CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
| Author | Metodieva, Atanaska |
|---|---|
| Title | Foreign Fighter Recruitment as the Continuation of a War |
| Summary | Recruitment of foreign fighters has become essential to the study of Islamist terrorism, especially following the rise of the Islamic State (IS). There is a widely accepted assumption in the literature on European jihadists that the pathways into Islamist militancy are identical across different cases. In an attempt to find universal answers to what motivates recruitment, researchers often decontextualize the phenomenon of foreign fighters. Consequently, there is a gap left by previous studies on European jihadists that have not paid much attention to indigenous Muslim communities with recent experiences in conflict and with a high contribution of foreign fighters. The thesis focuses on post-war radical milieus in Europe to understand the specific context of foreign fighter recruitment. The research question that guides the dissertation is: “How do post-war radical milieus in Europe shape the recruitment of foreign fighters?” By stressing the significance of local influencers in the recruitment of Bosnian and Albanian foreign fighters, the dissertation investigates the evolution of post-war radical actors, their activities, and their contribution to radical socialization. |
| Supervisor | Sitter Nick |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/metodieva_atanaska.pdf |
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