigm of this type of scenarios. Or it affects decision-making of international actors, for example, trying to achieve a position or an action in a conflict. A compendium of manipulation and lies in search of different revenues.

  3. 3.

    Hide the truth, under different layers of misinformation, so that doubts arise about what is true and what is not. For this, misinformation tries to introduce, even if it is minimal, some element of truth or plausibility.

  4. 4.

    Distract public opinion from certain debates and entertain the media , to focus attention on irrelevant issues.

2.3 Security and European Polarisation

The climate of social polarisation that affects our European societies produces clear and direct effects in the security field, fuelling phenomena such as violent extremism, hate crimes, hate speech, confrontations between minorities and attacks against refugees or aggressions. A cycle of hate can be described (see Fig. 2.1). Although there is not a clear consensus about what causes terrorist actions, or indeed violent extremism , it is possible to point out possible facilitators, facilitators that, if we go deeper on some terrorist records, we can identify as trigger factors. Alleged grievances lead to terrorist attacks. After them, our European countries suffer an increase in hate crimes and social media act as propagandist of many messages that could be considered as hate speech. This situation, like actions against Islam or Muslims, can feed new grievances, accelerating radicalisation processes, which finally could end up in a terrorist attack.

Fig. 2.1
figure 1

The social polarisation cycle and security

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The so-called “post-truth ” is a clear current document that contributes to this cycle of hate, through the dissemination of lies or disinformation. In order to understand the previous cycle, we need a consensus about the terms used. In the recent weeks we are attending to a series of attacks, which are difficult to define. A mix of extreme ideologies, grievances and modus operandi will expand in the future. A grievance is the feeling of a real or imagined cause for complaint over something believed to be wrong or unfair. President Obama stated in 2015, at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism (The White House, 19 February, 2015) that “we have to address grievances that terrorists exploit”.

The core elements of the definition are:

  1. 1.

    A feeling, an emotional state or reaction.

  2. 2.

    A real or imagined cause. The cause can be an injury, an offence, an outrage, an atrocity, a damage, a mistake, a wrong decision or an injustice.

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    A complaint. The complaint could be manifested through a protest, an indignation, a charge, a criticism, a resistance, an objection or though other direct actions.

There is not academic and professional consensus about the definition of radicalisation. In this cycle we understand it as a process, which would lead to violent extremism and, as one of its possible manifestations, to terrorism.

Looking at the perpetrators, in Europe we could apply the concepts that federal law enforcement agencies use, in the United States, to categorise these key types of criminals partly ideologically motivated, pointing out the differences between domestic terrorism, homegrown violent extremism and hate crimes (Bjelopera 2016). The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) defines domestic terrorism as:

Acts of violence…committed by individuals or groups without any foreign direction, and appear to be intended to intimate or coerce a civilian population, or influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States

Crimes are committed in the name of animal rights, environmental rights, white supremacy, anarchism, antiglobalisation, anti-government or anti-abortion. A homegrown violent extremist (HVE) is a person of any citizenship who has lived and/or operated primarily in the United States or its territories who advocates, is engaged in or is preparing to engage in ideologically motivated terrorist activities in furtherance of political or social objectives promoted by a foreign terrorist organisation, but acting independently of direction by it (FBI 2019). Hate crimes include any crime against either persons or properties in which the offender intentionally selects the victim because of its race, colour, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability and religion. They are acts of personal malice, missing the broader motivations driving acts of terrorism, although there is a broad grey zone that needs interpretations. For example, attacks against policemen are considered terrorism, but not others with the same motivation. Hate crimes could be terrorist attacks when the criminal articulates an ideology that belongs to a terrorist group of follow or is inspired by a radical extremist group. This could be the case, for example, of different attacks against refugee centres in Europe, inspired by extreme right groups with a clear organisational structure and objectives, aiming to terrorise this population an influence immigration policies .

A literature review shows a disagreement over the relationship between hate crime and terrorism (Deloughery et al. 2012), but those studies that have researched empirically this relationship show that it exists, calling them “close cousins” (Mills et al. 2015). Looking at the current situation in Europe, and taking into consideration quantitative data and qualitative information, we agree with that opinion, given that there is an existing relationship with clear paths from one phenomenon to the other. If it is difficult to establish similarities and differences between terrorism and hate crimes, Mills et al. (2015) try to analyse them. The most important similarities are the language used to tackle their interests and express their grievances, the biases linked to sociopolitical and religious ideologies and the objective of instilling psychological harms and fear. The main differences are that hate crimes are usually committed on the spur of the moment, requiring less planning and resources. Hate crimes are personal malicious acts sometimes without a clear link to a group or an ideology, can be downward (a powerful group attacking a minority or a concrete community) and not aiming at achieving general publicity. With these premises, some incidents could be conceptualised as terrorism, as hate crimes or perhaps as both of them. This has happened with the mass shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando (June, 2016), in which a man murdered 49 people. President Obama declared it “an act of terrorism and an act of hate”. Early reports indicate that the deceased shooter, Omar Mateen, had expressed his solidarity with ISIS. But his father also revealed that his son was angry at the sight of two men kissing in Miami (Wing 2016). As it has been represented in the graphic, there are situations in which hate crimes can escalate to terrorism, and situations in which hate crimes appear as a response to terrorism. Michael (2003: 95), from looking to Hewitt’s (2000) data, evidences an escalation from violence against the “outsiders” (individuals targeted based on their perceived group membership) to the state, because of the perceived alliance of it and the “outsiders”. This research shows how the far-right in the United States moved from hate crimes (1950–1970) to anti-government attacks (from 1970).

Several researches have shown how hate crimes increase after a terror attack. Hanes and Machin (2014) offer empirical evidence on the effects of the terrorist attacks of the 11th of September (United States 2001) and the seventh of July (United Kingdom 2005). They found significant increases in hate crime against Asians and Arabs in the wake of both terrorist attacks, and something that should be a question of concern: a year later, these hate crimes decayed but remained at higher rates than before the attacks. McCauley and Moskalenko (2011) have defined group or political grievance as a mechanism for radicalisation. Black (1983) stated a theory of crime as social control. In his opinion individuals use crime as “self-help” to express their group’s grievance against a particular subgroup in order to maintain social control and to seek revenge, because they perceive them as a representation of a larger enemy.

In their research, Deloughery et al. (2012) concluded that hate crimes do not necessarily lead to future right-wing terrorism and that hate crimes are more often a response to terrorism. Current data from the United Kingdom show these kinds of crimes have grown after the attacks in London, the refugee crisis or, indeed, after “Brexit”. Official statistics from the Interior Ministry in Germany (2015) shows how violence by right- and left-wing extremism was increasing to unprecedented rates in 2015, a record since 2001, with a 44% increase in violent crime by right-wing and a 35% by left-wing. In France, hate crimes against Muslims tripled in 2015 (400 attacks compared to 133 reported in 2014) (Chazan 2015). In the UK more than 3000 hate crimes and incidents were reported to police from 16 to 30 June, after the “Brexit” referendum, a 42% increase on the same period in the previous year. Hate crimes against Muslims in London have gone up from 557 in 2013 to 878 by November 24, 2015 (Burrows 2015).

Finally, a consequence of this social and political polarisation could be other manifestations of violent extremism : confrontations between hooligans, between religious communities, between nationalist sectors inside a country, activism in conflict zones (as it happens in Ukraine and Syria or Iraq), violent demonstrations, riots or black bloc-style unrest.

2.4 Addressing the Polarisation in Europe

The current situation in Europe needs urgent strategies, plans and actions, which we have recommended in Fig. 2.2. These strategies should begin with a rigorous analysis of the situation. Although many people could view a future marked by the dissolution of the Union, or certain paralysis, crisis is always an opportunity to produce reforms, encourage further integration (especially on security) and reinforce European values. Tackling the severe effects of this polarised situation demands a strong engagement of our societies at a national and European level. The previous graphic showed the key elements of the impacts of the current European social and political climate. Our focus should be put over (we should focus on) these subjects (polarisation, hate, radicalisation and violent extremism and terrorism) from a holistic point of view (Cohen and Blanco 2016), facing all of them at the same time and involving a broad set of stakeholders (law enforcement agencies, intelligence agencies, university, think tanks, private security, private sector, NGOs, communities and minorities or citizens). There is a need to improve the knowledge about these phenomena in order to support the decision-making process . There currently exists a lot of knowledge, but it is absolutely fragmented which limits the capacity to understand the “big picture” (Cohen and Blanco 2016). Usually, after a terrorist attack, governments and international institutions adopt new measures. Sometimes these new measures can act as a facilitator to new radicalisation processes, because of the focus put over concrete communities, the exceptional measures that allow the detention of persons without a judicial control, the technologies used to spy on citizens as if all of them were criminals. To avoid this situation there is an urgent need to improve the decision-making process with evaluation systems based on evidence-based policing (Cohen and Blanco 2015).

Fig. 2.2
figure 2

Measures against polarisation in Europe

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2.5 Conclusions

The European Union is in a crucial crossroad, facing its future, with the need of a strategic vision, exerted from a strong leadership, establishing clearly its role in the world. “Brexit” is a situation that will have great effects and will need to be managed with strength and intelligence. Europe also faces its past: how to maintain their own values, defending, as it has done during the last decades, democracy, freedom and individual rights and the Schengen system. Europe should build trust with citizens to generate engagement and continue believing that the European Union is a success story. With these objectives Europe must strengthen its unity, advance in a common security and defence system, improve its intelligence processes and intelligence sharing and be firm in their values. These are difficult goals to achieve if cession of national powers does not occur for the sake of a common interest. It has been shown that weakness in any point of the Union, in a globalised environment and with total freedom of movements of people, goods and capitals, is a threat to the rest of its neighbours. Moreover security will remain politically used to polarise voters and to press in pursuit of specific policies based on the ideology of political parties, lobbies and other groups of interest. In this context, managing the refuge crisis, addressing the economic crisis, deepening the democratic structures and democratic principles and tackling hate speech result from different spheres (political, citizens through social media and general media), and hate crimes are configured as necessary steps in the fight against violent extremism and terrorism.