Anti-Government Extremism in Australia: understanding the Australian Anti-Lockdown Freedom Movement as a Complex Anti-Government Social Movement

This article aims to explore the emergence and consolidation of various actors and sympathisers into the Australian ‘anti-lockdown’ freedom movement, a diverse, hybrid anti-government movement that emerged during the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a qualitative longitudinal...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Khalil, Lydia (Author) ; Roose, Joshua M. 1980- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Published: 2023
In: Perspectives on terrorism
Year: 2023, Volume: 17, Issue: 1, Pages: 144-169
Online Access: Volltext (kostenfrei)
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Keywords:
anti-government
Conspiracy
Extremism
Crises
Social movement
hybrid movements
Description
Summary:This article aims to explore the emergence and consolidation of various actors and sympathisers into the Australian ‘anti-lockdown’ freedom movement, a diverse, hybrid anti-government movement that emerged during the public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through a qualitative longitudinal analysis of data from the online posts of a prominent branch of the anti-lockdown freedom movement, we identify the movement’s core narratives, motivations, and forms of action, revealing how this social movement developed into a complex form of anti-government extremist movement that combines and conflates anti-institutional, anti-elite sentiments, and anti-government attitudes and beliefs through conspiratorial narratives. Drawing upon interrelated strands of social movement theory and the broader body of research on conspiracy theories and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on radicalisation to extremism, we offer a conceptual framework to understand the movement’s emergence, consolidation, and development. This study furthers our understanding of how conspiracies and disinformation can be utilised and fed into anti-government extremism during times of crisis and emergency.
Item Description:Literaturverzeichnis: Seite 166-169
ISSN:2334-3745